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Initiating on change without hitting enter with external barcode scanner

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Posted on by Joel CustomerEffective

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We have a customer who uses power apps and they have external Bluetooth scanners. These work woth power apps when we set focus to a text field and scan, the scan value is captured in the text field.

The challenge is initiating an action to do something with the scan value (like an on change). It captures the scan value but user has to click on the screen or hit enter for the action to trigger. Users don’t want to have to tap after they scan. Any way to initiate a process like on select or on change without the user having to push a button on the screen?

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Joel CustomerEffective 3,224 on at

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Re: Initiating on change without hitting enter with external barcode scanner

Just learned from Guido Priete that many hardware scanners have the ability to add enter key after scanning, so that looks like the best option.
Joel CustomerEffective 3,224 on at

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Re: Initiating on change without hitting enter with external barcode scanner

Nothing happens. It's equivalent to typing in a field and not hitting enter or tabbing out of field. On change and on selected events are not triggered.
WarrenBelz 146,547 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Re: Initiating on change without hitting enter with external barcode scanner

Thanks @jlindstrom ,
What happens to the text in the box after it is scanned (and before the next one)
Joel CustomerEffective 3,224 on at

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Re: Initiating on change without hitting enter with external barcode scanner

good suggestion @WarrenBelz, but the problem is setting focus requires a trigger--I'm not seeing anything that will tell me when I need to change focus to commit when someone just enters a value in a field and doesn't tab off or click enter
I like the way you are going, but we need some kind of trigger.
WarrenBelz 146,547 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Re: Initiating on change without hitting enter with external barcode scanner

OK @jlindstrom ,
Sorry I should have picked that up. I would imagine you have tried the OnChange of the Text field and it does not work?
I actually have the same issue with users needing to click away from text fields or at times they do not Patch. The solution here (not sure if it helps you) was to SetFocus to something else on the screen at the start of the Patch code. Maybe you can try this at the end of your scan commit code.
Joel CustomerEffective 3,224 on at

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Re: Initiating on change without hitting enter with external barcode scanner

Warren, that is not what I'm referring to--it's not the power apps scanner control, it is an external Bluetooth barcode scanner which basically acts like an external keyboard on an android tablet. You set focus on a text field, scan with the external scanner, and the barcode value is captured in the text field. The challenge is to initiate a process on change of the field the value must be committed by tabbing our of the field or clicking something else on the tablet screen. Users don't like that extra click after they scan
WarrenBelz 146,547 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Re: Initiating on change without hitting enter with external barcode scanner

Hi @jlindstrom ,
I am not sure I am reading your requirements correctly, but are you referring to initiating the scan or dealing with the scan output?
For the second, the OnScan property of the scan control can initiate whatever code you need. For the first, it is possible to have the scanner re-initiate after a scan by adding to the end of the code mentioned above
Select(YourScannerControlName)
Is this what you are referring to?

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