The Separation Model – Part 12 – Barcode Scanning
Here's yet another video in this series which doesn't have much to do with the Separation Model. However, it's a really fun video because it deals with something so perfectly usable that it'd be a crime not to use it within your solution somewhere - barcodes.
You see, humans are prone to error and you can almost always reduce error when you use something the machine can both generate and read.
Barcodes have been one such answer to this "human error" dilemma for many decades. Even the most simple of barcode implementations can save many painful hours of mundane data entry. With a little creativity, I implemented inexpensive student ID badges for easily tracking attendance.
In this video, I discuss my super simple implementation of using barcodes within the KarateApp solution and give you a good deal of information about how you can implement in your own specific ways. With scanners and barcode fonts being both cheap and easy, it's a no-brainer for use in any FileMaker solution!
Comments
Which barcode scanner are you using?
Did you mention the actual barcode scanner that you are using? You spoke a little about various types at the beginning of the video; I'm curious to know which one you are using.
Thanks.
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Daniel Shanahan
New Leaf Data
www.newleafdata.com
Daniel Shanahan
New Leaf Data
www.newleafdata.com
Special scan layout not really necessary -- how scanners work
Hi,
thanks for this cool video, it was very helpful.
I wondered why you created a whole new layout only for the scanning process. And why do you need to mouse-click before you would scan a different type of barcode? I believe both are not really necessary.
1) Most standard scanners are prefconfigured to add a carriage return character after the end of the barcode. If you simply catch this character, you know when scanning has ended and can do other stuff (like committing the record or open another script, ...).
So what I did, was to add an onObjectModify script step to the scan field, which is simply a global field, so you can access it from everywhere. In there, I have these script steps:
If PatternCount ( scanfield ; "¶" )
Substitute ( scanfield ; "¶" ; "" )
Commit Records
Perform Script ( Process Barcode )
End If
Using this method, I can put the scan field wherever I like and do with it whatever I like.
2) When you make your own barcodes, you can simply put a prefix character or two before the actual number. Say for example for students, you use «S–» and for tools you use «T–». That way, when you scan something like S–0001, you know its a student, and when you scan something like T–5647, you would know its a tool.
And: If you ever need a barcode checksum calculation for FileMaker (for CODE39 barcodes), please drop me an e-mail; I made a custom function for that purpose.
Thank you so much for your very good videos.
Regards,
Gary
In case someone might ask: I'm using FM12