Android Question Capabilities and learning curve using B4A

[Mikelgiles]

We have a very small company that develops complete operation applications for forms printing companies. One of our applications collects production information for job cost history and job tracking. The application has been in use for a very long time (started back in the days of DOS) and has used low end PC's as the collection device because the PC was less expensive and more versatile than the data collection devices on the market. That is still the case today so we have never considered the normal data collection devices as a good alternative. Times have changed though and we are thinking that smart-phones would be a very good alternative based on the fact that most people already have one so purchase prices would not be a problem. They are also portable and will always be available even as personal move around in their duties.

My question is: Is B4A the best way to develop the described app based on the following facts and requirements.

Our background is in windows development using VB6, DBASE(third party database library) and SQL databases. We are wondering about the learning curve to use B4A as we have no experience with smart-phone development at all.

Be able to read 3 of 9 Extended bar-codes ( only need to read )

Read and write text files to and from a Windows network folder. I think text (or maybe XML) would be easier to work with as whatever we do has to be interfaced to both a SQL database and a DBF database and we have the expertise to import and export to those easily. Email or messaging could be used for this if doing so would be a lot easier.

Thoughts and comments would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Mikel Giles

 

[Mikelgiles]

Barcode scanning with a standard phone is a pain but you can buy Android phones with built in CCD or laser scanners quite cheaply. They can either interface through Java or as a much easier-to-use keyboard wedge.

The comments against dbf are (imho) unfounded. dbf works fine until you start throwing 30 simultaneous users at it. It is robust and as you say present in a huge amount of legacy software. There are a couple of Java dbf drivers. I use jdbf-1.2 in B4j to read dbf and convert to SQLite for a B4a lookup file. Transferring the files back and forth is trivial (thanks to Erel!).

I have also written a B4a app that directly interrogates Clipper files on a PC. The process is convoluted as jdbf does not work with indexes.

What I had in mind is to be able to use whatever phones the personal are already using so I would assume that I need to stay with being able to scan with a standard phone. I am assuming that the process would be using phone camera and it would probably be slow. But I dont think speed will be a problem. Do you know where I can find documentation on how to do barcode scanning using the camera?

 

[DonManfred]

Do you know where I can find documentation on how to do barcode scanning using the camera?

you can use a library for that. See here for a example.

 

[RandomCoder]

I use a Motorola MotoX first gen phone with Android 4.4.4 on it. It does not have a SD card on it which I assume eliminates using the B4A Bridge. Is there a way to use the MotoX or do I need to obtain a different phone?

The B4A Bridge is just an App which allows you to connect to the phone using the B4A IDE and Debug your code. It works using WiFi and there is no requirement to installed to an SD card.

Also, with regard to Manfred's last post. Only licenced users can download libraries. It's one of the restrictions of the trial licence in afraid. But I'm certain that you won't regret purchasing B4A, as many can attest to here. The support is absolutely first class!

 

[DonManfred]

Only licenced users can download libraries

Oups, i did not recognized that he is not an licensed user :-/
You are surely right.

 

[charlesg]

Have you tested your device with one of the standard barcode readers in Android playstore? I have used 'Barcode Scanner 4.7.3' in the past. This will allow you to see if the scanning is adequate on your device from outside B4a.

 

[Troberg]

The learning curve when switching from VB6 to B4A is very simple. Android has a different way of handling some things, but you are pretty well insulated from them, and the remaining ones (such as lifecycle) is well documented in tutorials here in the forum.

I've tried both Java and B4A, and B4A is far simpler to get started with (even though I have an extensive background in both VB6 and C#). Much like VB, there is little bureacracy, it just gets the job done.

 

[Mikelgiles]

The B4A Bridge is just an App which allows you to connect to the phone using the B4A IDE and Debug your code. It works using WiFi and there is no requirement to installed to an SD card.

Also, with regard to Manfred's last post. Only licenced users can download libraries. It's one of the restrictions of the trial licence in afraid. But I'm certain that you won't regret purchasing B4A, as many can attest to here. The support is absolutely first class!

I do not have a problem with not being able to download lib's before becoming licensed. At this point I am just waiting for a program I am working on to get finished so I have plenty of work time to give it a good test. My goal right now is just to come up with what I need to test.