List & Label 11 is the latest version of a program from German software developer combit Software GmbH. What makes this product so interesting is that it includes copious developer samples for numerous .NET platforms (C#, VB, and Delphi) as well as for VB 6.0 and C++, not to mention other languages, tools, and environments that include Excel, Access, Clarion, PowerBuilder, and even COBOL. As you'd expect from a company with strong international roots, their redistributable viewer -- a royalty free bit of code that lets recipients view data created or formatted using this program -- supports a wide range of languages including Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Russian, and Spanish.
List & Label 11 includes support for reports, forms, lists, diagrams, labels, and much more, all of which is accessible using only a few lines of code. This toolset even enables developers to equip application end users with the ability to create custom print jobs or to edit existing predefined print jobs, which adds considerable power and flexibility to code designed to deliver printed output. Combit indicates that List & Label includes facilities for creating multi-tabbed reports and lists, but also charts, screen forms, file cards, labels, and even mail merges without requiring access to Word processing software (requires access to RTF source files, however). The code can also handle output export and conversion to lots of different formats including PDF, HTML, XML, RTF and many other text, data, and graphics file types.
This toolset works as an add-on to most application environments. For environments such as .NET, Visual Basic 6.0, Delphi, C++ builder, and so forth, this means data is transferred from an application to the List & Label runtime environment. This primarily depends on the data-binding mechanisms that these development environments readily support, and makes it easy to integrate List & Label into the development environment, as well as easy to use its code and capabilities. For the .NET framework (versions 1.0 through 2.0) this means adding a component, adjusting the property window features, and start print and design work using the component. The vendor even makes numerous .NET programming examples readily available.
A single developer license for the professional version of List & Label 11 costs $840. Discounts for multi-license purchases are available. Consult the combit Web site for access to a 30-day trial version, or additional product and pricing information.
Ed Tittel is a writer and trainer whose interests include XML and development topics, along with IT Certification and information security. E-mail etittel@techtarget.com with comments, questions, or suggested topics or tools to review. Cool tools rule!
