4 Step to Setup SoftwareWedge
The typical steps that are required to set up the Wedge successfully:
For a standard ASCII output device, such as a scale, bar code scanner
or gage, this should take between 5 and 15 minutes. For more complex data
it may take longer.
Step 1. Select how the Wedge will transfer incoming serial data
to your other Windows programs by choosing one of the options in the Mode
menu. The Wedge can transfer incoming serial data to other applications
by either converting the data to "keystroke messages" and "typing"
the data into another application's window or it can pass the data using
Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE). Sending data as keystrokes is generally much
simpler than using DDE. For this example we will use the Send Keystrokes
Method.
Step 2. Select the Settings option in the Port menu (below) and
choose the communications parameters that match the settings for the serial
device that you will be using. After you select your communications parameters,
you should select the Analyze option from the Port menu and transmit some
sample data from your serial device. This Analyze feature tests that you
are using the correct serial communications parameters and also lets you
gain an understanding of how the data from your serial device is structured.
Step 3. Select "Input Data Record Structure..." from
the Define menu (see below). This will present you with a series of simple
dialog boxes that allow you to first describe the structure of your incoming
serial data and finally describe how you want to parse, filter and format
the data as well as add additional data, keystrokes, or DDE commands to
the data before passing it on to the target application program. In the
Pro versions this step offers you many options, especially if you have
many fields of complex data coming from your device.
Step 4. The final step is to Activate the Wedge to start it working.
You may want to save your configuration first by selecting "Save"
from the File menu. To activate the Wedge simply select "Test Mode"
from the Activate menu.
Note:The Wedge will not work until you activate it by selecting
one of the options in the Activate menu. We recommend selecting "Test
Mode" until you have everything working the way you desire |
