Development of our new Web API is going quite fast. Therefore, it is important to keep SKGL Extension up-to-date so that you can take an advantage of all new features! Today, I want to mention some of the changes that were added to SKGL Extension since 2.0.4.

Changes

• Get Activated Machines is a new method in the Web API (see here) that allows you to get all the activated devices (machine code, IP and Time) for any given key. Note, you need to explicitly enable it as well as use your privateKey for each request. This method has the same authentication level as key generation. An example is shown below:

   [TestMethod]
   public void GetActivatedMachinesTest()
   {
       var productVal = SKGL.SKM.LoadProductVariablesFromString("{\"uid\":\"2\",\"pid\":\"3\",\"hsum\":\"751963\"}");
  
       Assert.IsNull(SKGL.SKM.GetActivatedMachines(productVal, "dawdwadwa", "MJAWL-ITPVZ-LKGAN-DLJDN"));
       var devices = SKGL.SKM.GetActivatedMachines(productVal, "8dOtQ44PdMLPLNzelOtPqVGdrQEVs36Z7aDQEKzJvt8pGYvtPx", "MJAWL-ITPVZ-LKGAN-DLJDN");
   }

  As you can see, in contrast to the classical operations such as validation and activation, pid, uid and hsum are passed in as a JSON array. I hope that all methods will work that way as soon as possible, because it is very easy to simply copy and paste from here and click on “Get C# friendly version”.

• Load and Save Key Information to File will from now on take care of all error handling. This means that you need not to surround these method calls with a try-catch-finally. It’s great because you don’t need to worry if the stream is open during an exception.

I am happy to tell all users of SKGL Extension that there is a new version available (since the update in late January). In this post, I would like to mention some changes made to the API, a short usage tip, and then let you know how it is going to change in future.

Changes

• Ability to sign pid, uid, activation date: Based on user feedback, the Web API now allows pid, uid and hsum to be added into the signature. This is particularly important for users that protect more than one product. Before, it was possible to use the same KeyInformation file (serialized by SaveKeyInformationToFile) to unlock other products (that used the same Public Key, i.e. by the same software vendor). For some, it worked out by specifying this information in the Notes field. This change makes it more simple. The activation date is intended for offline key validation; it’s a way to keep track the date of the last activation in order to force the user to activate the software periodically.
• Deactivation: There is a new method that allows you to deactivate a license key. (method info, web api)
• Optional Field: Finally you can access the optional field using .NET.  It’s a new type of method that takes in a ProductVariables object instead of separate strings for pid, uid, hsum, etc. Read more below Future ideas  (more info).
• Machine code fix: The getEightDigitsLongHash was modified to fix a bug that generated nine digits instead of eight. Read more here.
• Proxy: Get Parameters method allows you to specify the proxy settings.
• Load Product Variables: A new method, LoadProductVariablesFromString allows you to load a serialized version of the ProductVariables object. Read more below Future ideas.

Usage tip

Some users have encountered problems when validating/activating keys because of a wrong code snippet (NullReferenceException). Basically, you should not check the .IsValid field as way to deduce whether the key is valid or invalid. Instead, check if the KeyInformation object is null.

SKGL.KeyInformation keyInfo = new SKGL.KeyInformation();
string machineID = SKGL.SKM.getMachineCode(SKGL.SKM.getSHA1);
keyInfo = SKGL.SKM.KeyActivation("pid", "uid", "hsum", "serialkey", "machine code");
 
if (keyInfo != null)
{
    //valid key
}
else
{
    //invalid key
}

Future ideas

As new functionality is added to the Web API,  more parameters have to be added to each method. In the long run, this is bad because it can be quite repetitive/confusing to add all the parameters all over again. My plan on how this can be resolved is by adding specialized classes, such as ProductVariables to facilitate reuse of existing variables in other methods. The goal is to make it as easy as possible to use SKGL Extension.