android, zxing, styling the response - android

alright so I've searched for quite sometime on this and I can't seem to find just the kind of answer that answers my questions...so here goes nothing! And mind you, I'm new to android dev soooo I may have stupid questions that some of you may get irritated at, but we all have to learn some how right?
I'm trying to develop an application that will allow users to scan in a QR code and then display the information that is encoded into it in a nice organized way.
It seems like ZXing doesn't like the idea of integrating their code with other applications e.g. you have to use their application from the market and point to it via intents... well if I do it this way, can I decode the contents so that I can have access to the content and do as I want with it?
What would I have to include in my project from the ZXing folder that I downloaded to make it all work? And would I have to build all of the objects with in that folder in order to use them in my project?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
I have decided to go other routes.

The "Android way" is to do everything via intents.. However, zxing is a special case. You can follow the intent route, or you can (as it's apache licensed), download the source code and adapt as necessary. We did that for the game Barcode Beasties ( mandatory self promoting download link here : https://market.android.com/details?id=com.fawepark.android.barcodebeasties ) and that meant we could also brand the scan page as well.
If you want use the software integrated, then just download the source and either compile it as a library or just include it in your source folder as another folder.

Related

Building an App Builder - how do they do it?

The internet is full of solutions where someone with no coding experience can design an app, and then have it deployed to their phones via another app. So for example you can log on to appsheet, create all the parameters for an application, then download appsheet to your phone. from there, you log into your appsheet account, and download any of the apps you have created.Does anyone know how this is accomplished?
My use case is that I have an app that I would like to offer to Universities, but would like each universities' mobile application to be custom built for their needs. I have developed web, android and ios apps in the past, and have a Software Engineering background, so I am looking for the right methodology to accomplish something like this. Are there any specific frameworks or technologies you would advise me look at to accomplish this tasking? If you have any questions or concerns for me, please do not hesitate to ask!
I work at AppSheet. There are two basic approaches an app builder can follow: (a) act as a code generator, or (b) implement an intepreter. In the former case, it spits out code that gets compiled into an executable package that can be installed and run on a device. In the latter case, the "app" you define is meta-data in a higher-level definition that is interpreted in a host wrapper app. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. AppSheet uses the latter approach.
My bet is that they just have one universal, configurable app which they configure for your specific needs by generating a config file or something like that, and then packaging it all up into an apk.
Your idea is great but that is not possible. We cannot imagine every scenario to build such app. We have to imagine for each scenario and have to code for such scenarios.

Incorporate vuforia android SDK in a new project

I want to use vuforia sdk's text recognition module in my new app.
I have been successful in building and running their sample apps. However, having done that was apparently not enough for me to figure out how to start using vuforia android sdk in my mew project in a proper way.
The IDE is Android Studio. I have the license key for my vuforia account.
Could someone help me get started? I jist need to start using vuforia as a library in my own personal project. I do not want to start developing directly over their sample apps.
I am sorry if the context of the questions doesn't fit into that of this particular community.
I wanted to do exactly what you said. I didn't want to build on the top of their samples. I struggled to find a tutorial but there is none, at least I was not able to fine one. Turns out it is really easy. Go to the Vuforia folder(wherever you installed it) and then head to vuforia-sdk-android-X-XX-X\build\java\vuforia and copy the .jar file and paste that file to your new project in Android studio inside your libs folder. Then add this line to your Build.Gradle
compile files('libs/Vuforia.jar')
inside your dependencies. That's it. You can access all the Vuforia classes from there. Don't forget to instanciate them just like in the example with your own key from Vuforia developer console.
I don't know if this is still relevant, but... This link shows what you need to do, code-wise, for creating a new Vuforia App: How can I build a basic Vuforia app. This, along with the links you have already seen regarding the setup, should be enough for you to get started from scratch.
Instead of relying on Vuforia's module, I built my own real-time OCR from scratch, using the Camera (1) API and Google's Mobile Vision Library.
My app - Optical Dictionary & Vocabulary Teacher - performs a lot better than Vuforia's module. It does real-time scanning of words, shows them in a more friendly manner, and does way better validation of words. It even lemmatizes the words (e.g fooled -> fool, thieves -> thief etc).
Also, needless to say that this gave me complete control over my module as well.
Here is a Video Demo of my app.
If any one wants to build something similar, they can feel free to contact me for assistance.

