List & Label Reporting Blog

InMemoryDataProviderWrapper: Data Provider on Steroids

InMemoryDataProviderWrapper: Data Provider on Steroids

ByJochen BartlauApr 15, 20242 min read
The features of different data providers vary widely. Depending on the data source, sorting, native aggregate functions or filters at database level may be available directly. Or not. For example, none of this is available in file-based formats such as JSON or XML, or even in “web” formats such as REST. These are typically read “front to back” and therefore cannot offer sorting or native aggregation. With List & Label 29, we have something new to offer.
Service Pack Continues Report Server Success Story

Service Pack Continues Report Server Success Story

ByAlexander HorakJul 6, 20162 min read
Service Pack 3.001 adds a host of new features to combit Report Server 3. Some improvements in our enterprise reporting solution were inspired by the productive feedback from our customers. Thanks for letting us know about your ideas! Here’s a short list of the latest features and improvements.
Data provider for Delphi

Building a Better Databinding Ecosystem for Delphi

ByJochen BartlauJun 30, 20162 min read

The IDataProvider interface for .NET has enabled many features that are not available for all of the other platforms so far. Most importantly, it brings multiple report containers and nested tables. For C++, we've included a sample in LL21. This is sadly missing in Delphi. In addition, the current Delphi data-binding engine still works against the BDE, a technology that has been deprecated quite a while ago by Embarcadero.

micropdf417 example

Support for MicroPDF417 and Codablock-F. Barcodes

ByJochen BartlauJun 22, 20161 min read
List & Label's barcode support is surely one of the best and most complete among the reporting tools on the market. We've been steadily working on further extending on that strength, and List & Label 22 will come with even more supported symbologies and barcode designer functions.
Keeping Groups Together in Report Outputs (.NET, C++)

Keeping Groups Together in Report Outputs (.NET, C++)

ByJochen BartlauJun 8, 20162 min read
Sorry for the gonzo title of this blog post – I just couldn't resist. I actually started working for combit in 1998 which is a full 18 years ago. And this is the feature I was asked for the most. No kidding. From the early days, way before we had the report container, people wanted this one thing – keep groups together. The reasoning is simple, if you have rather short groups but a huge number of them, you don't want page breaks within one group but rather get a page wrap before the group header and then the whole group on the next page. Totally simple, totally understandable, totally impossible so far.
Query Assistant and Filtering in Report Server 3

Query Assistant and Filtering in Report Server 3

ByAlexander HorakMay 25, 20162 min read
Our combit devblog is always in motion. This time, Alexander Horak, Head of Development combit Report Server, takes the opportunity to present one of the great features of our awarded self service reporting solution. In his post he puts the focus on a new way of data filtering, that has been introduced with the release of version 3 a few weeks ago. 
radar chart in list & label 22

Introducing Radar Charts as New Chart Type

ByJochen BartlauMay 11, 20161 min read
We'll introduce a brand new popular chart type that has been missing in List & Label until version 22: radar charts. Also known as "spider charts", "web charts" or "polar charts", they are a cool way to visualize ratios between different categories across multiple rows. It can answer questions like "which values are most similar, i.e. do we see clusters of values" and helps to find outliers at a glance.
Top-N and “Others” for Crosstabs

Top-N and “Others” for Crosstabs

ByJochen BartlauApr 27, 20162 min read
And while we're at it, let's disclose the last new feature for LL22's crosstab. You were able to design Top-N reports with the crosstab before. The way it works, you choose the required sorting for your group cells, e.g. the category name in the sample of the last post. You're then able to choose the sort order for the items (alphabetically, based on the result value, based on the displayed value).
Lightning-fast Ad-hoc Design with Report Server 3

Lightning-fast Ad-hoc Design with Report Server 3

ByAlexander HorakApr 20, 20162 min read
With combit Report Server 3, you now also have the ad-hoc Designer in addition to the design features from previous versions. Ad-hoc Design wizards enable you to create lists and diagrams (charts) quickly and easily. This combination equips the reliable and powerful Report Server with a quick and streamlined interface that is perfect for generating simple reports. The interface of the new wizards has also been optimized for devices that support touch-screen technology, which allows it to be easily operated on tablet devices as well.
automatic fill-up for crosstabs

Automatic Fill-Up for Crosstabs

ByJochen BartlauApr 13, 20161 min read
To continue the quest for the perfect crosstab, welcome to part three of this blog post series. After visiting multiple result cells and cross-column references, today let's look at another cool new feature in the LL22 crosstab – Auto-Fill. This comes in handy whenever there is few data. Think of a yearly statistic where you don't have results for each quarter. Printing something like Q1…Q2…Q4 looks awkward and unprofessional. In LL22 we have the solution to this.
cross-row and column References for crosstabs

Cross-Row and Column References for Crosstabs

ByJochen BartlauMar 30, 20162 min read
From the latest blog post you could already tell that the crosstab is one of our focus areas for version 22. Besides multiple result cells we decided to pay a visit to the crosstab functions as well. In version 21 these functions can already be used to reference the values of sum cells, column and row labels etc. By extending the functions slightly, striking new features become available.