What’s New in QuickOPC-Classic 5.11

Previous: What’s New in QuickOPC.NET 5.10, What’s new in QuickOPC-COM 5.10

Key changes: Simplified Product Packaging

Packaging

• QuickOPC.NET and QuickOPC-COM setup have been merged into a single installation program, QuickOPC-Classic. The licensing has not been affected.
• All items from Bonus Pack installations have become optional parts of the core installation. When any of the “express” install options is selected, the Bonus Pack items are always included.

• .NET: All functionality from the EasyOpcCommonNet assembly has been moved into EasyOpcClassicNet assembly, and the EasyOpcCommonNet assembly has been removed. This means that referencing a single assembly, EasyOpcClassicNet, will suffice in many or most applications.
• Separate sets of assemblies for .NET Framework 4.0 (x86, x64) have been removed. Applications targeting .NET Framework 4.0 can reference the same assemblies as for earlier .NET Framework versions. Note that for this to work from .NET Framework 4, it is necessary to make a change to the application configuration file – please refer to “Quick Start” or “Concepts” document for details.
• Minimum platform requirements unified to .NET Framework 3.0.

Technology

• QuickOPC-COM is now officially supported on 64-bit operating systems (the components are 32-bit code still). Note that this is different from QuickOPC.NET which offers native 64-bit support.

OPC Interoperability

• Added error code/message definitions for all “classic” OPC specifications. Besides OPC Data Access and OPC Alarms and Events, error codes are now also translated for OPC Batch, OPC Command Execution, OPC Data Exchange, OPC Historical Data Access, and OPC Security (the extra definitions are useful when connecting to an aggregating server).

Documentation

• Documents for QuickOPC.NET and QuickOPC-COM have been merged into one, with icons differentiating parts that are specific to either technology.
• Documents in RTF (Rich Text Format) have been replaced by their equivalents in PDF format (Adobe Reader is required).

Examples

• Microsoft Visual Studio examples are now provided for Visual Studio 2008. They can all be automatically converted to Visual Studio 2010.
• With minor exceptions, all examples that existed in C# have been made in Visual Basic, and vice versa.

Installation

• The setup program now offers “Express install for .NET development”, “Express install for COM development”, or “Custom install” at the beginning of the wizard.
• The setup program checks for presence of Acrobat Reader (or any PDF Viewer), and warns if it is not present.
• Physical file layout has been rearranged.
• All 3rd-party redistributables that the developer may need are now installed into the “Redist” folder.
• Icons in Start menu have been rearranged.
• Added icon leading to Online Support.