Android View PDF with form

I need to view some PDF files with embeded form and process values that user inputs in form. Does anyone have such experience? Can you suggest library for it or another solution. I cannot use GPL solutions, because my apps will be proprietary.
I would suggest you to use mu-pdf library.If you want to use MUPDF inside an existing android app project you can follow the guide you find at this link (all credits go to the author, I didn't write this).
Also, as we both (if I understood correctly your needs) need just the PDF rendering features, would be great if someone points out how to (if possible) disable some of the unnecessary features built in the MuPDF library when building it from source (as DjVu support, just as an example).
GITHUB --> https://github.com/muennich/mupdf
take note that is not free for commercial apps –
check this for better help -->Integrate MuPDF Reader in an app
update
Some of the source code files for PDF viewer in Android application. Check the links and try it:
http://code.google.com/p/apv/source/browse/
http://code.google.com/p/android-pdf/
http://code.google.com/p/droidreader/
http://andpdf.sourceforge.net/

Is it not possible to read QR codes in an android application without having a third party app installed?

I am looking at making use of QR codes in an application of mine.
I did some research / Googling and I found that this library is apparently a good option to use:
http://sourceforge.net/p/zbar/news/
But I read there it says that is still needs an application that can read qr codes for it to work?
Is there not a library that just makes use of the camera and then decodes the qr code in the application that is using the library?
If you need to scan QR codes in your application, this is the way to go :https://code.google.com/p/zxing/
You can also integrate the necessary libraries in your project in order to avoid to launch a scan using the Intent way (so a third-party app installed on your device would be necessary).
If you Google it, you'll find a lot of guides to do that: the first I got is http://www.androidaz.com/development/zxing-qr-reader-direct-integration but there's a plenty of tutorials out there.
ZBar can be installed as a library in the project, and used as any other activity.
You can Check:
https://github.com/DushyanthMaguluru/ZBarScanner/blob/master/examples/ZBarScannerDemo/src/com/dm/zbar/android/examples/MainActivity.java
That's the example of how to use ZBAR to read a QR, in the onActivityResult you can handle the results (in this case the example makes a toast).
You can follow the installation explanation here:
https://github.com/ZBar/ZBar/tree/master/android

Own QR code scanner app for android

I'm beginner in android and I need to create own QR code scanner app.
After searching for some library, of course I found zxing library (http://code.google.com/p/zxing/), but if I understand right, there must be installed BarcodeScanner application to use it and this library call this app. This variant is bad for me, because I need only my own app.
But if I'm not right, how to use this library without installing BarcodeScanner?
Also I found this: http://www.blackdogfoundry.com/blog/zbar-bar-code-qr-code-reader-android/, and I'm not sure that it will work fine with all devices.
Did anyone do some qr readers, what did you use? Do you know some other good libraries for this, except of zxing?
ZXing is good and useful library. I think you are mixing up library itself and application
which is also produced by the project
I wouldnt be so quick to dismiss Barcode Scanner.
I recently used it in an App that needed to read barcodes. It works seamlessly with my App. The only downside is that it needs to be installed by the user, but to be honest weighting that up against the time and money it would take to develop a Barcode reader from scratch, its a no brainer. If the user does not have it installed it will not break your app.
I know this is not the answer you were looking for but just thought I would offer my experience
You may also try to call the BarCode scanner App and obtain the result in the parameter of strings rather than importing the whole zxing library into your project due to substantial cost to code integration into your project . Using intents and overriding the OnActivityResult is already a good solution.
XZing is your answer!
yeah yeah they try to push it to use as an external library, but that relies on the user having it installed.... but it's all open source and you can use it however you prefer.
So download that code, integrate it directly into your app and there you go.

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