SocketWrench/VB Custom Control Version 1.1 Welcome Please read this document carefully; it contains information about installing and using the SocketWrench/VB Windows Sockets custom control. Before you install the control, please be sure that your system has the following products installed (the version number indicates the earliest release that is supported; a later release may also be used): Microsoft Windows 3.1 or Windows for Workgroups 3.11 Visual Basic 3.0 Windows Sockets 1.1 Library If you have any questions about which version of the above products are installed, check the software documentation or contact your network or systems administrator. Catalyst Software SocketWrench/VB is part of a package developed by Catalyst Software called SocketTools. In addition to the comprehensive, but fairly low-level, access that SocketWrench/VB provides, the package includes custom controls for many of the popular TCP/IP and Internet application protocols. SocketTools includes components such as DNS, FTP, TELNET, SMTP, POP3, NNTP, PING, RLIB, HTTP and HTML. SocketTools will include all custom controls in the form of a VBX, 16-bit OCX and 32-bit OCX for use with Visual Basic 3.0, Visual Basic 4.0 (16-bit edition) and Visual Basic 4.0 (32-bit edition). Each custom control hosts a large number of properties and events that, when using defaults, provide simplicity and efficiency, and yet, offers great flexibility and power. This important component of a useful developer's tool is evidenced in SocketWrench/VB and is carried over into the SocketTools suite. The most exciting component in SocketTools is our World Wide Web browser custom control. The control offers the best of both worlds: a powerful browser with complete rendering capabilities that can be easily customized to meet the needs of your application. Although the Web control offers many options in the form of properties, methods and events, you can create your own custom browser by simply selecting the control, creating a text and button control and setting the resource property. And when integrated with our other controls, you can build a fully-featured, Internet-enabled application in just minutes! More details regarding SocketTools is outlined in the file CSTOOLS.TXT (or CSTOOLS.WRI for you WRITE fans) included with this product. Catalyst Software is committed to providing the tools and component software that help developers meet the increasingly complex needs of their customers. Please read on to obtain information about a special offer when you register SocketWrench/VB. For more information, please contact our business and sales office listed below. Free Distribution SocketWrench/VB is freely re-distributable software. You may use the control in your own applications and redistribute the package as needed. However, SocketWrench/VB has not been placed in the public domain. Catalyst Software retains the copyright and may, without prior notice, release subsequent versions of SocketWrench/VB that are not freely re-distributable. As a developer, you may include the control in your applications as per the license agreement included with this software distribution. If you have found SocketWrench/VB to be useful, please consider registering the software by completing the form in the register.txt file. Please include your full name, address, daytime voice and fax number, and your email address if available. There is no charge or obligation when registering SocketWrench/VB, and you will receive a $50.00 discount towards the purchase of SocketTools. To reach Catalyst Software Business and Sales office, contact us at: Catalyst Software 56925 Yucca Trail Suite 254 Yucca Valley, California 92284 Phone: (619) 228-9653 Fax: (619) 369-1185 Email: sales@catsoft.com To reach Catalyst Software Technical Support office, contact us at: Catalyst Software 638 Lindero Canyon Road Suite 107 Oak Park, California 91301 Phone: (818) 879-1144 Fax: (818) 879-1211 Email: support@catsoft.com You can receive all of the up-to-the-minute information about Catalyst Software and our products by visiting our Web site at: http://www.earthlink.net/~catalyst/ Documentation The documentation for this control is provided both as a Windows help file and as a Microsoft Word 6.0 document. Although the document is copyrighted, it may be freely copied and redistributed throughout your organization as needed. Installation To install SocketWrench/VB, run the installation utility that is included with the package. If the package was downloaded from a bulletin board system, it will be necessary to extract the files from an archive. To install the software, select File..Run from the Program Manager menu. A dialog box will prompt you for the name of the program to execute. If you are installing from a diskette, enter a:\setup. Otherwise, specify the complete path where the setup utility is located. When the installation begins, you will be prompted to enter the name of a directory where documents and sample programs can be installed. If the directory does not exist, you can choose to have the setup utility create it for you. This distribution contains the following files: cswsock.vbx SocketWrench/VB custom control cswsock.hlp Help file for the custom control cswsock.bas Visual Basic module to include in projects cswsock.doc SocketWrench/VB control documentation (Word 6.0 format) tcpintro.doc Introduction to programming with SocketWrench/VB compat.wri Control compatibility notes license.wri Software license agreement generic.* Visual Basic project for a sample application tcpecho.* Visual Basic project for a TCP test utility udpecho.* Visual Basic project for a UDP test utility tinyftp.* Visual Basic project for a simple FTP client telnet.* Visual Basic project for a Telnet client The SocketWrench/VB control and help file will be copied to the \WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory along with the other Visual Basic controls. After all of the files have been installed, you will be prompted if you wish to create a program group for the help and documentation files. Once the installation is completed, you can add the control to your project from within Visual Basic by selecting File..Add File from the menu. Select the cswsock.vbx file from the file list, and you should see the control added to your toolbox. It is suggested that you also include the cswsock.bas module in your project as well. It defines global constants that are commonly used when programming the control. Windows Sockets Loopback Library For those systems that are not connected to a network, or do not have a Windows Sockets library, a stub "loopback" library has been included with this distribution of SocketWrench/VB. This library allows SocketWrench/VB to function as though a network connection exists, which in turn allows you to develop applications with SocketWrench/VB. This library should only be installed and configured by someone who is familiar with TCP/IP. It should never be installed on a system which already has another TCP/IP protocol stack installed. If no Windows Sockets library is found on your system when SocketWrench/VB is installed, you are given the option to install the loopback library. If you do install the library, it will be copied to the installation directory as WINSOCK.DLL. In order for the SocketWrench/VB control to find the library, you must either include the installation directory in your PATH environment variable, or copy it to the \WINDOWS directory. If you do copy the library to the \WINDOWS directory, you must also copy the WINSOCK.INI file there as well. This file contains configuration data used by the library, and has two sections which look something like this: [Host] Address=192.0.0.1 Name=myhost Domain=mydomain.com [Files] Hosts=c:\catalyst\winsock\hosts Protocols=c:\catalyst\winsock\protocol Services=c:\catalyst\winsock\services The first section, "Host", describes the local system. The "Address" item specifies the IP address that is to be associated with the local host, "Name" specifies the name of the host, and "Domain" specifies the host's domain. The second section, "Files", specifies the location of the text databases which are used by the loopback library. If the values are incorrect (such as if they specify non-existant files), the function calls associated with the item will fail. This means that if, for example, the protocol file does not exist, any function which attempts to resolve a protocol name will fail with an error. Reporting Problems If you encounter a problem, either with the control itself, or with the documentation, please document the error and send an e-mail message to either of these addresses: CompuServe: 72202,1427 Internet: support@catsoft.com Please be as specific as you can about the problem that you're experiencing. When reporting the problem, please be sure to include the following information in your message: Operating system and version Physical connection (Ethernet, dialup SLIP/PPP, etc.) TCP/IP vendor and version information Known problems with a specific vendor's Windows Sockets implementation can be found in the Compatibility Notes document distributed with this product. Copyright 1995, Catalyst Software. All rights reserved. SocketWrench/VB is a trademark of Catalyst Software. Windows and Visual Basic is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation