Re: Java web app & barcode scanners

From:
Lew <lew@nowhere.com>
Newsgroups:
comp.lang.java.programmer
Date:
Mon, 22 Jan 2007 18:14:16 -0500
Message-ID:
<TqednYkc1-fU2CjYnZ2dnUVZ_v3inZ2d@comcast.com>
mehalso@gmail.com wrote:

Hi All,

We are developing an enterprise web app that needs to have pages with
barcode scanning functionality. A client will be on a page with
several text boxes, and when he/she scans a barcode, it needs to go
into the correct text box. Through a little research, I've found that
we have two options for our barcode scanners -- use a keyboard wedge or
directly connect the scanner to a serial port.
For our situation, it looks like the serial connection is probably out
of the question. The problem we have with the keyboard wedge, though,
is that the input will go into whichever text box the user currently
has his/her cursor in. Our goal here is speed and efficiency; in some
cases, a barcode scan event should place the text in a textbox and
immediately submit the form and move to the next page. It seems like
we need some way to identify the input as coming from the barcode
scanner and not the keyboard, and some sort of javascript on the page
itself to interpret that input and place it in the correct text box.

If anyone has any suggestions/prior experience, our help would be
greatly appreciated!


As given to an application by the O.S., barcode input looks just like keyboard
input.

You could compare input to a regex for barcode patterns, so that on a match
focus is shifted to the correct input. A user typing input that matches would
also have focus shifted.

- Lew

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