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Is it possible redirect user to launch scanner application?

I'm writing an application to show the uploaded documents using python3-django-1.8.1. We also want to allow user to scan a document.
As you know that, there is a print dialog in javascript.
window.print()
Is there any support in the browser to scan a document?
Is it possible to launch a scanner application on clients machine, using javascript/python?
like:
"Windows Fax and Scan" on Windows machines
"Simple Scan" on linux, etc. OR
Whatever the default scanner application on respective os of the client.
Any third party python application/js plugin allow to scan a document?

I am not too familiar with a image scanning feature, but I had faced a similar issue with a barcode scanner.
You cannot actually expect something similar to printing, as printing is a browser-enabled feature whereas scanning is something a typical browser does not do.
Moreover, JS has no capability of accessing peripherals directly. What would happen if this page would be browsed by a mobile? (A scan from the camera would be fantastic but never heard of anything like it).
Having said that, there is a scanner.js SDK:
scanner.js enables any web page to acquire images from scanners using JavaScript in most desktop browsers like IE, Chrome, Firefox and more. In most cases, software install is not required and the user can enjoy a great scanning experience.
Also there is a Twain SDK:
Dynamic Web TWAIN is a TWAIN-based scanning SDK software specifically designed for web applications.
These are supposingly dealing with your issue but I haven't used them. Scanner.js demo is not even working now on my Ubuntu machine. My guess is that they are not entirely JS-based anyway (com objects and stuff).
Other things to do is to have a small Firefox plugin developed if your case is specific (such as Intranet) so to control the users' browsers.
Last, but not least, another option would be to develop and provide a small desktop app to handle scanning and uploading.
If there is any other recommendation I would love to see it.

Capture web page data using native language code

I'm looking for leads on how to capture web page metadata from the current browser page. I want to create a feature in my application that will allow the user to press a hot key and record meta data from the web page currently open in the user's browser. My application will be running minimized, this feature is to be activated by a global hot key.
I'm using nw.js (formerly Node-Webkit) to create this application, so ideally, the solution would be javascript running in a desktop installation of Node.js. If this is not practical, I understand that I can call platform specific code from nw.js, so solutions developed in any desktop os language would be of interest.
My application targets OS X and Windows.
I'm hoping to capture metadata from all major modern browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari and IE 10+).
At a minimum I need to capture the page url, but I also want to capture Keywords, Description and highlighted text for the source web page.
I need to implement this function without modifying the source webpage in any way, and I prefer to avoid the need for browser extensions, bookmarklets or plugins.
If a solution exists using a remote controlled browser extension (no user interaction) that would be of interest, but ideally I want to avoid requiring the end user to install or interact with anything but my application.
My search to date has located no information on reading web page information from applications outside the browser.
Any thoughts or leads are much appreciated.

How can I access to USB stick from website?

I'm planning to make a login system by USB, so if you put in a USB-drive and open a specific webpage, the website asks the USB-drive for the code (e.g. by a JavaScript file, a redirect or something like that).
The problem is, because of sandboxing, you can't load or redirect to local files. I don't know a solution for this problem. Can you guys help me? I don't need specific code, just an example or something in that way.

Maybe you can read up on USB-HID. Wikipedia:
The USB human interface device class (USB HID class) is a part of the USB specification for computer peripherals: it specifies a device class (a type of computer hardware) for human interface devices such as keyboards, mice, game controllers and alphanumeric display devices.
Here are some references:
USB HID (Human Interface Device)
node-hid - Access USB HID devices from node.js
DepthJS: 'Allows any web page to interact with the Microsoft Kinect using Javascript'.
A related Stackoverflow question:
Write data to USB HID using Javascript, HTML5, or any cross platform language (supports Android)

One other possibility is to check out the Chrome HID (Human Interface Device) APIs:
Interacting with USB HID devices from web apps – via Chrome Apps, see below
Relevant Chrome API docs
Please note that for the time being, you cannot interact directly with the USB device (i.e. you cannot access any WebAPI offering that kind of fine-grained control).
Building a Chrome App (different from a Chrome Extension) may help; This article may point you in the right direction, since it also provides sample code.

The only way I can think of is putting a html file on the usb stick that essentially generates some sort of login token and gives you a link or a form to a login processor. You can then access the webpage by opening the local file first which will redirect you to the actual webpage.
This local script may include a javascript from the server to get some challenge-response-data which it hashes somehow (perhaps in combination with a password) and puts it into the form data.

