Carlos, I've done this before several times with mag strip card readers and barcode scanners. The easiest route to take is with one that does act like a keyboard wedge. Sometimes they are PS/2 and go inline with your keyboard, sometimes they are USB, but the effect is the same. The data they scan in is effectively typed in to your screen just as if you would've typed that same data in yourself. Most of the time, these devices will automatically send a carriage-return at the end of the stream to signify the end of the data. Sometimes this can be changed, but usually it's just like an 'enter' key stroke. So, in many of my forms, I have a popup window, which auto-focuses to a textbox. The user scans the board/swipes the card, and then it streams into the text box, sends in an <enter> keystroke (which coincidentally submits the form) and then I process the data. So it's pretty useful to not have them having to use the keyboard at all, I've set it up for many instances to have them just repeatedly scan one barcode after another. And if you wanted to not have the form auto-submit, you just need to capture the keydown event of the textbox and trap the <enter> keystroke coming through to stop it from submitting. If you want some recommendations of products or anything like that, feel free to ask me off-list.
Thanks, Robert -----Original Message----- From: Carlos A [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 11:08 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: CF and magentic stripe card reader Greetings fellow coders! I have a need to capture the data from a USB connected magentic stripe card reader into our web-based app. The reader came with its own desktop-app to interact with the reader but I need to get the data into our web forms. As far as I know, there's no way to have CF capture the data directly since its on the users local machine. Will I have to resort to Java or the dreaded .NET? Any ideas or anyone have any previous experience with this? P.S. Am I the only one that has all of a sudden stopped getting the CF-Talk emails? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Introducing the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update. 80 pages of hard-hitting, up-to-date ColdFusion information by your peers, delivered to your door four times a year. http://www.fusionauthority.com/quarterly Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:248273 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.4
