Web Report Viewer for Preview in Web Applications

web report viewer desktop

Up until version 27, you were able to use the HTML5 Viewer in your own .NET web applications in order to display a report preview directly in the browser. Interactive user actions such as drill down, filtering data using report parameters and much more were already possible. But the technology that was utilized for this is getting older now, as for example the jQuery framework. With the new Web Report Viewer, we have created a modern, highly compatible replacement, which has been available since version 27 (year 2021).

Deploy Report Server on an Azure Container Instance and using it from an Azure Function

Report Server Azure Container

As we keep getting requests to support calling List & Label from an Azure Function, and – due to several restrictions like e.g. GDI sandboxing – List & Label can’t be used directly in this context, I thought it might be interesting to explore another way to the cloud, this time using the Report Server. Using its REST-API, you can even create reports from an Azure Function. But let’s walk through the process step by step.

Porting to .NET Core: Report Server on New Technology Basis

report server ansichten endgeräte

The Report Server saw the light of day in 2014. At that time, version 1.0 was implemented using the ASP.NET MVC framework and was based on List & Label 19. But as the number of users increased in subsequent versions, so did the requirements and ideas for new features. Some of the customer requests were difficult to realize with the underlying technology. Many developers have certainly been faced with the same question: What should we do next?

 

Should You Migrate from .NET Framework? – List & Label with .NET Core 3.1 Support

.net core 3.1

In May 2019, Microsoft announced that it will no longer develop the existing .NET Framework. So the current version 4.8 will be the last release. From now on, the company will concentrate on the further development of .NET Core. For developers, the question arises: Is the release of .NET Core 3.1 a good time to migrate from the .NET Framework? The good news is that you don't have to do without List & Label when migrating. 

Full Support for .NET Core 3.0

.net core 3.0

.NET Standard and .NET Core have been around for a while now. We jumped the bandwagon early and offered beta support since LL23 while officially supporting the new framework since List & Label 24. With the advent of .NET Core 3.0, Microsoft announced that the .NET 4.x releases will be the last of their kind and .NET Core 3.0 – which will later simply be called .NET and will be named ".NET 5" in its next release – is the place to go. We're already there.

Customer Wishes Implemented in the Ad-hoc Designer

Since version 3 of the Report Server, you can create reports quickly and easily with the Ad-hoc Designer. Since List & Label 23, this feature is also available for .NET developers for integration into their applications. Today I would like to show briefly which customer requests we were able to implement in combit List & Label 24 and Report Server 24 in the Ad-hoc Designer.