List & Label Reporting Blog

A frequently asked question was: “Why can’t I see the relations in the report designer?” This question refers to the variable/field window, in which 1:1 relationships were displayed, but not (the usually much more important) 1:n relationships. In short, our answer was always: “The relations are there, but only in the object window, e.g. when creating tables”. We even put the long answer in a Knowledgebase article.

As with any release, there are way too many new features in version 28 to cover them all in separate blog posts. So here’s a quick summary of some rather hidden gems that still deserve some attention.

List & Label already has a wide range of functionality to control the page flow as needed. Each object has a “Pagebreak Before” property, just like the elements in a report container. Tables have an additional page break condition that is evaluated for each line. However, one feature was missing: forcing a page break within a text. This was changed in version 28.

Further improving our export formats is one of the focus areas for List & Label 28. Introducing fixed headers for the XHTML export fits nicely into this strategy. This feature, also known as frozen headers, has been requested by some of your peers.

Report parameters have gained great popularity since their introduction. They offer a flexible and easy way to create dynamic reports. In particular, the ability to create data-bound parameters has been well received. However, in combination with larger databases, there were some limitations that we finally eliminated now in version 28.

The new service pack 28.003 for List & Label extends your reporting with support for Embarcadero RAD Studio 11.3 and new chart types in the Web Report Designer. In addition, the corresponding Enterprise NuGet packages are now available for all .NET assemblies for a smooth integration into your projects. For a detailed list of all changes, see the servicepack.pdf in your installation or in the service pack download section.

Azure Cosmos DB is a fully managed Microsoft NoSQL database for modern app development, which is growing in popularity. Various APIs are available for connecting to Cosmos DB, as for example SQL API, Cassandra API or MongoDB API. Since we’re already able to connect to MongoDB or Cassandra through their own data providers, we’ll use the SQL API for the provider.

Microsoft is putting more and more obstacles in its Office 365 package, making it difficult to send SMTP emails “just like that” with basic authentication (see e.g. here) and with MAPI/XMAPI in the cloud anyway. But on-premise also brings new challenges (have you ever dealt with our Cross-Bitness-Proxy for x86 applications and x64 Office? 🙂 ). So it was about time to offer a new, up-to-date solution for the very frequently used email delivery.

In this summary you will find the most important new features and improvements of service pack 27.005, including support for Windows 11 22H2 and Windows 10 22H2 as well as support for Embarcadero RAD Studio 11.2.

Customer satisfaction is a crucial factor in List & Label’s success. That’s why we invited you back in January to participate in our List & Label survey. We value your feedback on both the product itself and our services. And, of course, we were anxious to receive your input regarding improvements and what you would like to see in the future.