Suppress keyboard, allow barcode scanner

[teddysnips]

I posted yesterday about a project I'm involved in to build a login
application using a barcode scanner.

I've solved most of the problems, but one remains. The client want to
disable keyboard input (except at some remote sites where there won't
be a scanner). The session "knows" whether that site should be
keyboard enabled, but unfortunately the output from the scanner is in
the form of keypresses! So any attempt to capture and suppress
physical keypresses in script cannot differentiate between keyboard and
scanner.

Anyone got any ideas?

Edward

 

[Guest]

Nope... you are probably out of luck, especially since it's a Web interface.
You would have to have some sort of client addin/component built and
installed but in the end even that may not help since the scanner simply
emulates a keyboard.

 

[Lucas Tam]

(e-mail address removed) wrote in @g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

I posted yesterday about a project I'm involved in to build a login
application using a barcode scanner.

I've solved most of the problems, but one remains. The client want to
disable keyboard input (except at some remote sites where there won't
be a scanner). The session "knows" whether that site should be
keyboard enabled, but unfortunately the output from the scanner is in
the form of keypresses! So any attempt to capture and suppress
physical keypresses in script cannot differentiate between keyboard and
scanner.

Anyone got any ideas?

With IE, you cannot disable ALL keystrokes anyways.

If there is a such a requirement, you might want to consider using a
winforms login page instead... and somehow tie it into your web app.

 

[Bruce Barker]

you would need an write active/x control. you would then plug the scanner
into a seperate serial port (not the keyboard). the active/x control would
then poll the scanner's serial port for input, and raise an event on input
for client script to handle. you would use a hidden field that the client
script used to post the login id, so the keyboard would be disabled.

-- bruce (sqlwork.com)

 

[teddysnips]

you would need an write active/x control. you would then plug the scanner
into a seperate serial port (not the keyboard). the active/x control would
then poll the scanner's serial port for input, and raise an event on input
for client script to handle. you would use a hidden field that the client
script used to post the login id, so the keyboard would be disabled.

-- bruce (sqlwork.com)

Thanks to you and to all other respondents. It's a fixed price
contract and we've agreed the work, so I'll just tell them to remove
the keyboard. That's the easiest solution, and the most foolproof
(until the scanner goes AWOL).

Edward

 

[tehka]

I am needing to implement a similar feature in my VB program.

Perhaps this is not really impossible after all. My idea is by assuming that the human cannot type faster than a barcode reader. If let us say we are scanning a string of 10 characters long, the barcode reader could do it in 0.5 seconds while a human is assumed to be able to type it in 2 seconds.

So from the first character typed, we add a timer. If the complete string is not inserted within that time frame, then it will time out. let me know what you think