Intent Overview - Motorola TC55 Integrator Manual

62 | DataWedge Configuration
- Send TAB key - Set to append a tab character to the end of the processed data. A check in the checkbox
indicates that the plug-in is enabled (default - disabled).
- Send ENTER key - Set to append an Enter character to the end of the processed data. A check in the
checkbox indicates that the plug-in is enabled (default - disabled).

Intent Overview

The core components of an Android application (its activities, services, and broadcast receivers) are activated by
intents. An intent is a bundle of information (an Intent object) describing a desired action - including the data to be
acted upon, the category of component that should perform the action, and other pertinent instructions. Android
locates an appropriate component to respond to the intent, launches a new instance of the component if one is needed,
and passes it the Intent object.
Components advertise their capabilities, the kinds of intents they can respond to, through intent filters. Since the
system must learn which intents a component can handle before it launches the component, intent filters are specified
in the manifest as <intent-filter>elements. A component may have any number of filters, each one describing a
different capability. For example, if the manifest contains the following:
<intent-filter . . . >
<action android:name="android.intent.action.DEFAULT" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.MAIN" />
</intent-filter>
In the Intent output plug-in configuration, the Intent action would be:
android.intent.category.DEFAULT
and the Intent category would be:
android.intent.category.MAIN.
The Intent delivery option allows the method by which the intent is delivered to be specified. The delivery
mechanisms are Send via startActivity, Send via startService or Broadcast intent.
The decode related data added to the Intent's bundle can be retrieved using the Intent.getStringtExtra()
and Intent.getSerializableExtra() calls, using the following String tags:
• String LABEL_TYPE_TAG = "com.motorolasolutions.emdk.datawedge.label_type";
- String contains the label type of the bar code.
• String DATA_STRING_TAG = "com.motorolasolutions.emdk.datawedge.data_string";
- String contains the output data as a String. In the case of concatenated bar codes, the decode data is
concatenated and sent out as a single string.
• String DECODE_DATA_TAG = "com.motorolasolutions.emdk.datawedge.decode_data";
- Decode data is returned as a list of byte arrays. In most cases there will be one byte array per decode. For bar
code symbologies that support concatenation e.g. Codabar, Code128, MicroPDF, etc., the decoded data is
stored in multiple byte arrays (one byte array per bar code). Clients can get data in each byte array by passing
an index.
Most scanning applications might want the user to be able to decode data and for that decode data to be sent to the
*current* activity but not necessarily displayed. If this is the case, then the activity needs to be marked as
'singleTop' in its AndroidManifest.xml file. If your activity is not defined as singleTop, then on every decode, the
system will create another copy of your Activity and send the decode data to this second copy.
Finally there will be a configuration option for each process plug-in so that the process plug-in can be configured
specifically for the intent output, which in this case is the basic data formatting process plug-in.
Send Feedback | October 2013 | MN000017A01