m3i was designed so that a range of different clients could connect to the systems, and that means clients written in almost any language too.  We have just completed implementation of a .NET client library that opens up development against m3i to any .NET language with the minimum of fuss.

As m3i works over HTTP (or HTTPS) then it is possible to roll your own client using your language of choice.  Although not hugely complex, this requires time to achieve and therefore to enable .NET developers to get started straight away we have completed a .NET client that means a simple application can be developed against m3i using just a few lines of code.

The interface to the client is designed to be simple and easy to get to grips with.  As such there are just a couple of key classes that are used to start interacting with an m3i server:

• m3iClient - the main class that is used to connect to, control and monitor an m3i enabled server
• m3iConfiguration - used to configure an m3iClient

To get up and running with a simple client all that is needed is the following:

public void CreateClient()
{
  m3iConfiguration config = new m3iConfiguration();
  config.Address = "192.168.1.45";
  m3iClient client = new m3iClient();
  client.RegisterEventHandlers(
    new m3iServerEventDelegate(HandleServerEvent),
    new m3iClientEventDelegate(HandleClientEvent));
  client.Configure(config);
  client.Initialise();
}

and thats pretty much it...

When connected then information is notified to the client through a delegate to handle server events, these server events correspond to 'things' happening on the server that you are connected to which are then notified to connected clients.  Client events, such as disconnects or notifications about the success of a command that may be executed on a server are reported through the other delegate.

If complexity is needed, then it is also available through the client.  There are a large range of configuration options, including HTTP proxies, the mode in which to connect to the server, whether to maintain the connection, retry attempts, timeouts, all the sorts of things you would expect in a network client.  We have also added support for clients to act as trusted clients, which is something we are working on in miRicoh which enables clients to provide secure authentication to a server, something that may be required to prevent sensitive commands being executed - but, more of that to come in the future...