[en] New in Designers

[en] Before the printing process can begin, the form applications you run in the NiceLabel Web Client might request additional data from external systems. To send a query to an external system, you would use actions such as “Send Data to TCP/IP,” “HTTP Request,” or “Web Service,” and wait for a data response.

[en] By default, all these actions are executed on the PowerForms Web server that hosts the form application running in the Web Client. For NiceLabel Cloud products, this is the Cloud backend. For NiceLabel LMS (on-premises) products, this is the server where you have installed the PowerForms Web component. The server will make the outbound request, and the server’s IP address will be its origin.

[en] With this release, it is possible to configure these outbound calls to be initiated from the client computer, that is, your PC running a NiceLabel Web Client. This is especially useful when using the actions to communicate with the local devices in the same LAN as the Web Client. Your computer has direct access to local devices, while the PowerForms Web server might not be able to connect to them.

[en] To enable the actions to run locally, add the “LOCAL_” prefix to the name of the action.

[en] The devices from MAX company are sign and label printers and cutting machines all-in-one. They combine thermal print and vinyl-cutting technology to produce multiple spot or full-color outputs. In this release, NiceLabel supports MAX printers offered by Lighthouse (UK) Ltd.

[en] These devices are optimized to print and cut signage to advise, inform and warn people. The result must be UV stable, chemical resistant, and water-proof signs and labels that are mandatory in health & safety, engineering, electrical, plant ID, product ID, pipe marking, admin, chemical ID, facilities management, control panels, instructions labels, and more.

[en] The width of the print head defines the width of the labels; however, the length can be measured in meters. Because the system handles individual shapes and sizes, there is no need to buy customized blank labels. To help minimize media consumption and cost, NiceLabel optimizes vinyl usage by not advancing the material for empty labels.

[en] NiceLabel Designer is a perfect match for these signage requirements because of its existing technical abilities enhanced with the support for cutting around the objects to any shape required and spot/multi-color output. You can easily combine barcode objects, variable data, and your logos, diagrams, and schematics on the same label.

[en] The Lighthouse MAX printer supports spot or full-color printing natively supported in NiceLabel. When using spot colors, you can enable color separation to print multi-color symbols using assorted colors. You can fine-tune the color ranges for the separation process by defining the low and high hue ranges of the main solid color.

[en] Some Lighthouse MAX printer models also support CMYK colors. Based on the printer's capabilities, NiceLabel Designer shows the available color modes. You can change the type of color processing for each object either in the ribbon or in the object property editor. You can also enable the cutting function in the ribbon or the property editor.

[en] When the cutting around the object is enabled, the NiceLabel Designer workspace will identify that object with a small scissor icon inside the object bounding box. The object can be set with both cuttable and printable options enabled or just one of them.