List & Label Reporting Blog

New Service Pack 26.009 for List & Label and the Report Server

New Service Pack 26.009 for List & Label and the Report Server

ByDaniel KennerDec 20, 20224 min read
In this summary you will find the most important new features and improvements in Service Pack 26.009. A detailed list of all changes can be found in the ServicePack.pdf in your installation as well as in the Service Pack download section.
Three Often Overlooked Features

Three Often Overlooked Features

ByJochen BartlauDec 2, 20143 min read
We always try to implement new features as visible as possible. However, sometimes features are less discoverable or self explaining than we'd hope for – we're steadily working on that. Here are three very useful features you might have overlooked so far.
New and Extended Designer Objects

New and Extended Designer Objects

ByJochen BartlauNov 5, 20142 min read
In version 20 you see the debut of a brand new Designer object: the checkbox. This object is used to indicate if a boolean value (a condition) is met or not. Think of visualizing the availability of a product, the selected menu in a hotel etc. And the OLE object just got a major overhaul.
How We Release A New Version

How We Release A New Version

ByJochen BartlauOct 15, 20144 min read
List & Label 20 is quickly hitting the final milestones. I've been blogging about the new features since spring. This time, however, I'd like to share some insights into what happens as we shift near RTM.
HTML5 Viewer – A Giant Leap for Web Developers

HTML5 Viewer – A Giant Leap for Web Developers

ByJochen BartlauSep 24, 20142 min read
In the last version we introduced a number of interactive features like report parameters, expandable regions, and dynamic sortings. Until version 20, using these in a web application was not possible as they result in a partial rerendering of the report or – for drilldown reports – trigger a brand new report. As the existing viewers didn't have a communication channel to a server control, this rerendering was impossible. 
Enter the new HTML5 viewer. This viewer is designed to work in almost any web browser. It is optimized for mobile devices and supports interactivity. It requires ASP.NET on the server side but can use any operating system on the client.
Great new Features for .NET Developers

Great new Features for .NET Developers

ByJochen BartlauSep 3, 20143 min read
The improvement of our support for .NET has been a major focus in our feature planning process since the initial .NET beta release in early 2001. As more and more IDE vendors adopt CLR support for their languages and join the .NET community, .NET has become ever more important. Thus, version 20 will feature a wide range of new .NET features that make List & Label even more versatile when using it with CLR languages.
barcode pre optimization

Four Steps We Took to Improve Our Barcode Printing Quality

ByJochen BartlauAug 4, 20143 min read

Through a cooperation with REA, a renown vendor of barcode verifiers, we were able to grade and improve our barcodes according to the usual ISO standards. Amongst other optimizations we completely changed the rendering algorithm to optionally match the bars exactly to the device pixels, eliminating all rounding effects this way. Typically, at least a grade of "B" is required by barcode consuments. This should now be easily achievable on typical hardware.

Office 2013 Style for the Ribbon UI

Office 2013 Style for the Ribbon UI

ByJochen BartlauJul 23, 20141 min read

The Ribbon interface has been adapted to Redmond's latest UI style. It now supports the Office 2013 flat icon style and thus blends nicely with modern applications. For those who really need it, we still ship the "old" interface in a sepatate resource file that can be used instead of the default.

Export to Excel, Word and XHTML from the Preview Window

Export to Excel, Word and XHTML from the Preview Window

ByJochen BartlauJul 2, 20141 min read
This has been a customer request that kept coming back over and over again – “please add the possibility to export to more formats from the preview window”. The typical workflow obviously is to check the result in the preview first. If all is well then an export to the final format is triggered. In List & Label 20 we now have added the possibility to export to the formats that were requested most – Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word and XHTML. These formats were added to the already existing PDF, Text and Image formats.
Supporting to Paste Formattings Between Objects

Supporting to Paste Formattings Between Objects

ByJochen BartlauJun 16, 20141 min read
From the perspective of an Office User, this was one of the major missing features in List & Label so far. In Microsoft Excel, for example, you often find yourself styling cells to resemble a headline. The workflow here is to just style one cell and then use the format painter tool for the other cells. This saves a remarkable amount of time. In List & Label, you could have used a multi selection of fields, however if you forgot (or – behold – didn't know) this feature, you'd find yourself repeating the same formatting steps again and again. And if you wanted to transfer the format of a whole object – e.g. a chart with all the fonts, colors, background settings etc. – there was no workaround to a huge lot of work. Enter the format painter tool…
Supporting Multiple Report Containers

Supporting Multiple Report Containers

ByJochen BartlauMay 23, 20142 min read
Since we introduced the report container in List & Label 11, the one remaining feature request that kept coming in was “could we have multiple report containers, please”. Many cases can be covered by using a multi-columnar layout for the report container as a workaround or combining distances between container elements and changes in alignment to get the visual impression of separated tables. But these workarounds are not very discoverable and they are just that – workarounds.
In version 20 we’ll introduce a brand new databinding mode for the .NET component which will replace the old one seamlessly. You won’t need to apply any code changes to profit from this new mode. However, under the hood things will be working quite different then.