Accessing display controls programmatically

[Guest]

I’m working on a quality control application using your Symbol 8800 unit, and
I have run into a problem. The environment that we are working in is very
noisy and the audio sounds that the unit makes are not loud enough to be
heard. We have decided that we would try to use visual signals when an
action has been reformed, but we are having difficulty accessing the display
controls programmatically.

Is there a way to:
1. Control the backlight intensity
2. Or possibly be able to flash the screen off and on.
3. Or possible invert the display colors.
4. Other options?

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

1. Up to the device OEM -- ask Symbol.
2. Again, up to the OEM.
3. You might be able to do this for your entire application, although
probably not for everything.
4. What type of actions are we talking about? Does the user access the
desktop? If not, you can do virtually anything simply by redrawing your
window contents differently.

Paul T.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for the suggestions.
I have tried several solutions such as redrawing the screen color, showing a
message, and displaying a count down number. But user is busy handling and
scanning the product and not paying attention to the screen, so none of these
approaches have works well. Only after everything is scanned do they look at
the screen. What I need is to somehow catch there attention for a moment to
let them know that a scan was successful. An audio sound works the best, but
not in this situation. That is why I thought that a flash of the backlight
might work.

Daniel Borras
Programmer / Analyst
Cal-Pak Systems Inc.

1. Up to the device OEM -- ask Symbol.
2. Again, up to the OEM.
3. You might be able to do this for your entire application, although
probably not for everything.
4. What type of actions are we talking about? Does the user access the
desktop? If not, you can do virtually anything simply by redrawing your
window contents differently.

Paul T.

 

[Paul G. Tobey [eMVP]]

If they don't look at the display, anything you do to the display is going
to be worthless. Maybe you need an amplified audio output or headphones...

Paul T.

Thank you for the suggestions.
I have tried several solutions such as redrawing the screen color, showing
a
message, and displaying a count down number. But user is busy handling
and
scanning the product and not paying attention to the screen, so none of
these
approaches have works well. Only after everything is scanned do they look
at
the screen. What I need is to somehow catch there attention for a moment
to
let them know that a scan was successful. An audio sound works the best,
but
not in this situation. That is why I thought that a flash of the
backlight
might work.

Daniel Borras
Programmer / Analyst
Cal-Pak Systems Inc.

 

[Guest]

I'm working that angle to, even though the Symbol 8800 does not have an
external audio jack. I have a call into the Symbol support to see if there
is a way to retrieve the audio signal from the serial connector or from
another port. It’s a long shot but I thought I would try.

Dan B.

 

[Daniel Moth]

I know what you mean and have had a similar scenario. Flashing the screen
proved effective (it attracted attention when otherwise the user was not
paying attention to the display).

In my scenario the event results in: Flashing the screen, two-tone beeping
sound, flash the LED and animate a small button. If you do something similar
I suggest you have a configuration page where the user can turn one or more
of these actions off.

As to how you do it, like Paul said contact the OEM. All we have implemented
on our platform is an API to turn the screen brightness to half; I then turn
it on/off on a timer.

Cheers
Daniel
--
http://www.danielmoth.com/Blog/

Thank you for the suggestions.
I have tried several solutions such as redrawing the screen color, showing
a
message, and displaying a count down number. But user is busy handling
and
scanning the product and not paying attention to the screen, so none of
these
approaches have works well. Only after everything is scanned do they look
at
the screen. What I need is to somehow catch there attention for a moment
to
let them know that a scan was successful. An audio sound works the best,
but
not in this situation. That is why I thought that a flash of the
backlight
might work.

Daniel Borras
Programmer / Analyst
Cal-Pak Systems Inc.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for the info, since I was not sure if it was going to help in this
situation. I'm still not sure how I'm going to make it happen, but I receive
some info, from another newsgroup, that I might be able to set the backlight
intensity in the registry, if I could find the right command line. So I’m
looking into the Symbol registry structure now.

Dan B.