Barcode scanner app
 

Hi,

I need to program an application for my school. It needs to scan a
barcode on a pass, compare it to a database and then display a color
(fullscreen) signalling if the student is or isn't allowed at a party.

Now I'm looking for a toolkit of some sort to wait for a signal from the
barcode scanner (which works just like a keyboard) and then display a
fullscreen signalcolor. Any ideas?

Thanks in advance,
pieter.
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Re: Barcode scanner app
 

On Thu, Sep 20, 2007 at 09:42:11PM +0900, Pieter Jongsma wrote:
> I need to program an application for my school. It needs to scan a
> barcode on a pass, compare it to a database and then display a color
> (fullscreen) signalling if the student is or isn't allowed at a party.
>
> Now I'm looking for a toolkit of some sort to wait for a signal from the
> barcode scanner (which works just like a keyboard) and then display a
> fullscreen signalcolor. Any ideas?

I'm a dork, so I'd probably use GLUT/OpenGL. It's overkill, but it's damned
easy to get a fullscreen color and to accept keyboard input.

> Thanks in advance,
> pieter.
--Greg

Re: Barcode scanner app
 

> I need to program an application for my school. It needs to scan a
> barcode on a pass, compare it to a database and then display a color
> (fullscreen) signalling if the student is or isn't allowed at a party.

> Now I'm looking for a toolkit of some sort to wait for a signal from the
> barcode scanner (which works just like a keyboard) and then display a
> fullscreen signalcolor. Any ideas?

If it works just like a keyboard, you should be able to get the input
with gets(). If your scanner dies or something happens, you then have
a fallback mechanism as well.

Depending on how fancy the display solution should be, you could
display yes/no in colored ascii (easiest solution), write some html
that's loaded in a browser that keeps refreshing, or use a GUI toolkit
(tcl/tk, gtk, qt, etc.) to display the result. If you use a GUI, you'd
probably want to replace the gets() call with a text field that has an
on_change() or equivalent trigger.

Sounds like a fun project, good luck!

Wes

Re: Barcode scanner app
 

On Thu, 20 Sep 2007, Pieter Jongsma wrote:

> Now I'm looking for a toolkit of some sort to wait for a signal from the
> barcode scanner (which works just like a keyboard) and then display a
> fullscreen signalcolor. Any ideas?

I suggest you take a look at the ncurses library.

-- Matt
It's not what I know that counts.
It's what I can remember in time to use.

Re: Barcode scanner app
 

Pieter Jongsma wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I need to program an application for my school. It needs to scan a
> barcode on a pass, compare it to a database and then display a color
> (fullscreen) signalling if the student is or isn't allowed at a party.
>
> Now I'm looking for a toolkit of some sort to wait for a signal from the
> barcode scanner (which works just like a keyboard) and then display a
> fullscreen signalcolor. Any ideas?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> pieter.
if it acts like keyboard, try ruby/SDL it's simplest solution to get
graphics in application.

Re: Barcode scanner app
 

On Sep 20, 2007, at 1:40 PM, Marcin Raczkowski wrote:

> Pieter Jongsma wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I need to program an application for my school. It needs to scan a
>> barcode on a pass, compare it to a database and then display a color
>> (fullscreen) signalling if the student is or isn't allowed at a
>> party.
>> Now I'm looking for a toolkit of some sort to wait for a signal
>> from the
>> barcode scanner (which works just like a keyboard) and then display a
>> fullscreen signalcolor. Any ideas?
>> Thanks in advance,
>> pieter.
> if it acts like keyboard, try ruby/SDL it's simplest solution to
> get graphics in application.
>
>
You could use Gosu easily, the game library for the graphics, very
very easy. Some kb/gamepad input is already defined, but you could
easily 'include' anything needed for the scanner.
Thing to note, game libraries are not just useful for games! They
make simple GUIs easy to build!
If the scanner has a driver with API you should be able to pass its
info to any app as you please.

Another alternative would be to do something like a local machine
Rails app. There's easy database integration and a web-browser based
GUI.

Re: Barcode scanner app
 

John Joyce wrote:
> Another alternative would be to do something like a local machine
> Rails app. There's easy database integration and a web-browser based
> GUI.

I have been thinking about that. But the program needs to be portable,
by which I mean it needs to run on any computer without having to
install things like rails.
I also have a server at my disposal, on which I could run it, but that
server is really slow...

I was actually wondering if there was anything like PyGame for ruby, and
I guess 'Gosu' is it.

Thanks for the tip!
--
Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.