What's New - OPC Data Client 2020.1 (5.57)

Internal version number: 5.57

Operating Systems: Removed Windows 7 (x86 or x64) with SP1 from the list of supported systems (however, released branded "OPC Data Client" still support this).
Operating Systems: Windows 10 (x86 or x64) versions 1607 and 1703 are no longer supported.
.NET Runtimes: Added support for .NET Core 2.1.13-2.1.14.
.NET Runtimes: Added support for .NET Core 3.0.0-3.0.2.
.NET Runtimes: Added support for .NET Core 3.1.0-3.1.1.

The OpcLabs.BaseLibVSDesign and OpcLabs.EasyOpcVSDesign assemblies are no longer needed and have been removed.
More parts of the product made available as separate, additional packages (the MQTT communication packages, and the OPC UA PubSub JSON mapping package).

Added support for MQTT transport protocol mapping in OPC UA PubSub. Multiple MQTT communication packages are available.
Added support for JSON message mapping in OPC UA PubSub (can be used with MQTT transport, besides UADP).
Added IEasyUASubscriber.SubscriptionResolved event, which allows the developer to inspect and/or modify the resolved dataset subscription descriptor before it is used by the component.

Added methods AsEnumerationData, AsOpaqueData, AsPrimitiveData, AsSequenceData, AsStructuredData to the _GenericData (COM) interface, and extension methods with the same names into a new GenericDataExtension class. These methods have been introduced primarily for languages like PHP that do not allow down-casting.
All Write and WriteValue extension methods on the IEasyUAClient (which previously returned void) now return a tuple with Clamped and CompletesAsynchronously result flags. This allows the developer to obtain the same information as with the methods that return UAWriteResult or UAWriteResult[].
All COM interfaces that "inherited" from IFormattable have been extended by a method ToString_3(string), which converts the value of the current object to its equivalent string representation using the specified format. The method has been added for languages like PHP that have problems with ToString_2(string,IFormatProvider).

License Manager: Improved error messages given when reading the license from file fails.
License Manager: Added version number to the main window caption.

OpcCmd Utility: It is now possible to specify command-line arguments using a response file ('@' syntax).

A public MQTT server (broker), with data fed by UADemoPublisher (using UADP message mapping), made available on opcua-pubsub.demo-this.com (port 1883), for use in demos and user evaluation. Topic names are
- opcuademo/uadp/none
- opcuademo/json

Note: only for subscriptions - you cannot publish to it yourself.

UADemoPublisher: It is now possible to specify command-line arguments using a response file ('@' syntax).

Added many examples in VB.NET, especially for PubSub.
Added many examples in Object Pascal (Delphi), especially for PubSub.
Added larger example in Object Pascal (Delphi): EasyOpcUADemo. Shows how to make a desktop windowed OPC UA client application, mimicking the example that is available in C# and VB.NET.
Added large number of examples in PHP.
Added several examples in VB6, including PubSub.
Added specialized Object Pascal (Delphi) examples showing how to subscribe to, or repeatedly read many variables from Softing OPC UA .NET Demo Server.
Added VBScript example with unsolicited user interaction.
Consistently show proper error handling practices in PHP and VB6 examples.

Added many examples that were installed only on the disk to the documentation.
Included parts of conceptual text right into the corresponding reference documentation.

Key changes: - MQTT transport in PubSub - JSON mapping in PubSub