hmallat | # 1 | 2012-06-02, 17:08 | Report

Hi all,

I've made a small application for creating various kinds of NFC tags, and thought I'd open source it as well as making the binary available.

* Bluetooth tags can be made from manually entered data (Bluetooth address and class of device), by scanning nearby devices, or using the details of a device your phone already knows.

* Bookmark tags can be handwritten URLs, browser bookmarks, or constructed from addressbook data (telephone numbers, email addresses)

* Calendar entry tags are constructed from your calendar events and TODO items

* Contact card tags are made from your addressbook data

* Text tags are simply free-form text

In addition to creating tags of your own, you can collect data from existing tags and if they are in one of the known formats, edit the data.

You can find the source in Github, https://github.com/hmallat/Tagbuilder and the debian package for the latest version is also there: https://github.com/downloads/hmallat....0.2_armel.deb

Comments appreciated!

wout.martens | # 2 | 2012-06-02, 18:33 | Report

cool thanks. Any possibility for writing foursquare checkin urls?
that would be nice. + ability for locking a tag.

hmallat | # 3 | 2012-06-03, 16:41 | Report

I don't use Foursquare myself, so I'm not too familiar with it, but looking at their developer documentation (https://developer.foursquare.com/resources/client#nfc)it looks like Foursquare NFC tags for Android are just URLs that contain an ID at the end (don't know if it's the same for N9, wouldn't make much sense if it was different for different phones though!). If you know the venue ID you could simply type it by hand in the URL.

Of course typing complicated IDs by hand is boring, and perhaps the Foursquare API could be used to ease the process. But I haven't really familiarized myself with that yet.


As for locking tags read-only, that would indeed be nice. But it requires sending tag-specific commands, something which the N9 NFC API doesn't allow even in PR1.2. So unless that is fixed in PR1.3, this will be impossible.

wout.martens | # 4 | 2012-06-03, 17:18 | Report

OK thanks for your reply.
Have been checking the 4S specific URLs and yes, you can add the mobile checkin e.g. https://foursquare.com/mobile/checkin?vid=ID but then tapping the N9 will open up the WEB application instead of opening the 4S application.

Then I have been playing around with the info given on NFC blog:

Your custom type name has to follow a standardized format as well — according to the NFC Forum External Type Name. Like the well-known type, it starts with "urn:nfc", but then continues with the namespace "ext". Afterwards, your type name must contain the domain name of your organization, then a colon, and then your own type name. A complete example:

urn:nfc:ext:nokia.com:nfccorkboard

But also here, by writing this content to the sticker the N9 is still opening the WEB app. So I don't know what I'm doing wrong here.
foursquare app in the N9 is actually named foursquare-ov (at least when getting the info via Terminal)

hmallat | # 5 | 2012-06-07, 17:12 | Report

I installed the official Foursquare app onto my phone and created a bookmark tag that had the URL in the form specified in the Foursquare developer pages:

http://m.foursquare.com/venue/VENUE_ID

(I just put some random numbers as the venue ID) and on touching the tag the Foursquare app was opened as expected. I don't have an account there yet so I didn't test the full check-in procedure, but as the app launches the first hurdle was succesfully passed.

So, it is possible to generate foursquare tags by manually typing the URL, but as I mentioned before, there should be a more user-friendly way and the foursquare API should come in handy there. I can promise to experiment with that at some point, but not in the immediate future (other things are taking precedence).

wout.martens | # 6 | 2012-06-08, 08:14 | Report

How did you do this?
Could you share a screenshot because here the app doesn't open.
Only web app is opening. Thanks.

edit
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Got it working now.
Had to change default app in N9. Thanks!

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Last edited by wout.martens; 2012-06-08 at 08:24.

hmallat | # 7 | 2012-06-08, 16:43 | Report

Glad to hear you got it working!

wout.martens | # 8 | 2012-06-08, 17:53 | Report

Now need to know if this will work on other platforms as well.
Will check Symbian later tonight, got a nice toy to test it out.

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OK, symbian Belle works fine, it will say open webpage and after that it will launch foursquare app (if installed)

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Last edited by wout.martens; 2012-06-08 at 19:17.

hmallat | # 9 | 2012-06-28, 17:50 | Report

Hi all,

I've uploaded a new version, 1.0.3, into Github. See https://github.com/downloads/hmallat....0.3_armel.deb for a binary, and of course the repository itself for the source changes.

The new version contains an experimental Foursquare venue bookmark creation UI. You can search for nearby venues, or venues close to a location you type in, and then select from a list that has been retrieved from the Foursquare servers. Saves the trouble of typing in the venue ID by hand!

You have to have a Foursquare account, though, and authenticate to Foursquare (Tagbuilder will save the authentication token for later, so authentication needs to be done only once) before you can do a venue search.

Please let me know if there are problems; the functionality is quite experimental at the moment. Works for me, though

MaikEF | # 10 | 2012-09-13, 13:26 | Report

is it possible to open a app with nfc on nokia n9 or implement a qr code in a tag?

wich tags are recommended? 1k (1024 byte) Mifare Classic?

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Last edited by MaikEF; 2012-09-13 at 14:20.