Web PKI authentication from Modern Browsers may be achieved by using Browser Extension. One such extension is Signer.Digital browser extension. Use below Javascript promises from the APIs provided by Signer.Digital extension.
SignerDigital.getSelectedCertificate() to register user's certificate
SignerDigital.signHash(hash) to sign token at browser and verify at server
For all Javascript APIs refer to SO Answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/63173083/9659885

Disclaimer : I work for a company supporting the application below
Hello, you may try to use Nexu open-source application for communication with smartcards or USB tokens. It also support PKCS 12 keystores.
For example, the application is connected to the DSS webpage on the website of European Commission : see the link.

Get a tablets(iPad or Droid) mac address?

Synopsis: I am developing a HTML5 web app that will allow tablets(iPad or Droid) to login to a server and perform various functions. The client would like a way to check the devices mac address when logging in. From what I have read, most solutions use activex objects that will not work for webkit browsers.
Question: Does anyone know a solution that would hook into a HTML5 web app seamlessly(Idealy update a hidden form element with the value upon logging in)?
Thanks!

I don't think there's going to be a straightforward way to do this. The web server won't be exposed to a client's MAC address unless they're on the same physical segment...you'll only see the MAC from the most recent router hop in general.
If anything exists, it's going to be a browser plugin (show-stopper on iOS). And it would probably need more than the default permissions available (I don't suspect you can enumerate network interfaces in Java, for example, without asking for elevated permissions).

If you're looking for HTML/JS only then I don't think that this is possible. It won't be exposed.
The problem is that the packets you recieve back will only contain the MAC address of the node on the last hop.
This may be possible via a plugin, but then this limits you on iOS, and possibly also Android as you'd need to provide them a way of getting the plugin first (unless you used a plugin that was installed by default).
Edit: Not that I support an app for every little thing, but it shows that easy to press app buttons sometimes tend to do better than web apps (regardless of being able to make browser shortcuts to home screens). If it is suitable, you could consider loading this within a web view on the target device from within an app, from which you can then of course access MAC addresses and whatever else you may need.
MobiThinking: Mobile applications: native v Web apps – what are the pros and cons?
Forbes: Mobile Web App vs. Native App? It's Complicated

How to create web app shortcut on user's desktop programmatically?

For enterprise intranet web application, is there any way to create a desktop shortcut of web application on user's desktop? I'm looking for functionality similar to Google Gears, but without installing Google Gears. I'm looking to give user's a link on web application that says "Click here to install desktop shortcut", when they click on it, a desktop shortcut is installed with the custom icon for our application. Is there a way to do it using javascript or any other client side technologies? I don't want to run any exe on user's machines. Even though it's intranet, I have to jump through lot of corporate hoops, compliance approvals, etc to run exe on their machine. We are trying to avoid that, due to time constraints. User machines are windows XP with IE6 installed. They may all upgrade within next year's time to Windows 7 with IE8. Intranet web application in question is developed using asp.net 3.5, c#.

If this is really a corporate environment then just go talk to the network operations team.
It should be trivial for them to add something to the login script to push this link to the people's desktops.
More Info:
http://www.petri.co.il/forums/showthread.php?t=6154
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en/winserverGP/thread/02a7bfbb-180f-40eb-82e3-2343b2bf31eb

Alright, at first I thought that this was an impossible task, until I realized that it's not.
A shortcut is just a file, and we all know you can download files from links.
I'm not sure how well windows shortcuts can be transferred from computer to computer, but I would assume that a shortcut with a location like http://www.google.com/ is not tied to any specific windows machine.
You could zip the shortcut, and point the link to the location of the zip file. Tell the users to unzip the file and place the shortcut. You may be able to just serve the shortcut, but you'd have to give the right headers, and probably specify application/octet-stream or something like it.
Alternatively you can tell them to right click, go to new -> shortcut, and copy-pasta the url into the location box.
Alternatively you could write a batch file for the users to download that opens a url in the default browser.
I know it's not quite as direct as click-button -> receive bacon but it will work.

Try looking at SaveAs
document.execCommand("SaveAs", false, "url to desktop");
The user will still have to click save and it only saves a HTML page. You would have to open a hidden IFrame containing a web application and call .execCommand on the iframe's document.`

You can create a shortcut (.lnk) file in a directory in your site and put it as the Url for a hyperlink so the users right click and save as they download the .lnk file. Your server will need the mime-type .lnk application/x-ms-shortcut adding.
The icon can be done by putting it on a network location and using the "Change icon" function to refer to this network location. This works on Windows. I suppose it could be adapted for each OS required?