Michael2210441
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2014 5:42 pm

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

Is UPC-A a serious limitation to building an app based on this plugin? I tried several products in my kitchen and none of them were scan-able because they are not UPC-A barcodes. These were everyday food products.

My bigger question is how to work around this. Is UPC-A going to be a limitation no matter how I approach it or is there a way to scan whatever type of barcode manufacturers seem to be using instead of UPC-A?

Thanks!

Michael2210441
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2014 5:42 pm

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

On further testing, it seems I get the error even with UPC-A barcodes.

I created the following UPC-A code:

Image

After scanning it with the demo app created by the plugin, I get the following message:
"Sorry, this application supports only UPC_A barcode format"

It's one of the simplest tutorials so I don't see how I could have gone wrong.

The rest of the demo app is working fine.

Illya Stepanov
Posts: 0
Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:48 am

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

Hi Michael,

I'm afraid that Food Essentials API supports only UPC-A barcodes.

But you can contact them directly or post your question on their forum here :: http://developer.foodessentials.com/f...

Michael2210441
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2014 5:42 pm

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

Thanks for your quick response. You probably didn't see my previous reply since it I added it at the same time you responded to me...

At first I thought the barcodes were not UPC_A, like the error message says, but then I tested with a known UPC_A barcode that I created, same error message.

I don't see anything in the tutorial about configuration beyond adding my api key.

I shared the app with a href="mailto:support@appery.io" rel="nofollow"support@appery.io/a in case that helps.

Illya Stepanov
Posts: 0
Joined: Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:48 am

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

We will test it Michael. What device you are using for your testings? (and OS version)

Michael2210441
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2014 5:42 pm

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

I've tested on two devices, Samsung Pad3 and LG G2 phone. I've used the barcode service in a QR app already and tested other scanner apps on these devices successfully.

Igor
Posts: 0
Joined: Tue Apr 02, 2013 12:05 pm

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

I've tested you app on Android device. It works perfect for me. It can be that you generate incorrect barcodes for products. Lets try to use below barcodes for testing.
You could also find upc code examples here: http://developer.foodessentials.com/a... Products
and use this service to generate barcodes:
https://www.barcoderobot.com/upc-a/
Image

Image

Michael2210441
Posts: 0
Joined: Sat Jan 04, 2014 5:42 pm

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

Unfortunately these barcodes respond the same way. Also, I've tried products from around my house and the barcode I added above was created on a site that creates UPC_A codes and have never had one single success. Always the same error message as above.

This isn't the first app I've tested the barcode service on, but the other was reading QR codes and I didn't test other barcodes. The other difference was that I added the barcode service manually where this plugin has already done that.

Is there any chance this could be part of a bigger problem corrupting apps on an account level? The other app I was working in yesterday can't run services on page load. Not in any device or in the online tester. I would never think these two problems are related, (I just figured it was my fault somehow) but just like this issue, it's very strange behavior.

Is there a way you can test the app I shared logged in as me, maybe?

Maryna Brodina
Posts: 0
Joined: Thu Apr 05, 2012 7:27 am

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

Hello!
1) Barcode scanner works as expected. "UPC-A code" restriction is added by Food Essentials service (see FE_Script - BarcodeServiceHelper.successHandler)
2) We tested your app and were able to scan code posted here https://getsatisfaction.com/apperyio/..., there is a message 'No products found with such UPC', so it works.
3) "The other app I was working in yesterday can't run services on page load" - are there any errors in console or it just doesn't invoke anything on Load/Show event? If the second one - there is a known bug and we are working o fix already.

gvaughan
Posts: 0
Joined: Mon Aug 18, 2014 3:55 pm

Trying to understand why the Food Essentials plugin scanner is limited to UPC-A and is there work around?

I have the same symptoms scanning from an Android device. When I modify to pass the data.format and the data.text to give a more informative error message, I find that the bar code scanner service seems to be converting UPC A barcodes to EAN_13. The data.format always says EAN_13 even when scanning UPC A, and the data.text is thirteen digits long, due to a prepended 0. For this reason all bar codes fail given the checks in the javascript in the Food Essentials plugin. This occurs with several known examples of UPC A, that are in the database, including the bar codes given in this thread above. It is probably beneficial usually for the bar code scanner service to convert to EAN_13, but for this API, it may be necessary to convert back.

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