Seagull Scientific BarTender Barcode Software Easy Integration with Other Applications

SEAGULL SCIENTIFIC

Easy Integration with Other Applications and Seagull BarTender

In addition to operating "stand-alone," all versions of Seagull BarTender can be controlled from within your other applications. However, the Seagull BarTender Enterprise Edition adds advanced features especially designed for software integration. That means accounting, manufacturing, inventory, shipping and other supply-chain applications can easily access Seagull BarTender's powerful label-printing features. In fact, your users don't even have to know that it's Seagull BarTender printing the labels.

Depending on your goals and the capabilities of your other programs, there are three basic ways to control Seagull BarTender:

ActiveX Automation

Command-Line Interface

Commander: The Flexible Middleware Alternative

Comparing Seagull BarTender Enterprise Edition with Other Seagull BarTender Editions
The ActiveX Automation and Commander methods for controlling Seagull BarTender are only supported by the Enterprise Edition. In addition, both the Seagull BarTender Professional and Seagull BarTender Enterprise Editions support the Command Line Interface method.

ActiveX Automation

Taking advantage of the latest in Microsoft's ActiveX integration technology, the Seagull BarTender Enterprise Edition can easily be controlled by other software programs. Numerous functions are available such as:

Loading Seagull BarTender

Specifying a label format

Selecting data sources

Specifying network printers

Inquire about Seagull BarTender's status, including jobs in progress

What Kinds of Applications Can Issue ActiveX Commands?
Most standard Windows development tools can issue ActiveX Automation commands, including:

Visual Basic

Visual C++ (and other versions of C for Windows)

Power Builder

Access

and many more.

Many prewritten applications also provide an interface that gives users access to Windows´ ActiveX capabilities. (Any application such as MS-Word or Excel that supports "Visual Basic for Applications" certainly will have that capability.)

Command-Line Interface

"Command Line" control of Seagull BarTender, available in all editions, uses less sophisticated software technology than ActiveX Automation. However, it still allows any program capable of issuing a "run program" command to load Seagull BarTender and launch print jobs.

Sample Command Line
This is a sample command line for use inside of Visual Basic. It launches Seagull BarTender (if it´s not already running), loads a label format called "ucc-ean128.btw," and prints it:

Shell("bartend.exe /f=ucc-ean128.btw /p")

The "Shell" part is specific to Visual Basic and differs somewhat in other development environments. The part inside the quotes is the actual command line and will not change for other environments.

What Can I Do and Not Do Using Command Lines?

Among the available functions are:

Load Seagull BarTender

Select and load a label format

Specify a data source to import label data from

Execute a print job

Exit Seagull BarTender

Various other functions

Some capabilities not available when using command-line control instead of ActiveX Automation are:

Direct control over selected options in certain dialogs.

Loading multiple label designs without first closing ones that have already been opened.

Asking Seagull BarTender questions, including its version number and whether or not a print job is in progress.

The ability to specify label data directly (instead of having to export it to a file for Seagull BarTender to read)

Seagull Commander^TM: The Flexible Middleware Alternative

Seagull Commander, and add-on utility included with the Seagull BarTender Enterprise Edition, lets other applications control Seagull BarTender print jobs. By simply creating a data file, your other application gives you access to Commander's powerful integration capabilities. Commander is useful for controlling Seagull BarTender whenever:

It's inconvenient or impossible to issue ActiveX commands from your current application or environment.

You don't have access to you other application's source code.

You're working with a non-Window's platform, such as Linux/UNIX, AIX or AS/400, and no means exist for directly transmitting the necessary command(s) to the Windows system running Seagull BarTender.

You haven't worked with ActiveX before and you already know how to export data to text files.

How Seagull Commander Works
Using Seagull Commander, your other application makes labels by first generating a text file. Seagull Commander detects the file's arrival and then "wakes up" Seagull BarTender, which reads your data and prints your labels. This can be especially helpful on larger, enterprise networks where a non-Windows systems in generating your label data and doesn't have direct access to your Windows applications.

E-mail Integration
As an alternative to file-based triggers and label data, Seagull Commander can also detect triggers and receive label data via e-mail.

Great for Windows-Only Systems Too!
Although Seagull Commander's full benefit is achieved when giving Windows capabilities to non-Windows applications, such cross-platform operation is not required. Seagull Commander is so easy to set up and use that some people use it in pure Windows environments so they don't have to code even the simplest ActiveX Automation or Command-Line functions.

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Free Trial and Demonstrations Versions of BarTender Software

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