Possible to trigger scripts with a USB device?

[Kent Searight]

Hi all,

I have a client that would like to trigger a script by clicking on a USB foot pedal device. The foot pedal device actually consists of 3 pedals and is originally designed for doing medical transcribing on a PC. My end user is an all Mac business. Any ideas how I'd go about this?

Thanks in advance!

-Kent

[AudioFreak]

If the device is programmable like some scanners I would say yeah it can be done fairly easily depending on how tough it is to program.

Would basically tell the device do Ctrl-1 to do that script as listed in the script menu.

Edit: Just noticed it was a PC Device and computers are Mac....Might be impossible if there is no driver for the device for mac or find one that runs on mac.

Michael

Edited July 14, 2007 by Guest

[MarkWilson]

Kent,

Can you access the device setup?

The other option would be using a wedge to monitor the port. I have used the TWedge and TWedgeCE products from Tec-It.com for desktop serial and bluetooth devices and bluetooth for PDA.

[JesseSFR]

I have never seen a wedge in use and it sounds like that would be a sweet solution. If you are lucky enough to have the footpedal just be a standard keyboard input then all you have to do is program it as audiofreak says.

I've done it a bunch of times with barcode scanners because they are basically just keyboards but never had a client as for foot pedal integration.... sounds like a fun project.

[Kent Searight]

Thanks for all the responses!

AudioFreak, there's a program for the Mac that this works with. According to the instructions:

"For Mac OS X just plug them into the USB socket and run Express Scribe and they will be detected normally."

Does this mean that the device could be re-programmable? How does one go about doing that?

Thanks!

[MarkWilson]

Kent,

Go to NCH Swift Sound's website. They have an SDK.

[Kent Searight]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the reply, but this is getting over my head very quickly. Do you think that the pedal that uses a serial port connection might be a better way to go if I use it in conjunction with Troi Serial plug-in?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[AudioFreak]

I don't think it really matters. It's just an input device.

[Kent Searight]

I guess what I'm asking is if there's a path-of-least-resistance for me to take. Are you saying that you see both paths as equal?

[MarkWilson]

Kent,

A wedge program is really very simple. It takes the device input and converts it into keystokes. You get to program what the incoming data stream is converted to for the program to receive it. Nice and easy.

After reading the specs on the Troi Serial Plug-in, I believe the Troi plug-in has far more features and will likely work easier with FileMaker.

I have not tested the wedge I use to trigger scripts but it should work; it is just keystrokes??? I use it far more for dropping data into Excel right now.

You can try the full featured demo of Tec-It.com's wedge, TWedge.

If you tell me what your incoming data looks like, I can help you configure the wedge settings file for the correct output or let me know how the Serial Plug-in works. I can forsee some upcoming uses for some of their features.

[Kent Searight]

Hey Mark,

Will a wedge work on Mac? That's what the end user is running.

Thanks for your help.

[MarkWilson]

No, TWedge is a Windows program.