AZTEC Barcode Help would be Appreciated

[C4J]

This is really a "how to" question. I have written a java program which reads Zebra ZPL text, parses it and renders it on screen. I am working my way through all the barcode types, matching the ZPL parameters for each barcode type to the Barcode4j API in an attempt to replicate what a Zebra printer would do. So far - so good.

However I'm now working on the Aztec Barcode, something which I'm not that familar with and I find a lot of ZPL parameters which don't seem to have an Barcode4j equivalent API.

I have attached the relevant pages from the Zebra manual which seems to use ^B0 and ^BO for Aztec (not sure if that's actually correct or a typo).

If you have time could you let me know which of the ZPL parameters have equivalents for Barcode4j. I am trying to control the size of the output with little success. Am I suppose to the the Barcode4j setWidth and setHeight or use the Magnification Factor.

I would prefer to be able to control the barcode using the data from the ZPL.

AZTEC.pdf

I have also attached a class which is used to collect the ZPL parameters and then use the same values to create the barcode. As you may notice I'm only using a fraction of them at the moment and not having much luck with magnification. Many of the other barcode types seem to inherit values from the ^BY but not so with Aztec.

`
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import org.krysalis.barcode4j.impl.aztec.AztecBean;
import org.krysalis.barcode4j.output.bitmap.BitmapCanvasProvider;

public class ZPLBarcode_Aztec
{
private ZPLUtility util = new ZPLUtility();

public boolean getParameters(ZPLCmd cmd,ZPLMemory memory)
{
	boolean result = true;

	memory.bps.store("^BY", ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Barcode_Type, ZPLBarcode_Types.B0_Aztec);
			
	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Orientation,util.getStringWithDefault(cmd, 0, memory.bps.recallAsStringWithDefault("^FW",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Orientation, "N")));	

	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Magnification,(util.getIntWithDefault(cmd, 1, 3)));
	
	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_ECICs,(util.getStringWithDefault(cmd, 2, "N")));	
	
	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Error_Control_Symbol_Size_Type,(util.getIntWithDefault(cmd, 3, 33)));	
	
	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Menu_Symbol_Indicator,(util.getStringWithDefault(cmd, 4, "N")));	
	
	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_No_Of_Symbols,(util.getIntWithDefault(cmd, 5, 1)));	
	
	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Optional_ID_Field,(util.getStringWithDefault(cmd, 6, "")));	
	
	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Barcode_Height,util.getIntWithDefault(cmd, 2, memory.bps.recallAsIntegerWithDefault("^BY",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Barcode_Height, 100)));	

	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Barcode_Interpretation,(util.getStringWithDefault(cmd, 3, "Y")));	
	
	memory.bps.store("^B0",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Barcode_Interpretation_Above,(util.getStringWithDefault(cmd, 4, "N")));	
	
	return result;
}

public boolean create(Graphics g,float magnification,ZPLMemory memory)
{

	boolean result = false;

	Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;

	AztecBean bean = new AztecBean();
	
	bean.setErrorCorrectionLevel(memory.bps.recallAsIntegerWithDefault("^B0", ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Error_Control_Symbol_Size_Type,0));


	BufferedImage barcodeImage;
	
	try (ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream())
	{
		BitmapCanvasProvider canvas = new BitmapCanvasProvider(out, "image/png", 300, BufferedImage.TYPE_BYTE_BINARY, false, 0);

		String barcodeData4j = (memory.bps.recallAsStringWithDefault("^FD",ZPLPropertyStore.Param_Text,""));
					
		bean.generateBarcode(canvas, barcodeData4j);

		canvas.finish();
		
		barcodeImage = ImageIO.read(new ByteArrayInputStream(out.toByteArray()));

		g2d.drawImage(barcodeImage, memory.bps.recallAsIntegerWithDefault("^FO", "X",0), memory.bps.recallAsIntegerWithDefault("^FO", "Y",0), null);

		result = true;

	}
	catch (IOException e)
	{
		e.printStackTrace();
	}

	return result;
}

}

`

[SingingBush]

I've not looked into ZPL in detail yet as that's something I was planning to do for #142. The intention was to do the reverse of what you're implementing. I expected that users may want to construct a barcode bean and have a function that returns the required zpl to get it printed correctly.

Example usage of barcode4j with Aztec is in the related #91 issue:

<barcode:barcode message="Here is some text encoded in an Aztec barcode">
    <barcode:aztec>
        <barcode:module-width>1.8mm</barcode:module-width>
        <barcode:ec-level>23</barcode:ec-level>
        <barcode:layers>0</barcode:layers>
        <barcode:quiet-zone enabled="false"/>
    </barcode:aztec>
</barcode:barcode>

in terms of the raw Java code approach it's probably same as:

        final CanvasProvider provider = new SomeKindOfCanvasProviderImpl();
        final AztecBean bean = new AztecBean();
        bean.setErrorCorrectionLevel(23);
        bean.setLayers(0);
        bean.generateBarcode(provider, "Here is some text encoded in an Aztec barcode");

hopefully this give some kind of help but it seems you've got this part sorted.

In terms of parsing the ZPL; that's not something I can currently help with. However it does seem like a handy feature so if you're interested in it being part of barcode4j then I'd be open to merging a PR for it.

[C4J]

I will be putting my code into GitHub soon.

At the moment when my app loads it reads zpl from a file, although I will enhance it to listen on a network port so it emulates a printer.

The ZPL for my test excluding Aztec looks like this and I have attached an image of the on screen display.

`
^XA
^LT5
^FX EAN 8
^CF0,45
^FO120,10^FDEAN 8^FS
^CF0,25
^BY3,2,270
^FO50,50^B8N,100,Y,N^FD1234567^FS

^FX EAN 13
^CF0,45
^FO550,10^FDEAN 13^FS
^CF0,25
^BY3,2,270
^FO450,50^BEN,100,Y,N^FD123456789012^FS

^FX Interleaved 2 of 5
^CF0,45
^FO40,220^FDInterleaved 2 of 5^FS
^CF0,15
^BY3,2,290
^FO40,260^B2N,100,Y,N,Y^FD12345678^FS

^FX Code 39
^CF0,45
^FO550,220^FDCode 39^FS
^CF0,15
^FX Third section with bar code.
^BY3,2,270
^FO400,260^B3N,Y,100,Y,N^FD12345678^FS

^FX pdf 417
^CF0,45
^FO330,430^FDPDF 417^FS
^CF0,15
^FX Third section with bar code.
^BY3,2,100
^FO40,460^B7N,35,5,12,10,N^FD12345678^FS

^FX EAN 128
^CF0,45
^FO150,750^FDEAN 128^FS
^CF0,15
^FX Third section with bar code.
^BY2,2.0
^FO40,790
^BCN,100,Y,N,Y,N^FD>;>800350001615056877763^FS

^FX Code 128
^CF0,45
^FO580,750^FDCode 128^FS
^CF0,15
^FX Third section with bar code.
^BY2,2
^FO500,790
^BCN,100,Y,N,Y,N^FD>350001615056877763^FS

^XZ

`

[C4J]

I thought I was quite knowledgeable about the ZPL command set, but you find out a lot of details when writing an emulator. The most problematic part of replicating a ZPL command on a screen is definately fonts. Scaling, aligning, replicating - urrgh. The fact that Zebra let you specify the font dimensions x & y and Java defaults to just a size parameter means I have to use the transform function, then there is the issue of white space around the visible part of the typeface. I'm 95% there now but it's been a major challenge.