http://www.perlmonks.org?node_id=1050977

perldiverx has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm creating a program that will take credit card swipe from a USB swiper or the credit card info can be entered manually. I've got a loop currently to read the credit card data being entered from a swiper and I have some buttons on the bottom of the window that the user can press to bring up fields to enter the credit card info into manually (ie card number, expiration date, etc). The problem is that while I'm looping to look for the credit card swipe I cannot accept the user's mouse click on the buttons. Has anyone every done this before/any ideas as how to do it?
Current code:

#!/usr/bin/perl use strict; use warnings; use diagnostics -verbose; use Win32; use Win32::GUI qw(ES_WANTRETURN WS_VISIBLE WS_VSCROLL ); my ($DOShwnd, $DOShinstance) = Win32::GUI::GetPerlWindow(); #Win32::GUI::Hide($DOShwnd); my $desk = Win32::GUI::GetDesktopWindow(); my $dw = Win32::GUI::Width($desk); my $dh = Win32::GUI::Height($desk); use vars qw/$window $status_bar $button1 $button2 $button3 $card_field $sale_field $event_field $card_number_label $option_flag/; $window = Win32::GUI::Window->new( -name => 'main', -text => "Credit Card Authorization", -pos => [170,130], -size => [625,450], -helpbox => 0, -resizable => 0, -maximizebox => 0, ); my $transaction_info = read_psin(); my @transaction_info = @{$transaction_info}; my $card_type = $transaction_info[0]; my $sale_amount = $transaction_info[1]; $status_bar = $window->AddStatusBar( -name => 'status_bar', -text => '', ); $window->Change( -onMouseMove => sub { $status_bar->Text(''); }, ); $button1 = $window->AddButton( -name => 'manual_dial', -text => '1', -size => [60,25], -pos => [120,355], -onMouseMove => sub { $status_bar->Text('Manual card entry with dia +l-out for approval'); }, ); $button2 = $window->AddButton( -name => 'swipe_phone', -text => '2', -size => [60,25], -pos => [270,355], -onMouseMove => sub { $status_bar->Text('Swipe card entry with phon +e call for an approval'); }, ); $button3 = $window->AddButton( -name => 'manual_phone', -text => '3', -size => [60,25], -pos => [420,355], -onMouseMove => sub { $status_bar->Text('Manual card entry with pho +ne call for an approval'); }, ); $window->AddLabel( -name => 'header', -text => 'Credit Card Authorization', -pos => [160,10], ); $window->AddLabel( -name => 'card_type', -text => 'Card Type:', -pos => [20,40], ); $window->AddLabel( -name => 'amount', -text => 'Sale Amount:', -pos => [20,80], ); $card_field = $window->AddTextfield ( -name => 'card_field', -text => $card_type, -size => [180,20], -pos => [90,39], -readonly => 1, ); $sale_field = $window->AddTextfield( -name => 'sale_field', -text => $sale_amount, -size => [180,20], -pos => [90,79], -readonly => 1, ); $event_field = $window->AddTextfield( -name => 'event_field', -size => [360,180], -pos => [120,160], -readonly => 0, -multiline => 1, ); my $card_input = $window->AddTextfield( -name => 'card_input', -size => [480,40], -pos => [90,119], -multiline => 1, -visible => 0, ); $card_number_label = $window->AddLabel( -name => 'card_number_label', -text => 'Card Number: ', -pos => [280,40&], -visible => 0, ); $window->Show(); $window->DoEvents(); $event_field->Append("Initializing modem... "); init_modem(); $event_field->Append("initialized\n"); $card_input->SetFocus(); $event_field->Append("Please swipe card... "); $window->Show(); $window->DoEvents(); my $input1 = $card_input->GetLine(0); my $input2 = $card_input->GetLine(1); while ($card_input->GetLine(1) !~ /\?$/) { #swipe ends second line wi +th a question mark $card_input->SetFocus(); $input1 = $card_input->GetLine(0); $input2 = $card_input->GetLine(1); $window->DoEvents(); # Win32::GUI::Dialog(); ####working here to take in the cl +ick event#### } $event_field->Append("swiped\n"); print "\$input1: $input1\n"; print "\$input2: $input2\n"; my $cc_number; if ($input1 =~ /^\%B(\d{16})/i) { $cc_number = $1; } my $exp_dt; if ($input2 =~ /\=(\d{2})(\d{2})(.*)/) { $exp_dt = $2 . $1; } sleep 1; $event_field->Append("Connecting... ");