13.0
S
OCKET
S
CAN
T
RIGGER
A
PPLICATIONS
(WINCE
ONLY)
SocketScan now supports multiple scanners as well as a number of scan trigger options. This is a short
description of those scan trigger options.
The following programs can be used to trigger a scanning device:
SocketScan
Trigger
Select
Trigger
Scan
Trigger
RFID
Trigger
“xyz”
SocketScan
is a keyboard wedge application as well as a trigger program. If the program is assigned to a
PDA button and pressed, it will either load SocketScan, and install itself as a keyboard wedge, or act as a scan
trigger application. It does this by first detecting if it’s already running or if RFID Demo or ScanDemo are
running. If it finds one of these three programs running, it sends a message to the running application to tell
it that a scan trigger is needed. In the case of SocketScan or ScanDemo, this triggers the “selected” scan
device (the one shown with the checkmark in the application’s menu). For RFID Demo, it always triggers the
RFID scanner.
Trigger Select
works specifically with SocketScan and is not really a trigger program but used to advance
SocketScan to the next “selected” device. It switches only to scan devices that only have software triggers
(this includes RFID, CFSC, and SDSC – it does not include the CHS or CRS). This program is used in conjunction
with
SocketScan
to do the actual triggering.
Trigger Scan
and
Trigger RFID
make calls directly to ScanAPI to do a ScanTrigger. These calls are
independent of the running application so they will work with the existing SocketScan applications as well as
user-written applications. These trigger programs call ScanAPI will a Scanner Handle that’s associated with
the scanner type.
Note: The predefined scanner handles are only valid when ScanApi.dll has been enabled for Multiple
Scanners. ScanApi defaults to single scanner mode and the scanner handle is always 1. Since Trigger RFID uses
scanner handle 1, it would then trigger whatever scanner was active in the device (provided it accepted a
software trigger).
Trigger “xyz”
is listed here because it is a user-defined trigger program. Source code for this program is
provided in the SDK and all the programmer needs to do is modify the code with the desired scanner handle
and compile the program to create a new trigger application. Trigger Scan and Trigger RFID were created in
this way. See the SDK documentation for a list of predefined scanner handle numbers.
Using the above applications to trigger the RFID scanner may not be the best solution. The ScanTrigger
function in ScanApi.dll supports RFID scanning in “legacy” mode. Originally it would only scan the tag IDs
(calling Select Tag in the RFID driver). This was done to mimic the reading of a bar code. This version of
SocketScan allows that to be expanded depending upon registry settings controlled by the
RFID Setup
control panel applet. After installation it defaults to reading only the tag IDs but can be changed to read the
tag data blocks or both the tag IDs and data blocks. This may be useful if the user wants a simple way to
import tag data into a spreadsheet but if more control is needed, a user application needs to be written
using the RFID SDK.
The following is a table shows the trigger applications and compatibility with both the supplied SocketScan
applications and the user-generated application.
Trigger Applications Assigned to Buttons
April 8, 2010
Page 75
Document#: 6410-00147 K
Revision 2.28
