Save contact information using visiting cards by Huawei Scan kit in Android (Kotlin)

Introduction

In this article, we can learn how to save contacts information by scanning the visiting cards with Huawei Scan Kit. Due to busy days like meetings, industry events and presentations, business professionals are not able to save many contacts information. So, this app helps you to save the contact information by just one scan of barcode from your phone and it provides fields information like Name, Phone Number, Email address, Website etc.

What is scan kit?

HUAWEI Scan Kit scans and parses all major 1D and 2D barcodes and generates QR codes, helps you to build quickly barcode scanning functions into your apps.

HUAWEI Scan Kit automatically detects, magnifies and identifies barcodes from a distance and also it can scan a very small barcode in the same way. It supports 13 different formats of barcodes, as follows.

• 1D barcodes: EAN-8, EAN-13, UPC-A, UPC-E, Codabar, Code 39, Code 93, Code 128 and ITF
• 2D barcodes: QR Code, Data Matrix, PDF 417 and Aztec

Requirements

1. Any operating system (MacOS, Linux and Windows).

2. Must have a Huawei phone with HMS 4.0.0.300 or later.

3. Must have a laptop or desktop with Android Studio, Jdk 1.8, SDK platform 26 and Gradle 4.6 installed.

4. Minimum API Level 19 is required.

5. Required EMUI 9.0.0 and later version devices.

How to integrate HMS Dependencies

1. First register as Huawei developer and complete identity verification in Huawei developers website, refer to register a Huawei ID.

2. Create a project in android studio, refer Creating an Android Studio Project.

3. Generate a SHA-256 certificate fingerprint.

4. To generate SHA-256 certificate fingerprint. On right-upper corner of android project click Gradle, choose Project Name > Tasks > android, and then click signingReport, as follows.

Note: Project Name depends on the user created name.

5. Create an App in AppGallery Connect.

6. Download the agconnect-services.json file from App information, copy and paste in android Project under app directory, as follows.

7. Enter SHA-256 certificate fingerprint and click tick icon, as follows.

Note: Above steps from Step 1 to 7 is common for all Huawei Kits.

8. Add the below maven URL in build.gradle(Project) file under the repositories of buildscript, dependencies and allprojects, refer Add Configuration.

9. Add the below plugin and dependencies in build.gradle(Module) file.

10. Now Sync the gradle.

11. Add the required permission to the AndroidManifest.xml file.

Let us move to development

I have created a project on Android studio with empty activity let’s start coding.

In the MainActivity.kt we can find the business logic.

In the ScanActivity.kt we can find the code to scan barcode.

In the activity_main.xml we can create the UI screen.

In the activity_scan.xml we can create the frame layout.

Demo

Tips and Tricks

1. Make sure you are already registered as Huawei developer.

2. Set minSDK version to 19 or later, otherwise you will get AndriodManifest merge issue.

3. Make sure you have added the agconnect-services.json file to app folder.

4. Make sure you have added SHA-256 fingerprint without fail.

5. Make sure all the dependencies are added properly.

Conclusion

In this article, we have learnt to save contacts information by scanning the visiting cards with Huawei Scan Kit. It helps the users to save the contact information by just one scan of barcode from your phone. The image or scan photo will extract the information printed on the card and categorizes that information into fields provides as Name, Phone Number, Email address, Website etc.

Reference

Scan Kit — Customized View