Feature request: barcodes and autocomplete

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I’d like to use Tap Forms to hold inventories of my book and DVD collections. To that end, I’d like to submit two feature requests that I believe will be very useful to Tap Forms users:

1. Barcode scanning. I’ve been playing with RedLaser (iPhone app) and it is awesome; it uses the iPhone’s camera to scan a barcode from the live image feed. It would be great if Tap Forms had an option to scan a barcode into an integer form field. I believe RedLaser is available as an SDK, if that’s of any help.

2. Automatic form completion. It would be helpful if we could fill in part of a form and hit a button to automatically fill in the rest via online query. The process could be something like this:

a) a form has a new, optional ‘autocomplete’ URL attribute;

b) when a new record is created, if the form’s autocomplete attribute is present an ‘Autocomplete’ button is displayed;

c) if the ‘Autocomplete’ button is pressed, the contents of the record are submitted to the URL as an HTML form (POST or GET);

d) the server will respond with data (CSV, XML, or whatever) that Tap Forms will use to re-populate the record.

Hopefully you can see why this would be ideal for inventory control. With these two options, I could scan the ISBN of a book in my collection, hit the autocomplete button and have the book details automatically entered in my inventory.

Thoughts?

Chris

[Anonymous]

I agree with Chris! Purchasing Tap Forms would be a no-brainer if barcode scanning were added. And auto-complete would be a very nice thing to have as well.

[cscarn]

Applause! I need this too.

[usrutledge]

This is a BIGGIE for me as well and I’m sure could be for many others. In addition, it should increase the sales of your product tremendously. I’ve seen this suggested 2 or 3 times previously. Could you create a database on YOUR iPhone using this GREAT APP called TapForms to track suggestions made by users and record their email address and other pertinent data, so you could then get back with those individuals with updates on their suggestions?

Thanks! Love the app so far, even though I have only had it for less than a week..

John D. Rutledge

usrutledge@gmail.com

[Brendan]

Hello John & everyone else who chimed in on this request.

I’m not sure why I didn’t see this a year ago when it was first posted. I usually respond to support questions right away, but I must have missed this one. Sorry about that.

Barcode scanning is something I’ve been contemplating adding. Initially to scan in a UPC code or a QR code for filling out a Note field. There are many uses for barcode scanning that I believe would greatly enhance Tap Forms usefulness. I will see what I can do for a future update.

I’ve implemented barcode scanning for another project that I worked on for my day job. So I know how to do it. It’s just getting it into the right places within Tap Forms that needs some good thought. The one presented here with the custom auto-complete URL sounds great. The biggest issue of course is the response format from the web service. How many people would have the skills to setup their own servers that can create a response that Tap Forms would expect to make this possible? Probably very few.

Thanks!

Brendan

[lgol27]

Some thoughts out loud:

To put raw barcode data into a field could be a first step. But it has a limited usefulness. From another hand there are too many formats that could be inserted into the barcode especially QR-codes. The latter could have multiple fields like a vCard.

We could have a field called barcode(excluding QR-codes). This field could be populated by barcode scan or manual text entry. And when the field is touched on the record view screen, a web search is performed. A picture of the code could be retain to scan it by other devices.

We need a mechanism to map QR-code segments into form fields. Or we can build a form based on QR-code, using segments’ names as field names. and values will be populated automatically too. If you are trying to scan a similar QR-code, you can specify that the app should try to put the new scan info in already created form.

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