On-screen keyboard appears after scan in Canvas App with barcode scanner

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Posted on by AD-09041532-0

Hello Everyone,

I have built a Canvas App that uses a barcode scanner in combination with a text input field. The app is mainly intended as a scanning app, but it should also allow manual text input when needed.

The issue we are experiencing is that after a scan, the on-screen keyboard often (but not always) appears automatically. This is undesired behavior, because the primary use case is scanning and users then have to manually close the keyboard each time.

We have already tried several approaches, including:

Moving the focus to another control using SetFocus()
Resetting the input field after each scan
Using a PCF component with a KeyListener
Working with a hidden input field

Unfortunately, none of these solutions solved the problem consistently.

My question is:

Is there a known way in Power Apps to prevent the on-screen keyboard from appearing after a scan, or to programmatically suppress the keyboard in this scenario?

Or is this a known limitation of the barcode scanner / input focus behavior in Canvas Apps?

Any suggestions or best practices would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance!

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Building Power Apps

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Gil0 133 on at

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Hello @AD-09041532-0,

Here is a workaround that could help you out.

First, create a button and display it under the Input control and name it something like "Manual Entry" to give users the option to enter data manually. In the Button's OnSelect property, set a variable that keeps track if the button is clicked:
Set(varManualEntryMode, true);

Then, change the input control's Visible property to

varManualEntryMode

and its DisplayMode property to:
If(varManualEntryMode, DisplayMode.Edit, DisplayMode.View)

Next, instead of displaying the BarCode scanner's data in the input control, store the data in a variable and display it in a text label:
In the OnScan property, set the variable:

Set(varDataValue, YourBarcodeScannerControlName.Value);

Create a Text Label control above your Input control and set its Text property to

varScanValue

and add to the Visible property:

!varManualEntryMode

You can also use the varDataValue variable to store the manually entered code.

If my response helped figure out the issue, please mark as resolved so it helps direct others.

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Shah Baig 23 on at

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Thank you so much for your response. @Gil0

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