robk Posted October 26, 2013 Posted October 26, 2013 Does anyone know of any way of using either a standard mifare card reader or if there are any readers that can be configured with the correct character prefix for Eclipse? Trying to get rid of biometrics on our library system and we have now issued mifare cards to all users, so that seems to be a good way to go!
dhicks Posted October 26, 2013 Posted October 26, 2013 Does anyone know of any way of using either a standard mifare card reader or if there are any readers that can be configured with the correct character prefix for Eclipse? Do you mean you've tried a Mifare card reader that acts as a USB keyboard and you need to put a couple of characters before the string that it produces, every time a card is read? My guess would be that you need to produe a modified USB keyboard driver that looks for the specific USB ID of your card reader. The source code for a standard USB keyboard driver for Windows might be available, you'll have to have a look around.
robk Posted October 26, 2013 Author Posted October 26, 2013 That is exactly the issue, just not been able to find a solution to the programming issue. So hoping there may be either a hardware solution that works, or some a software fix that someone could recommend.
rland Posted October 27, 2013 Posted October 27, 2013 RF IDeas has a reader RDR-7581aku which is a configurable Mifare reader. You can config the reader to have 3 pre or post keystrokes around the mifare ID reader. RFIDeas - Proximity & Contactless Card Readers, it is called pcProx for MIFARE. 1
plexer Posted October 28, 2013 Posted October 28, 2013 @robk I've got one of those RFIdeas mifare card reader on my desk I can test this for you if you want? Ben
robk Posted October 29, 2013 Author Posted October 29, 2013 @plexer that would be really useful. Did you get it from a uk supplier? I am looking for a prefix letter (I think mls uses ~) the 10 digit card serial no then a enter key. Has anyone done this with ellipse.net?
plexer Posted October 29, 2013 Posted October 29, 2013 @robk The reader came from Altman as part of our secureprint solution but I've seen them on uk websites for cheaper than what Altman charge. The pcProxConfig does allow a prefix to be set and it works however I'm struggling to make it output ~ as it's configured in the s/w with an onscreen keyboard that appears to be a US layout one and where the ~ is on that keyboard outputs the wrong character on my system. Ben
bennz Posted October 29, 2013 Posted October 29, 2013 You are trying to get the device to work like a barcode reader which is difficult and normally requires some 3rd party software for the reader to emulate a barcode reader. In that 3rd party software you would configure the prefix but you need to ensure your RFID value exists in the barcode field of eclipse for each borrower. Have you tried to set your device within the Eclipse hardware settings? Note - I'm sure you need a licence from MLS to integrate RFID.
robk Posted November 8, 2013 Author Posted November 8, 2013 It's a hardware mifare reader I am looking for ideally.
plexer Posted November 8, 2013 Posted November 8, 2013 You are trying to get the device to work like a barcode reader which is difficult and normally requires some 3rd party software for the reader to emulate a barcode reader. In that 3rd party software you would configure the prefix but you need to ensure your RFID value exists in the barcode field of eclipse for each borrower. Have you tried to set your device within the Eclipse hardware settings? Note - I'm sure you need a licence from MLS to integrate RFID. It's not working like a barcode reader it reads the serial number from the card and outputs the text, the rfideas software does allow a prefix to be set. Yes the borrow field would have to be populated with their mifare serial number but I don't see why a licence would be needed? Ben
robk Posted September 9, 2015 Author Posted September 9, 2015 Just Bumping this old thread... Has anyone been able to do this? Ideally with hardware that's slightly less cost then the RFIdeas unit suggested?
dhicks Posted September 9, 2015 Posted September 9, 2015 Just Bumping this old thread... Has anyone been able to do this? Ideally with hardware that's slightly less cost then the RFIdeas unit suggested? Just re-reading the thread: if the barcode number always goes in a particular input field you could use an AutoIt script to look out for input going into that field and have that script modify the data and press "enter" for the user.
robk Posted September 10, 2015 Author Posted September 10, 2015 @dhicks, the snag with that is most mifare card readers just emulate the keyboard, as do barcode readers, eclipse uses a prefix to determine if the input string is from the barcode reader (there is no input box) and reacts accordingly. So to scan a barcode you see ~12345678 typed, and eclipse recognises that and reads barcode 12345678. I need to emulate the same thing from a mifare card reader but with the 10 digit card serial no.
dhicks Posted September 11, 2015 Posted September 11, 2015 eclipse uses a prefix to determine if the input string is from the barcode reader (there is no input box) and reacts accordingly. So to scan a barcode you see ~12345678 typed, and eclipse recognises that and reads barcode 12345678. If there's no text input box, where are you seeing that "~12345678" string? A screen grab of Eclipse's main waiting-for-barcode-scan screen might be handy.
plexer Posted September 11, 2015 Posted September 11, 2015 If there's no text input box, where are you seeing that "~12345678" string? A screen grab of Eclipse's main waiting-for-barcode-scan screen might be handy. If you use the supplied barcode reader and scan in to notepad it will display ~12345678 Ben
robk Posted September 11, 2015 Author Posted September 11, 2015 @dhicks Ben has it spot on. Eclipse actually is now web based so I suspect it just monitors key up/down events for the prefix and reacts accordingly.
dhicks Posted September 11, 2015 Posted September 11, 2015 Eclipse actually is now web based so I suspect it just monitors key up/down events for the prefix and reacts accordingly. You could write a new input page, one that submitted to the same URL as the original but knew to append the "~" character beforehand.
robk Posted September 11, 2015 Author Posted September 11, 2015 It's a silverlight application so I don't think we could get that involved, plus externally hosted so no chance of seeing the server side code.
dhicks Posted September 14, 2015 Posted September 14, 2015 It's a silverlight application so I don't think we could get that involved, plus externally hosted so no chance of seeing the server side code. You don't need to know what happens server-side - you could use Wireshark to examine a GET or POST request to the external server when you scan a barcode, then write a simple input-form page that replicates that. That's not going to work if the site uses HTTPS, of course, as you'd rather hope it would.
bennz Posted September 14, 2015 Posted September 14, 2015 MLS have a plugin that should contain drivers and some options to tell Eclipse to look at your RFID reader. In the options you tell Eclipse where to look in its system for the value that's on the RFID, obviously you will have to import this into the system against the right student. If you have access to support with MLS, log in and search for 2090 it should show you the MLS Support article that explains above in more detail. 1
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