B. Flaumenhaft wrote:
>
> This is very cool; I haven't looked at the AvantGo stuff in quite a while;
> it's really come a long way! I didn't look at this stuff closely, but the
> API's look quite clean and easy to use.
The bulk of the (non-scanner) APIs are based on the W3C DOM
(http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-DOM-Level-1/), we've tried to stick with the
standards as much as possible.
As for the Symbol scanner, there are three different levels of working with
AvantGo. If your app is a simple "scan the barcodes into a text field" app,
you don't have to write a single line of code. Just make the appropriate HTML
FORM page (well, I guess that's coding) sync it to the device, and go into the
AvantGo preferences and enable the scanner. It's there as a preference (on
scanner enabled devices) because the battery drain of the scanner is
non-trivial. Then any time you do a scan with the pen focus in a FORM text
field (TEXTAREA or INPUT TYPE=text), the barcode data will be transferred to
the focus field. Easy. The form data (including your scanned in barcode) can
be submitted back to a web server using a standard INPUT type=SUBMIT button in
the form.
If you want a little more control, we provide a bunch of JavaScript syntax
functions that you can call from your HTML, and the ability to bind these to
scan events in the web page. Stuff like 'onScan=myField.focus()' (when a scan
happens change the focus to the form element called 'myField', submit()
(submit the form data), etc.. To save power, you can enable and disable the
scanner on a page by page basis (onLoad=scannerSetEnabled('true'),
onUnload=scannerSetEnabled('false')).
For more sophisticated applications, you can drop down to the C API that Jason
referred to. Then you have pretty much full access to the capabilities of both
the scanner and the form data. But all you have to worry about is the items
specific to your app. AvantGo will still handle all the data syncing to and
from a server, UI presentation (via HTML), blah blah blah.... I don't want to
sound too much like a I'm doing a pitch, I just want people to use the stuff.
Jason Dawes wrote:
>
> I have done exactly this using the AvantGo PODS technology:
> http://syncdemo.avantgo.com/devcorner/index.html.
By the way, Jason's app is truly cool. A combination of HTML and C code on the
device, and server side smarts that creates _the_ most sophisticated real
world enterprise app that I have seen on a handheld. Sweeeeeeet.
djw
