List & Label 12

asp:review

List & Label 12

A Complete Reporting Solution

By Anand Narayanaswamy

If you asked me to name one factor that is totallyunavoidable in the development of a .NET application, I would undoubtedly answer reporting. Reporting has become part and parcel of both Windows and Web-basedapplications. It is commonly implemented with database-oriented applications,where administrators need to extract user-specific information daily, weekly,or monthly.

Even though Visual Studio 2005 includes a separate toolfor generating reports (Crystal Reports), developers were looking for a toolwith advanced functionalities that not only can provide more features, but alsosimplify the coding work. List & Label 12 from Combit is an advanced pieceof software with which developers can equip their applications with reports,forms, lists, diagrams, labels, serial mails, export functionalities, and mailmerges all with just a few lines of code.

I installed the product on a system with 512 MB of RAM.The whole installation process took less than two minutes to complete. Accompanyingthe CD package, the vendor provides the required serial number, product key,and companion documents. With the help of the product, you can add classicprinting options, intelligent preview, and comprehensive export functions. Byintegrating List & Label 12, you can provide your end users with theability to create custom printing projects or to add to existing ones, whichwill add considerable value to your application. You can seamlessly integratethe product in Visual Studio 2005 and tweak its functionalities using theProperties window. The designer in List & Label 12 includes many newfeatures compared to the previous versions of the product (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: The List & Label designerin action.

An interesting feature of the designer is that it includesa Report container, which allows any sequence of tables, charts, and crosstabs(see Figure 2). I found that the vendor has developed the designer as per theguidelines set by Microsoft for the development of Graphical User Interface(GUI) applications. The product comes with built-in support for digitalsignatures, which I am sure provide added security to your .NET applications.Some of the other unique features of the product include fixed barcode linewidth, new icon styles, an improved user interface, HTML export, revamped labelformats, and the implementation of color gradients. You can redistribute thedesigner to your end users without any restrictions, and it is available in 15languages (this feature is available only in the Professional Edition).

Figure 2: Crosstab in action.

You can develop flexible reporting solutions with the helpof a database independence feature included with the product. This means thatit is not necessary for your data to be in a database. It can be stored even inXML files, which will definitely speed up the time required for generatingreports. The product consists of different DLLs and can be easily distributedwith your application. For instance, if you are implementing the product usingVisual Studio 2005, you should distribute the listlabel12VS2005.dll file foundinside the Program FilescombitLL12Redistributable Files directory of theinstalled drive.

One of the unique features of the product is that yourcustomer need not have to install any special database drivers on their systemfor using the reports developed with the product. I found that applicationsdeveloped using the product ran comparatively fast because the database driver didnot have to load twice for loading reports generated with the product.Moreover, all the pages are directly passed to the Windows spooling system;hence, the consumption of system resources during printing is small. Anotherinteresting feature of the product is that you need only one common projectfile, even if you use different databases such as Sybase, SQL Server, Access,or Oracle. You can make use of various List & Label Language Kits, whichallows you to modify the complete user interface to other languages, evenduring the execution of the project. This is a nice attempt by the vendor tolocalize projects.

It was very easy to work with the product; I only neededto finish three simple steps to implement the required functionalities in a.NET application. In addition, the product ships with over 2,000 labeltemplates of well known producers. You can also individually define thestarting label on the sheet, printing sequence, and direction during printing.An important feature of the product is that it ships with a new barcode typecalled Serial Shipping Container Code (SSCC), which is becoming more popular inthe logistics industry. The product supports a range of developmentenvironments (view a list at http://en.combit.net/reporting_tool/page1170.aspx).Moreover, you can integrate other environments depending upon yourrequirements.

One minor issue happened when I failed to properly installWeb Reporting Samples because the second part of the installation wizarddisplayed the steps in the German language, even though I had selected Englishas the language when I started the process (I also found that certain items onthe designer have been spelled in German instead of English). If leftunresolved, this certainly will cause confusion among users. However, thevendor resolved the issue by implementing corrective measures immediately afterI informed them about the problem. I m impressed by the quick support providedby Combit; they even run a Web-based newsgroup at http://en.combit.net/page1075.aspx,which allows customers to directly interact with the development team, as well asstay informed about problems faced by other customers.

One of the significant improvements in version 12 of theproduct is that HTML export now uses CSS tags for table frames. Although exportusing Excel is now capable of making one worksheet per page, Text data exportcan now produce Unicode files. Moreover, digital signature support is nowavailable for Multi Tiff, PDF, and Text files. Even if you add or remove afield from the database, you don t have to recreate the report. You can alsosave reports with real data as PDF files, which enables you to supply reportsin files to external organizations instead of hard copies. You can download fromhttp://en.combit.net/page1124.aspxa complete list of all the features included with the product, as well as othersupporting documents.

The product ships with comprehensive documentation in theform of quick starts, PDF reference manuals, and more than 100 sampleapplications for various programming languages, ranging from COBOL to .NET,which can be accessed from the Start menu. The product also ships with manysample applications that are new to version 12. From my point of view, thevendor should provide the required documentation as a single file in HTML Helpformat rather than distributing several pieces of PDF files. I would alsosuggest they provide the documentation in hard copy format along with the CDpackage. The vendor should also prepare a handy step-by-step guide for gettingstarted with the product, as beginners will sometimes find it difficult tofollow the steps outlined in the current documentation.

Those minor drawbacks aside, List & Label 12 is acomplete reporting solution that can be employed while developing advanced .NETapplications to produce robust and powerful products for your end users.

Anand Narayanaswamy,a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP), works as an independentconsultant and runs NetAns Technologies (http://www.netans.com),which provides Web hosting services based in Trivandrum, India. Anand also worksas a technical editor lead for http://ASPAlliance.com.He runs http://www.Learnxpress.com, http://Dotnetalbum.com, and http://Csharpfaq.com. Anand is the author of CommunityServer Quickly (Packt Publishing). Find out more about him at http://www.visualanand.net or e-mail himat mailto:[email protected].

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Web Site: http://www.en.combit.net

Price: StandardEdition, US$582.33; Professional Edition, US$962.94