Handle QR code scan intents

At first, thanks for this great app! It looks a lot nicer than the original Barcode Scanner app from zxing while being at least as powerful and fast!

One downside I noticed while using BinaryEye is that most of the apps calling a QR Code reader application use the native Barcode Scanner intent (com.google.zxing.client.android.SCAN), which is not handled by BinaryEye. I would find it very useful to be able to select BinaryEye as a target application for scanning QR Codes. Sadly, there does not seem to exist an package-independant Intent for querying any installed QR code scanner apps.

A quite simple workaround would be to add a new intent filter with the same name as Barcode scanner and handle it inside CaptureActivity.java.

What do you think of such a functionality? I would be willing to look into it, but I wanted to discuss it here first.

[ialokim]

AFAIK, it did not open for the QR code scan intend of Firefox for Android: (mostly tested with Firefox for Android)

and (from #10):

I’m using syncthing from fdroid. When trying to add another device via QR code, the app asks if barcode reader should be installed (it even specifically asks for/suggests zxing) even though BinaryEye (also from fdroid) is installed. This does not happen if zxing is installed.

This happens because most likely Firefox and Syncthing (and most other apps) are using the IntentIntegrator from the ZXing library. Inside this Java file, all apps “known to respond properly to the intent” are hardcoded.

So, in my opinion the way to go is:

• properly evaluate the intent’s extra options within BinaryEye (which appears to be nothing but SCAN_FORMATS and SCAN_CAMERA_ID)
• create a PR for the ZXing library to include BinaryEye as a compatible application
• create PRs for all apps using the IntentIntegrator.java class (most likely copies of ZXing’s one)

Edit:

• at least syncthing e.g. is adding the ZXing code via Gradle, so only the version number should be bumped whenever a PR adding BinaryEye is accepted.
• Firefox for Android is explicitly restricting QR code intents to the Barcode Scanner App

[rugk]

AFAIK, it did not open for the QR code scan intend of Firefox for Android: (mostly tested with Firefox for Android) See https://support.mozilla.org/kb/scan-qr-codes-firefox-android

IMHO, you should really implement this, as the original ZXing app is not so nice and buggy.