Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks
A 'Keyboard Wedge' model just looks like another keyboard. No driver needed...
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Used those years ago. They were PS/2 based. No idea if USB ones exist, but no pass through needed as you can connect a second USB keyboard unlike PS/2 or original AT or PC DIN. A smart USB barcode scanner or wireless RX box ought to be user configurable as HID keyboard or Serial over USB. It's even possible to program a $2 PIC that takes a USB client connector directly to do that and connect to any arbitary ancient Keyboard or Serial barcode scanner. Add two and a pair of off the shelf 864MHz or BT serial modules (under $10 each) and convert an old Keyboard or Serial barcode scanner to wireless.
Having to be in the correct field is an issue, hence a plug-in that automatically checks if ISBN already there, of if not adds a record and looks up ISBN databases.
When I started on this there was no public Internet ISBN databases, in fact no web sites!
It's not needed to look up Amazon. There are ISBN databases, though they might just have the publisher block and not the title.
I just tested my phone's barcode scanner which only previews (no network permission). Then you tap on what you want to do. By default if you tap Books it opens the default web browser and Google Books, something like:
https://books.google.ie/books?vid=is...ir_esc=y&hl=en
So a plugin would have a place to configure search action and returned page parsing and thus only that would need user edits. The actual plugin only need edited if Calibre changes how it interacts.
I'm no fan of Google/alphabet, but likely they have more ISBNs for paper books as they have ones not in print and not on Amazon.