User manual

ScanVue5® Mini Kiosk
User Manual
M37574–01T
Industrial Electronic Engineers, Inc.
23-June-2008 RevT Page 88
Text Over Graphics (Mixed Mode) Operation
When text is sent to ScanVue5
®
and overlays a graphic image without destroying the
graphic, this is known as mixed mode (or text over graphics) operation. To use this
mode of operation a graphic image file name is specified on the MsgChecking line in
UnitConfig instead of the default “Checking….Please Wait” text message. This image is
called wallpaper and will appear every time an item is scanned with the barcode reader.
In addition, the TextDisplay line in Unitconfig must be set to MIXED.
Text over graphics may only be used with wallpaper—in other words, you cannot send a
random graphic and then send text to overlay it. The implied restriction here is that the
graphic image is always the same unless you send a new one to replace it.
In Mixed mode, text is displayed inside a text information block (TIB). The TIB is
opaque and covers the image. As long as the TIB is smaller than the full 320x240 image
size some of the image will show around the edges of the TIB. A TIB could be defined
to be as small as 1 character wide x 1 character high and might only cover a small part
of the image. If the TextTransparent mode in UnitConfig is set, the TIB becomes
transparent and only the text characters are opaque. Depending on your application,
this might have a more pleasing look.
ScanVue5
®
can only have one 256–color palette at a time. When text is displayed any
palette can be loaded. When text is displayed over a graphic the palette from the
graphic should be used as it’s easier to modify the text color than to deal with a corrupt
appearing image. The best way to handle this is to have your art department use the
same palette for all their work or reserve certain indices for certain color values.
Default Text Setting
The default text setting is 7 rows x 20 characters. At the default font and character size,
the TIB will cover the whole screen except for about 8 pixels top and bottom. If you do
not change the default settings it will appear mixed mode doesn’t work correctly. We
recommend you set the text to 2 rows or make the font much smaller before you start
experimenting. Change it in the ScanVue.ini file.
Define the TIB using modeset commands. The parameters are height in # characters,
width in # characters, background color, foreground (text) color and the location of the
top left corner TIB in pixels from left and top edges of the screen.
Single TIB
The normal mode of operation after an item is scanned is for the wallpaper to display, a
text message (TIB) is sent by the host and overlaid on the wallpaper and then the host
should hang up. If the host doesn’t break the connection, ScanVue5
®
will sit and wait for
another TIB and will appear to be hung. It will eventually recover (~30 min timeout), but
the preferred way to ensure this doesn’t happen is set the mode SingleQTrans to
TRUE. This will force ScanVue5
®
to close the connection after the first TIB is received.