Hello all,

Has anybody here made a VB application using a barcode scanner?  I have to
develop an
app that uses one, but I have never done it before so I'm not sure how to go
about it.  Can
anybody recommend a scanner that will work in VB and read from an Access
database?
I'm hoping I could find one that comes with an ActiveX control, that would
be a bonus.

Thanks in advance for any help,

Tony

Tony,
I'm not sure what you mean when you say the scanner needs to read from an
Access database.  I have created an app that uses a barcode scanner, but
only for input.  Maybe there are other uses.  As far as what I did, the
scanner just replaces the keyboard.  The way I ended up using it was with
input boxes and small input forms that accepted one text box worth of imput.
The default is for the scanner to also send a carriage return after the
text, so that it will click an OK button after the input.
Hope this helps.
Ted Gordon

All applications support bar code reading as long as you have the
right equipment. Most bar code readers are available with one of two
output options. The first option is called "Keyboard Wedge" output
where you unplug your keyboard, plug the bar code reader into the
keyboard port on your PC and then plug your keyboard into the bar code
reader. This arrangement makes the bar code reader appear as it it
were simply a second keyboard. Your original keyboard continues to
work as normal however when you read a bar code, the data encoded in
the bar code appears to any application running on your PC as if it
were typed in.
The keyboard wedge interface is extremely simple however it has a few
drawbacks. If you swipe a bar code, the cursor has to be in the
correct input field in the correct application otherwise you end up
reading bar code data into whatever application has the focus. This
can cause all sorts of potential problems as you can imagine. The
keyboard output also is limited in that you cannot modify the data in
any way before sending it into the program that is to receive the
data. For example, if you needed to parse a bar code message up into
pieces or remove some of a bar code message or add in a date or time
stamp you would not be able to with a normal keyboard wedge reader.

The other possible output option is to get a bar code reader with an
RS232 or "Serial" interface. With these types of bar code readers, you
connect the reader to an available serial port on the back of your PC.
You would then need a program called a "Software Wedge" to take the
data from the bar code reader and feed it to the application where you
want the data to go. The disadvantage to this approach is that it is a
little more complex however you gain much more control over how and
where your data ends up when you read a bar code. With a Software
Wedge, you can control exactly where the data goes in the target
application and you can also perform all sorts of modifications on the
data before it is sent to the application.

The company that I work for sells a product called WinWedge which is a
Software Wedge for Windows (we also have a DOS version).
If you woull like more information, visit: http://www.taltech.com for
more information. This web site is also an extremely good place to
obtain information about bar coding in general.