C#•4d ago

.NET MAUI and Android Intents

Hey guys, I hate to be a bother, but I have a bit of a situation, is there anyone here that works with MAUI that could possibly help me? In short... I need to integrate with a phone that has a built in barcode scanner (UROVO DT50), and I managed to find the API documentation, but I for the life of me cannot grasp the concept of intents and how to use them in MAUI.

1 Reply

apnxmammothOP•3d ago

Alright, since no one was able to help me, I did manage to find the solution myself eventually. So I am just posting it here so that if someone does run into the same issue, hopefully this post will help: Problem: I kept trying to send intents and registering receivers, but my OnReceive method would never trigger in my custom broadcast receiver. Solution: Instead of declaring my intents and my receiver class in the Manifest.xml file, I created a Service.cs and Service class. In there I would have my OnCreate() method, where then I would initialize my component (in this case it was a scanner), and then I would register my receiver.

public override void OnCreate() {
    base.OnCreate();
    InitializeScanner();
    RegisterReceiver();
}

private void RegisterReceiver() {
    if (mScannerReceiver == null) {
        mScannerReceiver = new ScannerReceiver();
        var filter = new IntentFilter(SCAN_ACTION);
        RegisterReceiver(mScannerReceiver, filter);
    }
}

private void InitializeScanner() {
    if (mScanManager == null) {
        mScanManager = new ScanManager();
        mScanManager.OpenScanner();
    }
}

public override void OnCreate() {
    base.OnCreate();
    InitializeScanner();
    RegisterReceiver();
}

private void RegisterReceiver() {
    if (mScannerReceiver == null) {
        mScannerReceiver = new ScannerReceiver();
        var filter = new IntentFilter(SCAN_ACTION);
        RegisterReceiver(mScannerReceiver, filter);
    }
}

private void InitializeScanner() {
    if (mScanManager == null) {
        mScanManager = new ScanManager();
        mScanManager.OpenScanner();
    }
}

Then, in your MainActivity.cs, in your OnCreate(). you would register your service and start your service:

protected override void OnCreate(Bundle? savedInstanceState) {
    base.OnCreate(savedInstanceState);

    mScannerService = ServiceHelper.GetService<IBarcodeScannerService>();

    if (mScannerService == null) {
        throw new InvalidOperationException("BarcodeScannerService not found.");
    }

    var intent = new Intent(this, typeof(BarcodeScannerService));
    StartService(intent);
}

protected override void OnCreate(Bundle? savedInstanceState) {
    base.OnCreate(savedInstanceState);

    mScannerService = ServiceHelper.GetService<IBarcodeScannerService>();

    if (mScannerService == null) {
        throw new InvalidOperationException("BarcodeScannerService not found.");
    }

    var intent = new Intent(this, typeof(BarcodeScannerService));
    StartService(intent);
}

This finally triggered my OnReceive() method inside my custom broadcast receiver. I know this is probably super easy work for someone that has been working with MAUI for a while, but this was completely new for me.

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.NET MAUI and Android Intents