Hello Brendan,
could you please add support (generating from text field and scanning the code itself) for DataMatrix to the barcode section?
Thanks in advance!
Chris
The iOS version can scan Data Matrix barcodes because it uses the built-in iOS Vision framework.
The list of symbologies are here in Apple’s developer documentation:
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/vision/vnbarcodesymbology?language=objc
The Mac version uses an open-source project called Bar Code Kit which supports these symbologies:
https://github.com/Cocoanetics/BarCodeKit
I’m afraid that Data Matrix is not one of them.
I looked into the DataMatrix format a little closer and although Apple has a definition for it in their CoreImage Filters, it is not yet supported. I tried implementing the code in a similar way that I implemented the QR Code generator, but I got this error:
inputBarcodeDescriptor of type CIDataMatrixCodeDescriptor is not yet supported
So I won’t be able to add it. At least not without investing in some other barcode generator library that might support it.
Can someone distill down into a few words or sentences what the ‘DataMatrix’ symbology is and what it achieves that other symbologies cannot?
I think wikipedia is the right source of knowledge! ;-)
Chris Ju – Rather than wade through a potential “rabbit hole” of information, I would prefer to hear from someone who has real-world usage of this symbology, as well as the way in which they apply it using TapForms (or wanted to).
For me, the DataMatrix code would have been very useful to automatically print the postage stamp (the DataMatrix code is used in many countries) right next to the address field in my letters. This would save the additional work with the stamps.
Data matrix code is probably used because it is easy to read even at high processing speed!
Hope, this is helpful!
.
