July 2008

Version 8.07 of the Skype Software Product Certification Test Specification is now live. From now on, all new software certification requests will be tested against this version.

Compared to earlier specs, this version is much shorter (six pages against six multi-page documents). And even though the language is said to be a bit "lawyerish", this new edition should be easier to understand.

Perhaps the most important change is that we've removed priority 2 and priority 3 requirements -- everything that remained in the spec is now priority 1. Your application has got to meet all the requirements, or it will simply fail the test.

Discussion draft 1 of the upcoming version of software certification specs is now available on DevZone.

This revision is a complete rewrite of the specs. Instead of six separate documents the entire test specification now consists of just six pages. We've dropped scores of priority 2 and priority 3 requirements, so everything that remained should now be considered P1, meaning "mandatory".

We're also going to give your user documentation and promotional materials much more importance than before. Effectively, the new rule is that you have to keep your promises -- if your users can reasonably expect certain functionality to be present in your product and it isn't, then there's no way for the product to become Skype Certified.

Visit the DevZone to learn more about the proposed changes and to read the discussion draft.

A new tool that I created called the SEHE ("Skype4COM Event Handler Example") will make sure that won't happen.

Click The Picture or Here for More Information

Using the event handlers and the API processing capability provided by the Skype4COM library can shorten all your software development cycles while simultaneously exposing you to awesome interface abilities of the Skype API.

There now is a tool available that I created in Microsoft Visual C# 2008, using the FREE Express edition that contains the full project as well as source code that supports all event handlers provided by Skype4COM library 1.0.31.0.

Not only does the tool display event information which can be useful for testing, it also shows how to deal with the Skype for Windows client program authorization, can send API commands to the Skype client and offers many other solutions as well.

Even if you don't use C# this tool can show you methods that may shorten your development cycles by using it as is or modifying it to help you test and debug your application.

This tool can be removed via the Windows control panel Add/Remove programs option if needed.