But, I'll still lay down some dollars for full access to HID devices.
Zebra gear is that much better than anything else out there. What good
is a first class software package, if you can only work with the second
best peripherals???
Cheers,
Tom
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On 31/03/2005, at 7:33 PM, Tom Benson wrote:
Lack of full HID support isn't as mysterious as one might think. No
one has wanted it up until now or at least wanted it enough to take
two minutes out of his day to file a feature request.
Why should RB spend several (possibly hundreds of) man hours adding a
feature no one wanted up until now?
Because they're going after the VB audience, who expect a comparable
feature set in this new environment. Myself, I've been using RB on and
off since it's conception as crossbasic about 8 years ago, when Andrew
Barry was at the helm. When I took on the project in question, I
looked at the hardware and learned EPL2, then said right, no reason I
can't do this on in RB. It's just very frustrating to have a half
implementation of HID standing in your way. If we can receive
information from HID devices, why can't we send info back?? Does RS
realise how many devices this would open developers up to??
GPS units
Telescopes
Microscopes
An army of Point Of Sales Hardware (tills, barcode printers, ID card
printers etc. etc. yada yada)
Scales
Medical Devices
Laboratory Equipment
If I needed HID support to control a USB printer or an inventory
control device would take me all of about 10 seconds to decide to hire
a reputable plugin developer to write the necessary code.
Right, but my first response is always to put these issues to the NUG
list and see what happens.
Turns out:
1) MBS plugin may be of some use, but who knows. The English docs for
that plugin are lacking. Some of it is easy, IOkit is not.
2) People have been asking about a full HID compliment way before
myself and Scott.
3) Charles has said it's possible, and may end up working on
something, which I will gladly pay him for if it is easy enough to
integrate and priced reasonably.
I would think such code would be worth somewhere in the neighborhood
of $500-$1000 to me.
But after looking at the sample HID code available at the Apple
website I'm afraid a developer would charge more than that.
In any event, I would recoup that cost from my client or employer.
Correct. IOkit is a bitch of a library for most mere mortals to deal
with. I wouldn't expect Charles to be able to wrap something like that
up inside about 15 hours, with maybe another 5 for testing.
I know what I invoice my time at, and I would expect Charles to be a
good deal pricier given his level of expertise. Even if Scott and I
went halves in his time, it would still blow the budget for my current
projects.
Luckily for my checkbook I don't currently have a need to access a HID
compliant device.
Very lucky. As I said, I've developed with RB for more than a few
years and have made good money. I think that more and more, developers
who are in the vertical market are going to run into issues with HID
devices, as fewer and fewer devices use serial bridges these days and
are becoming HID compliant instead. Luckily for me, the customer of
concern has seen enough of what my system will enable him to do to
realise that re-investing in new hardware will be worth the effort and
money. I'm switching over to Star Micronics gear for label and barcode
printing, and am still searching for a good ID card printer compatible
with OS X.
Cheers,
Tom
Dean Davis
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 18:36:20 -0800, Scott Wyatt <tameri at comcast dot net>
wrote:
Charles Yeomans wrote:
At present it's more accurate to say that I'm thinking about working
on an HID library. Perhaps those interested could tell me off-list
what they might be willing to pay for such a beast.
I haven't a clue... but without it, RB continues to reside in
"almost"
realm.
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