There are more and more barcodes in this world, and a way to easily plop barcode usage into a customization would be a welcome enhancement. Accurate, fast and easy data entry is key in today’s world or real time data and data analytics. Pure Keyboard wedges are a pain, and not very user friendly.
@fredmeissner’s use of hotkeys is a good example of how it could work. This should be something that you can add using the wizard using the form event wizard.
When I think of Epicor’s plans of a connected factory, I think the interface from a scanner to ERP 10 would not go through the human interface (Windows Form), which is what the wedge does. I agree that putting tabs in the bar code is not an optimal solution as some barcodes contain multiple values or prefixes indicating what kind of data. This requires some preprocessing of the input.
You might create a textbox for receiving the barcode input but then the user has to remember to click into it. Maybe in “barcode mode”, the form would automatically setfocus to the that field.
I agree it could use a general purpose solution but I’m not sure what it would look like.
Mark W.
Yeah, that’s where I’m at now. It sounds petty, but the couple of extra clicks really cause a problem with my workforce. (legitimate problem…? I don’t know, but it’s still a battle.) High volume, real world amplifies small workarounds to where they aren’t so small anymore.
Of course, maybe the longer term solution will be a WebApp that skips the MES form altogether. The app is designed around your process and is loosely coupled to Epicor via REST. Now you have everything you want. Something easy for the users to use, fairly easy to upgrade, and maintain. 
I guess don’t see that as any easier than writing the listener in C#… (#notaprogrammer) 
edit: Also, I am looking into trying to use Bezlio to do just that. Still in the trial phase. At this point, it looks like it’s a little to technically advanced for us, but they can make some things for use to do that. We’ll see how that ends up working.
I used this to clock into Ops in MES using Barcodes that are being printed on my job travelers. I opt’d to use a PDF417 Barcode, generated with a custom DLL that I’m calling through SSRS. J and Z are already set as hotkeys in MES for other customizations, so I used $ to start, and # to end the barcode.
I took the code you provided and tweaked it to match my ending character and it has been working flawlessly for a few weeks now. This has easily been the best customization I have added to our system.