[en] NiceLabel Designer generates the default printing form for you. This can save a lot of time that would be spent on tedious tasks while configuring commonly used functions on each form, such as the Print button, Preview object, or input data objects. With all of these options configured for you automatically, you can provide printing solutions faster since you do not need to spend time on the customization of each form.
[en] While form auto-generation was already introduced with the first release of NiceLabel 2017, this release streamlines the process within the PowerForms edition of NiceLabel 2017. You can now auto-generate new forms from the printing form template, explicitly set the default printing form, and make easy transitions between Label and Solution documents by simply adding a new form.
[en] Figure 17: New print customization options
[en] The properties of all of the actions have been expanded to allow for greater customization and user control over actions.
[en] Beginning with this release, you can rename the actions. You can use any name to describe what the actions do. In some solutions, you have to use many actions of the same type (such as Set variable or Execute SQL statement) one after another. If they all share the same name, you really have to look up the properties of each action to see what it does exactly. If the action name already provides the description, the action list becomes much more self-explanatory and manageable.
[en] The original action name is still displayed in each action’s properties.
[en] Figure 18: Additional configuration options in the action’s properties
[en] The action should use a short name to identify its functionality. For more description, this release also provides the actual Description field. Use it to document the action in greater depth. Such a description becomes important when multiple people work on the same solution, or when you have to modify the solution at a later time and need some quick reminder about what the action actually does.
[en] The custom action name is also used in error messages and logs.
[en] The Actions Editor remembers the user preferences for the next run of the NiceLabel 2017, not just within the current session. Each time you run Designer or Automation, the user interface retains the layout from the last time you used it. The settings are remembered for each user.
[en] Figure 19: The important information displayed in the action list reduces the need to open the action properties dialog.
[en] New features:
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[en] Action list shows Condition and Description fields. Now, it’s much easier to understand the complex action list as you see the description next to each action. Also, the visibility of the action condition immediately shows you when the action is configured to run.
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[en] Expanded/collapsed state of the action properties is remembered. For example, if you expand the section “Show execution and error handling options”, and open the action properties at a later time, the section remains expanded.
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[en] Width of columns is remembered. Once you set a preferred width for the columns in the tree-list of actions, and for action properties, the setting is remembered until you change it. If you are low on space on your desktop, you can just temporarily expand the list.
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[en] Height of script and SQL editors is remembered. When working with the built-in editor for VBScript/Python/SQL commands, you often enlarge the default height in order to accommodate its size to include more commands. The customized size of the editor is remembered the next time you open the actions editor.
[en] Figure 20: Collapsed view when Condition or Description details are not needed.
[en] Automation Builder provides the same Action Editor experience as previously available in NiceLabel Designer. Both applications share the same components with release 2017.1.
[en] This includes:
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[en] Searchable list of actions. NiceLabel software’s number of available actions has grown quite high. Therefore, the search feature lets you quickly find the action by its name. You do not need to locate the action in the gallery.
[en] Figure 21: Searchable list of actions. In this case, displaying actions with the word “label” in their names.
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[en] List of recently used actions. The Actions Editor remembers the recently used actions and displays them on top of the action list. You will likely use the same action again soon and when you do, it will be easy to select it.
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[en] Browsing for data source. When connecting a data source to a specific action property, the similar data source browse experience as known from NiceLabel Designer is also available in Automation Builder. For long lists of data sources, you will appreciate the search functionality.
[en] Figure 22: Selecting the data source in action properties.
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[en] All additional Actions Editor enhancements are available in the 2017.1 release.
[en] The embedded PDF support within NiceLabel has been improved. The documents are now generated using editable objects and vector representations of linear barcodes. The benefits are higher quality output for text and barcodes, the ability to copy and paste contents out of the PDF, and a substantially smaller file size of the generated PDF. This becomes an important feature if your company operates a quality management system that archives PDF files of all the printed labels.
[en] Figure 23: The text content is encoded as a string, not embedded as an image.
Note
[en] Some elements, such as Text and Text Box objects that are using printer built-in fonts, Rich Text Box, Picture and Inverse objects, are still added to PDFs as graphics. This is done in order to match the outlook of the resulting PDF with the on-screen preview and to keep the proper object width and height. Users can still opt to use a single image in PDFs for each printed label for compatibility purposes.
[en] The new action Select Table Row allows the application designer to set the focus on a particular record inside a Table object. There are obvious possibilities to set the focus to, such as first record, last record, record #, but also a query option. In this case, you can move the focus to a record that matches a simple condition “field name = field value”.
[en] Figure 24: Setting focus to a table record matched by a value in the selected field.
[en] For example, you have a printing form and a database management form. When you are done editing the product data and return to the printing form, the record you have just edited can be automatically selected in the Table object.
[en] Form debugger is a great enhancement for anybody building advanced form applications. While you run and test the form application from the design environment, you can open a debugger in a new window. It allows you to:
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[en] Track the current status of the application (e.g. current values of data sources).
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[en] Execute all the actions step-by-step and evaluate the result of each action.
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[en] Execute what-if analysis by changing the values of the data source on the fly.
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[en] See the log of action execution and track their execution time for timing purposes.
[en] Figure 25: Track and update values of data sources and step-into list of actions.
[en] You can open the Form Debugger by pressing a Ctrl + Shift + F12 key combination while you are running the form from the design environment. Form Debugger is not available in production environments. You can only run it during the solution development when you have read/write access to the solution file.