User's Manual

PromptCOM/ActiveX is a drop in COM component that allow

programmers to easily add the ability to send prompts to and receive data

from their R/F Terminal via an RF Base Station. It is compatible with

Visual Basic, Visual C++, Delphi, and most other 32-bit development

platforms. See the help file for installation instructions.

Programming Considerations for Serial COM

Before making any method calls, make sure you :

 Set the COM port properties (device name, baud, parity, bits,) as

desired. Make sure the port is closed (call CloseDevice) before

making changes to any of the port settings.

 Call the OpenDevice method. This activates the COM port used

by this instance of the WDterm control.

 Set the ActiveTerminal property to identify the terminal on which

you desire to operate. You can change the ActiveTerminal at any

time in order to direct commands to appropriate terminals.

Test For Good Communication - Serial COM

Implement an event handler for OnTermBaseRegister that causes a beep or

displays a message when called. If communication between the host PC and

the base station is good, your event handler will fire when your program is

running and you power up an attached base station.

Multiple Base Stations



For installations using multiple base stations attached to a single host

PC (these were called "channels" in PromptCOM/DLL) simply add a

WDterm control to your application for each base station.

Terminal Tracking

 Since you get one set of event handlers for each base station, you will

need some scheme for keeping track of where each terminal (up to 64

per base station) is in its transaction sequence. One possible solution is

to use a "state"variable for each terminal (perhaps stored in an array).

Test the state variable to determine the next prompt for any given

terminal. See the samples for more ideas.

 It is very important to keep track of "login status" for each

terminal. Every SignOut event should have an associated SignIn

event and a given terminal should not be allowed to SignIn twice

without an intervening SignOut. Multiple SignIns from one

terminal without appropriate SignOuts indicate either:

1. A terminal going out of range and having its power cycled

before returning within range OR