A lot of mobile applications use the camera of a smartphone or tablet to scan barcodes or QR-codes from real-world products, documents, etc. But what about web applications built with HTML and JavaScript? Let's take a look at the possibilities we have with HTML5 and modern mobile browsers!

This tutorial shows, how to connect a barcode scanner to a web application based on jQuery. We are going to take a look at the most important settings of the jQuery.ScannerDetection plugin and the first steps to take when starting to work with a new scanner model.

Mobile barcode scanners - wireless, cabled or built into enterprise handhelds - can be used for fast and simple data capture in business applications. This article describes the current possibilities to connect a barcode scanner to a web application based on jQuery or jQuery mobile with pure JavaScript - no PhoneGap or other hardware oriented APIs. In fact, it is so easy, you can start using a scanner in just a few minutes!