What's new in OPC Studio 2024.2

See also: Versions; Previous version: What's new in OPC Studio 2024.1

Internal version number: 5.81

Key changes:

Targeting

• .NET 7 is no longer supported (Microsoft end of support May 14, 2024), but will likely work. .NET 6 and and .NET 8 continue to be supported.

Technology

• OPC UA Client-Server parts are now based on OPC Foundation UA-.NETStandard 1.5.373.121.

Installation and Uninstallation

• The Setup wizard for QuickOPC now offers a choice of "express installation" for Python development. When selected, only the setup components relevant for Python developers are installed.

Component Improvements

OPC UA

• Added static method UANodeId.FromUABuiltInType, and an implicit conversion operator, for conversion from UABuiltInType to a UANodeId representing the datatype Id for the built-in type.
• Added method UANodeId.ToUABuiltInType, and an explicit conversion operator, for conversion from UANodeId representing the data type Id to UABuiltInType that corresponds to the data type.

OPC UA PubSub

• The "tls" scheme can now be used in resource addresses, and is equivalent to "mqtts" or "ssl".

Component Refactorings

• Renamed properties in NotifyingWidget: QueueCallbacks to QueueNotifications, CallbackQueueCapacity to NotificationQueueCapacity, and CallbackQueueIdleTimeToSleep to NotificationQueueIdleTimeToSleep.

OPC UA

• Renamed classes (generally by adding the word "Client", in order to achieve the necessary distinction from classes used in server development); corresponding COM interfaces have been renamed in the same way:
  • EasyUAAdaptableParameters to EasyUAClientAdaptableParameters.
  • EasyUAEngineParameters to EasyUAClientEngineParameters.
  • EasyUAInstanceParameters to EasyUAClientInstanceParameters.
  • EasyUASharedParameters to EasyUAClientSharedParameters.
  • UAEnhancedSessionParameters to UAEnhancedClientSessionParameters.
  • UASmartEngineParameters to UASmartClientEngineParameters.
  • UASmartSessionParameters to UASmartClientSessionParameters.

User Interface

Windows Forms Dialogs

• Added LooseReferenceTypes property to the UADataDialog class. Setting it to true causes the dialog to browse following very wide set of reference types, in order to cope with non-compliant servers.

Tools and Online Services

OpcCmd Utility

OPC UA Client-Server

• The uaClient collectSoftwareInfo command now also collects the new server capabilities introduced in OPC UA 1.05 (such as MaxSessions, MaxSubscriptions, etc.).

Examples

Platform: .NET

• Wherever feasible, converted the C# and VB.NET example projects for Console and Windows Forms to the "SDK" (multi-target) format, allowing them to be built for and run on either .NET Framework 4.7.2+, or .NET 6+.

OPC UA Client-Server

• Added C# example showing how to read the build information of the server.
• Added C# example showing how to remove the own application certificate.

Documentation and Help

• Significantly improved the reference documentation.