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Congratulations on choosing PLUSManaged!

This manual was last updated on Wednesday, December 07, 2011.

PLUSManaged is a fully managed .NET class library for implementing licensing and activation into .NET applications.

Advantages to using PLUSManaged

• This library uses an XML License File format, which allows for extensibility.
• The XML License File is digitally signed using the RSA algorithm to offer verification of the integrity and authenticity of the license issued.
• The XML License File can also be encrypted to keep licensing data private.
• The PLUSManaged Library was designed to allow the XML License File to be stored in any location required by your application. You can store it on the file system, in a database, or wherever it best suits your needs.
• Web service calls to SOLO Server are implemented in the library for facilitating implementation of online activation and licensing tasks. Every web service called by this library uses XML for all communication, which gives it the same extensibility as the License File, and the same security through digital signatures and encryption.
• Classes and methods for assisting with implementation of custom web services if they are needed for your implementation, making it easy to achieve the same level of flexibility and security with custom web services.
• The built-in License class of the PLUSManaged library has an extensive set of properties to make it easy for your application to access decrypted license data.
• A robust, extensible "System Identifier" algorithm system is in place, allowing you to implement your own algorithms for uniquely identifying a system which is to be licensed, and allowing you the ability to easily implement your own, customized checking if desired.

Before You Begin

Although the design of the PLUSManaged API is relatively simple, it does require at least a basic understanding of Object Oriented Programming to use it. Minimally, inheritance must be understood to interpret the contents of this document and to understand how to properly create a simple implementation of this library in your application. For extending upon this library's more advanced features (i.e. implementing your own System Identifier Algorithm), however, a very good understanding of Object Oriented Programming is required (i.e. you need a strong understanding of inheritance and polymorphism). Additionally, it helps to have a basic understanding of XML, and the Generics in .NET.

This manual provides high-level instruction on getting started with and using the PLUSManaged API. It is supplemented by the PLUSManaged API Reference.  Please read more about the additional references available.

Once you are comfortable with the points above, the Getting Started topic will provide you with some high-level guidance on understanding and using PLUSManaged.

System Requirements

PLUSManaged requires the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or higher to operate, and consequently, the PLUSManaged library shares the system requirements with the version of the Microsoft .NET Framework with which it is used.

For development environments, Visual Studio 2005 or higher is required.

A screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels or larger is required. A higher screen resolution is necessary for text sizes larger than the default of 96 DPI.