I'm currently dealing with a number of Linux Web Kiosks who's sole function
is data input into our company's ERP system. They simply run Mozilla full
screen. These stations have served us well for nearly 5 years now, but new
processes are starting to appear in the plant. One is barcode tracking of
inventory as it moves through the plant. Of course, cost comes into play so
IT is challenged with figuring out how to go about getting a barcode reader
working with the existing kiosks for the new tracking stuff.

As our barcode tracking is already done via a web application, and scanning
the barcode just has to bring up information about the barcode being
scanned.

My thought is a simple perl/php/whatever script that monitors the serial
port could be started when the kiosk's X11 session starts. When the trigger
on the RS232 device is pulled, the monitor would take the barcode ASCII, do
any processing/modification that was needed (shouldn't be any I think..?),
and open a new browser window using mozilla-xremote-client:

mozilla-xremote-client -a any
openURL(http://server/app/kiosk.aspx?barcode=<insertbarcodestring>,
new-window)
or
mozilla-xremote-client -a any
openURL(http://server/app/kiosk.aspx?barcode=<insertbarcodestring>,
new-tab)

It would be trivial to get all kiosks running the application when the X11
starts, and the user just needs read access to the serial prot in order to
launch the monitor app.

The question I have is, before I go to all the trouble of creating a monitor
of some sorts, is there a program or other pre-existing script that can do
this? I haven't had any luck with searching so far, but it seems like
something that should already exisit.

-- 
Andrew S. Zbikowski | http://andy.zibnet.us
IT Outhouse Blog Thing | http://www.itouthouse.com
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