First release.

Barcode and QR code scanning on Android, iOS, macOS, web and Windows, from a single entry point: UniversalBarcodeScanner.scan for one code, UniversalBarcodeScanner.stream to keep reading, and the widget itself to embed the camera on Android and iOS.

macOS #

macOS is new, and native rather than a webview: AVCaptureSession for the camera and Vision's VNDetectBarcodesRequest for the decoding, which is the only path Apple offers there since AVCaptureMetadataOutput reads no barcodes on the Mac. It needs macOS 10.15, an NSCameraUsageDescription, and the com.apple.security.device.camera entitlement, all covered in the README. The embedded view stays Android and iOS only.

Linux is not covered. Neither published Linux webview lets a page reach the camera, since desktop_webview_window does not connect WebKitGTK's permission-request signal and webview_cef implements no CefPermissionHandler, and both engines deny by default. The native route is no better, camera_linux having stood at 0.0.8 since 2023. The scanner says so on Linux instead of raising a MissingPluginException.

Dependencies #

permission_handler is gone. It was pulled in for a single camera status read on Windows, and in return every app depending on this plugin inherited its Android module, whose current release forces compileSdk 37. The Windows scanner now simply asks through the webview's own permission prompt and remembers the answer for the scan. What is left is webview_windows, path and web.

Lineage #

The package is a derivative of simple_barcode_scanner by Kunchok Tashi, which embeds the Android and iOS scanner of flutter_barcode_scanner by Amol Gangadhare. Both are MIT, and their copyright notices are kept in LICENSE. Coming from either of them, the API is not the same: see the migration table in the README.

Fixed since the code it derives from #

• On web the scanner registered a new platform view, built a new iframe and opened a new message listener on every rebuild, and never cancelled any of them. It now sets all three up once and tears them down with the widget.
• On web a message from any origin was taken for a scan, so an embedded frame or a browser extension could feed the app a barcode of its choosing. Only messages from the page's own origin are read now.
• On web the height of the scanner was decided from the viewport width, which squashed the preview on a wide, short window.
• On Windows the webview was reinitialised and its message stream resubscribed on every rebuild, which delivered a scan several times over.
• On Windows the camera permission was read asynchronously from build, so the result never arrived in time and the permission dialog was shown even when permission had already been granted.
• On Windows the webview controller was disposed twice when leaving through the app bar.
• UniversalBarcodeScanner.stream now closes its stream however the route is left, including a system back gesture. It used to leak the controller unless the app bar button was used.
• Linux says it is unsupported instead of raising a MissingPluginException.
• Cancelling a single scan returned the raw sentinel '-1' to the caller, which the documentation described as null. It is now null, and '-1' no longer leaks into a continuous stream either.
• The native scanner kept a stream field it never assigned, so the cached broadcast stream it was meant to reuse was rebuilt on every call.

Renamed from the code it derives from #

The plugin used to register itself under another package's namespace, which made it impossible to depend on both in one app: two AARs declaring com.amolg.flutterbarcodescanner fail to merge, and two pods declaring SwiftFlutterBarcodeScannerPlugin fail to link. Everything now sits under be.comapps.universal_barcode_scanner, and the method channels, event channel and platform view type are named after this package.