USB Barcode Scanner Reading

[smuhilan]

Hi

We are using USB barcode scanner to scan material barcode labels. These labels are from our vendors.
We does not have control over the label generation. We are using USB barcode scanner for scanning purpose. We want to capture USB barcode scanner output. Normally the scanner returns output in the place holder in which the cursor present.

But we do not put writable text box for the cursor. Instead of write allowable text box we want to put locked or readonly text box in the screen and want to capture scanner value.
How can we do?

Assume that our barcode scanner does not support serial ports.

Regards

S. Muhilan

[honeybee]

To the best of my knowledge a barcode scanner would enter data into a field just like a keyboard. So if you disable keyboard input into the textbox, most likely the barcode scanner may not be able to work with it as well.

Any specific reason you want to disable user entry into the barcode field? If the scanner broke down or if the label was unreadable by the scanner, the user could always enter the barcode manually. Just an idea.

.

[Jenner]

Yes, USB Barcode Scanners behave EXACTLY like keyboards. Scanning a code is the same to a computer as if you typed it in on the keyboard. If you can't type it in with the keyboard then your scanner won't be able to put it in either.

[trisuglow]

I know nothing about bar-code scanners but here are a couple of ideas:

1. Begging your pardon, Jenner, but is it possible that you could distinguish between a scanner and a keyboard by trapping the keydown and keypress events? I know you said KB and scanner were identical, but it occurred to me that keydown/keypress were not really applicable to a scanned input so might not be fired.

2. Can you put a hidden textbox on your form into which the scanner puts its output. You would then programatically copy from this field to a read-only textbox that was visible to the user.

[intellilogic]

Why don't you tell us more about exactly what scanner you are using? I am using a Symbol(Motorola) DS3478SF. I started by going to the website and downloading some sample software, my problem was my soft came out in VB6, after some searching, I decided it was easiest to leave that portion of the program in VB6 and used API to push it to my .Net app.

Ok next you are going to have to reconfigure your scanner. You will need the programming barcodes for this. Scan: 'set defaults' and 'HID keyboard emulation' DO NOT scan anything that says 'line' feed. Else you will end up where you are now that it feeds in on whatever line you are on. Which is NOT what you are trying to do.

Now here comes the tricky part. In order to get this into the app, you have to do these things (should be features in your sample code) in this order; though the order may seam illogical as it did/does to me: Open (Opening the decide name, mine is: STI_USBSCANNER) CLAIM, Device Enable. Make sure you have Decode data and Enable Data event ON. Else it won't do anything. I made this all into a function when my app loads:

Public Sub EnableBarcodeScanner()
    frmBCS.Show
    frmBCS.Visible = False

    frmBCS.btOpen_Click
    frmBCS.btClaim_Click
    frmBCS.btDevice_Click
    
    frmBCS.ckDecodeData.Value = 1
    frmBCS.Scanner1.DecodeData = True
    
    frmBCS.ChkAutoEventEnable.Value = 1
    frmBCS.Scanner1.DataEventEnabled = True
End Sub

Now you should get your SKU into the program, you should be able to take it from here. You may need some concatenation and adding dashes and such.

My mangling / concatinating:

Private Sub txtConversion_Change()
    Dim strOrigional As String
    Dim strL As String
    Dim strR As String

        strOrigional = Left$(txtConversion.Text, 10)
        strL = Left$(strOrigional, 5)
        strR = Right$(strOrigional, 5)
        txtSku.Text = strL + "-" + strR
End Sub

Use many TextBox_Change() to keep pushing your SKU through, when I scan something, it makes it to it's destination instantly

My end result looked like so:

[Jenner]

1. No, the scanner will still trigger KeyDown and KeyPress events. KeyDown happens when Microsoft Windows detects a key event. The scanner is literally sending key-presses to Windows.

The heart of the problem is Windows can't distinguish between two keyboards hooked up to the same computer. Window's driver system pipes IO from all keyboard devices connected to the same buffer. The only way to separate them is to literally tell Windows "this is NOT a keyboard" and write a special driver for it along with a special programming API.

2. No, this won't work either; but there is a solution that's similar. You can use a keyboard hook to intercept all keyboard input before they hit your program. Then, you can tell Windows whether the data is "handled" i.e. "Don't send this to the program's GUI" or not handled which will pass the inputs along to the GUI and make text appear in textboxes as normal. The tough part still becomes can you distinguish between data the scanner is reading and normal key-presses.

In the application I did, I programmed my barcode scanner to prepend a "@" symbol before any codes (which were always 12 digits), so when the keyboard hook saw a "@" get input, it "handled" it and buffered the next 12 characters which it also "handled". If those next 12 took more than a half-second to be input, it released itself and pushed what it had to the program (because it was normal keyboard input, not from the scanner). If it got all 12 and they matched an order, it processed the data and any further input it released (until it received another @ that is).

This is pretty much the only way to program a "dumb-scanner" if you don't want to select a field and have it fill it in as a keyboard input.

[anttir]

I think I would cheat.

Make a hidden div with text input field and focus on the text input field. If you want you can make also a visible text input field for users to press in vain.