Combit recently released its award-winning List & Label 22 with a refreshed designer, enhanced crosstabs, new chart types and new features in te chart layout. The latest release also enables you to animate report objects in the preview window. Moreover, MicroPDF417 and Codablock barcode types have been added to the List & Label 22.
In an exclusive interview with Learnxpress, Jochen Bartlau, Head of Development List & Label and Managing Director shared his views about the latest release of List & Label 22 and also the future roadmap of the product.
Can you share with us the core features of List & Label 22?
We’re very pleased to be able to provide you and your users version 22 of our reporting tool, which includes several innovations. For example in the Designer, for crosstabs and charts, for .NET, and in many other areas.
What is the usefulness of enhanced crosstabs?
You can now have multiple result cells, enabling you to compare more than one measure, e.g. the sum of revenues and the number of individual customers per area, year and quarter. Before, you could only have either the revenue or the customers. You can easily compare results to those of the previous quarter, year, customer,… by using the new cross-references. Last but not least, you can dynamically expand areas showing for example just the years while allowing to drill-down into the quarters with just one click.
What purpose does animations serve in reports and how List & Label 22 can be used to enhance it?
Instead of using PowerPoint or similar software, you can now animate report objects in the preview window. This gives your presentations greater impact and keeps your audience engaged.
Did you added new Barcodes to the List & Label 22?
Yes, we did! MicroPDF417 and Codablock F barcode types have been added to LL22. The new release also supports all GS1 application identifiers. A new Designer feature enables checksums to be calculated using any weighting.
Can you disclose the new chart types included with List & Label 22?
Radar charts visualize relationships between multiple categories with lines or shapes, simple or stacked. Where shapes overlap, you can draw outlines to show what is hidden. Treemaps display hierarchical data in the form of rectangles containing other rectangles (nested). Their size and position reflect relationships between data values. In addition, you can drill down via report parameters to see more detailed information.
Does List & Label 22 include fast compile engine that the previous version?
While performance optimizations weren’t a focus for LL22, we’re always working on optimizing performance by using the latest toolsets and working on bottlenecks we find. LL22 has some optimizations for really huge databases under the hood. Also, crosstab rendering performance has been slightly improved.
Can you share the roadmap for List & Label 23?
It’s early in the release cycle, so plans are not completely finished yet. We’ll probably spend some project time on the Designer’s usability and improved drag & drop behavior. Also, performance tweaking will be a major focus. We’ll also look at ASP.NET Core 1.0 support and rendering improvements for our HTML5 viewer.
List & Label 22 is an excellent product which enables you to easily create reports. In the next article, we will examine all the new features included with List & Label 22.
