We discovered with our first Tulip application that when a barcode scanner is connected to Tulip Player as a Custom Barcode Scanner, even if Tulip Player is not the active window, and the user is scanning barcodes into some other application, Tulip Player will respond to the barcode scanner device output regardless.
There are scenarios in which this is very useful, and other scenarios in which it is problematic.
Is this normal/expected/current behavior?
Has this changed since LTS 8.2?
Hi Jim,
Yes, this is expected behavior. If the barcode scanner is manually added via the “Add Custom Barcode Scanner” dialog in Windows Player, Player will capture barcode scans even if the Player application is minimized.
Starting with LTS 9, we added a plug & play kind of barcode integration that allows using barcode scanners without needing to manually add it through the “Add Custom Barcode Scanner” dialog. For this feature, Player app should be the active window and not minimized.
I remember hearing about that “plug and play” update way back. It had something to do with the rate of character input, if I’m remembering correctly.
Good to know that the “direct connection” is still an option when we want it to work that way.
When we don’t , our workaround has been to advise users to pause the app.
