NiceLabel.Blog Everything you wanted to know about NiceLabel

How can I programmatically get a preview of a label from NiceLabel?

Getting a preview of a label from NiceLabel is quite easy. All you have to do is call GetLabelPreviewEx method of the INiceLabel interface. GetLabelPreviewEx has 6 parameters:

• file name: full path to the file where NiceLabel will generate image of the label. Extension part of the file name defines which graphics format will be used. You can use .bmp, .jpg, .png or .gif as the file name extension. 
• width: width of image (in pixels) 
• height: height of image (in pixels) 
• label kind: there are 3 possible values that define the kind of label you want preview for; 0 – header label, main label, tail label 
• label side: define whether you want to preview front side (use 0 as parameter value) or back side of the label (use 1 as value). Using back side of the label makes sense only if you have label designed as double sided.
• flag that defines whether to show border around preview or not (true or false) 

Function will return true if graphics file was successfully created or false it file could not be created.

bool GetLabelPreviewEx(fileName, width, height, labelKind, labelSide, showBorder)

The following code will run NiceEngine, open label and get a preview of the label in a file called “preview.jpg” that is located in “c:\tmp”. Then you can load the image file in a component of your choice.

// Open NiceEngine
NiceEngine5WR.NiceApp engine = new NiceEngine5WR.NiceApp();

// Open label
NiceEngine5WR.NiceLabel label = engine.LabelOpenEx(“file.lbl”);

string previewFileName = @"c:\tmp\preview.jpg";
int width = 640;
int height = 480;
previewStatus = label.GetLabelPreviewEx(previewFileName, width, height, 1, 0, false);

How can I programmatically get a list of variables from NiceLabel?

The following piece of code shows how you can programmatically get a list of variables from a label (.lbl) file. For this sample to work you will have to add reference to “niceengine5wr.dll” that is usually installed in the "c:\Program Files\Common Files\EuroPlus Shared\NiceEngine 5" folder. You will also have to compile your application as 32-bit (x86) application even if you want to run it on a 64-bit system, because NiceEngine and NiceLabel are 32-bit applications.

// Open NiceEngine
NiceEngine5WR.NiceApp engine = new NiceEngine5WR.NiceApp();

// Open label
NiceEngine5WR.NiceLabel label = engine.LabelOpenEx(“file.lbl”);

// List of variables where basic information about label variable will be stored.
// For this sample name, length and prompt order will be stored.
IList<Variable> variables = new List<Variable>();

if (label != null)
{
  try
  {
    // Get a list of variables
    NiceEngine5WR.IVariableList varList = label.Variables;
    try
    {
      for (int i = 1; i <= varList.Count; i++)
      {
        NiceEngine5WR.IVar varIntf = varList.Item(i);
        if (varIntf != null)
        {
          try
          {
            // Use only prompt variables that require prompt.
            // Using other types of variables usually does not make sense.
            if (varIntf.VarType == 1 && varIntf.DefType != 2)
            {
              Variable v = new Variable();
              v.Name = varIntf.Name;
              v.Length = varIntf.Length;
              v.PromptOrder = varIntf.PromptOrder;
              variables.Add(v);
            }
          }
          finally
          {
            // Make sure that interfaces are correctly released otherwise you may get errors.
            varIntf.Free();
            varIntf = null;
          }
        }
        else
        {
          // Show error
        }
      }
    }
    finally
    {
      varList.Free();
      varList = null;
    }
  }
  finally
  {
      // Close label by releasing the interface.
      label.Free();
      label = null;
  }
}

Variable class definition looks like this:

public class Variable
{
  public string Name
  {
    get;
    set;
  }

  public string Value
  {
    get;
    set;
  }

  public int Length
  {
    get;
    set;
  }

  public int PromptOrder
  {
    get;
    set;
  }
}