Question Trapping an External Keypad

[theberry]

My boss wants me to write a form for employees to log in on an external keypad while the user is working on another form in the database. The user does not want to buy a dedicated computer for the keypad, so I will have to run a form in the background and direct the input from the keypad to that form (I guess keypad will be on a USB port). How do I trap the input from the keypad and direct it to a form running in the background without giving this form the focus or mixing the input from the keypad with input from the keyboard?

 

[RuralGuy]

Are you suggesting that there will be two keyboards on one computer?

 

[theberry]

Yes - a full keyboard and a numeric keypad. I know this is possible as we do it all the time on my boss's laptop. We also have a mouse and a trackball on it. The big question is how to tell the input from the keypad from the input from the keyboard and feed them to different forms.

 

[boblarson]

Yes - a full keyboard and a numeric keypad. I know this is possible as we do it all the time on my boss's laptop. We also have a mouse and a trackball on it. The big question is how to tell the input from the keypad from the input from the keyboard and feed them to different forms.

Not going to work. You can feed the input from either into it but you aren't going to get two forms working at the same time and having input from two devices split to two different forms.

 

[RuralGuy]

There is still only one computer in there and Access is not multithreaded. AFAIK there is no way to separate the two keyboard inputs. They are simply mixed together by the OS.

 

[boblarson]

To do what you want to do would require you to use Access as a backend only and write your forms (reports and other stuff) in VB.NET (or another programming language that supports multi-threading).

 

[RuralGuy]

The OP would also need to write their own keyboard handler that somehow could separate the two keyboards.

 

[theberry]

OK, how about this? The keyboard is on a standard keyboard port. The keypad is on a USB. The user is working in the Access database. I run another app (.NET?) in the background - can either Access or .NET trap just the USB port, save the input for later posting and kill that USB input so that Access dosen't pick it up? Then later the saved data can be posted in Access. and if so how? Any .NET geeks out there?

 

[RuralGuy]

I doubt it without getting right down to the hardware level with code.

 

[boblarson]

It would probably be a job for C++ / Visual C++

 

[theberry]

Been toooooo many years (25?). And I was never that good at C++. Thanks anyway - I can wait a week or two and see what turns up.

 

[neileg]

I suggest that the complexity of doing what you propose will greatly outweigh the cost and simplicity of buying another PC.