On Thu, 2004-12-23 at 09:52 -0500, m. allan noah wrote: > rich, there has been a bit of discussion about how to handle buttons on > scanners, though MFD's may be different if they use a separate usb > interface for each function. Search the archives of this list for more > detail. I'll give them a search, is there a decent search interface somewhere other than archive by month? > > but i wonder, if the button issue was solved, how would your system know > which user pressed the button? how would it know who to notify? how is the > device related to user accounts currently? > In this case, all scan stations will collect only one type of document - orders - and forward them to a central operator for input into the computerized ordering system, so it doesn't matter which person presses the scan button.
All incoming orders are to be stored in a particular place on the network, and the only tricky bit is to notify the operator of new orders, much the same as an email application notifies it's users of a new e-mail message. A frontend program that shows the queue of incoming scans and allows the operator to dispatch them ought to already exist somewhere. Even in my simple case, we do have one routing issue. Some orders are routine and others are considered high priority. High priority orders must be at the top of the list before the routine orders. How will we know? The user fills in a box if the order is high priority. We will need to examine a region of the page and determine if the check box is filled in. Perhaps later we will have other types of forms to deal with. It seems that we should be able to content scan for a barcode that indicates the document type, and base routing decisions on the document type. Perhaps we need a two forms - one with a high priority barcode, and another with a regular priority barcode. In summary, some organized content of the document should be enough to determine the routing. If you have any insight into this kind of routing under linux, please let me know. -- Regards, Rich Current Conditions in Des Moines, IA Clear Temp -0.4F, Windchill -15.5F Winds out of the North at 9mph
