Implementing OCR Recognition with IOS and HTML5 - html

I've implemented an HTML5 generic web form solutions that allows my customer to create surveys online and them deploy them offline to their Ipads. They can collect data with or without internet access, and then push back to the Surveys server the collected data once the internet connection is available again.
The forms are also able to take pictures, store them locally on the Ipads, and then push them to the server.
My customer is now asking me if we can figure out a way to do OCR recognition on business cards to fullfill the forms quickly (first name, last name, adress, company & phone).
I've been investigating OCRAD.js but the result is not positive.Click to see the sceen capture result
Does anybody knows another HTML 5 alternative? Could I communicate with a real APP to do the OCR recognition an retrieve the data?
Please advice.

Related

Upload from offline HTML5 app when network available

Wow, my problem seems like it must be so common that I must just be missing something really obvious but here goes:
Is there any way to trigger/schedule a dormant offline HTML5 app to run either:
when network comes available,
or regularly.
I want to create an offline HTML5 app that will record details of a delivery (item description, recipient's name, photo, timestamp, etc). The data will be written to local storage (the photo converted to base64). If the app has network then the delivery data will be uploaded to a remote server. If the app does not have network then, even if the user powers the device down, next time the device is up and has network, I need the app to do the upload without any action by the user.
I've searched and found nothing. I'm guessing that offline apps only get run-time when in the foreground? If someone could confirm that then that would at least be good to know, even if it's not what I'd like to hear.
Thanks
Background sync, exactly what I was after (although in 2016 it was Chrome-only):
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/12/background-sync

Offline site/application to propagate a form

We are building an offline version of our online store.
This is for reps to take with them on a tablet when they are out. The reason it needs to be offline is because there will be no connection in a lot of the places and we aren't using tablets with 3/4g connectivity.We use Windows 8.1/RT based tablets.
Since php relies on a server and the tablets cannot be installed with xampp or the like, I have rebuilt the site using html and css.
So far this works and has some flexibility in it. The website is turned into an application using googles create application button in its tools (though technically it's not really an application). It has all the product info, pictures and videos the reps need. Another advantage to this is that the application and files are stored on a one drive cloud account shared to all the tablets. This way, I can update the app/website from my machine and have it up to date on all the reps machines. This current set up works for now but we are looking to add some more functionality.
What we want is a button on each product that will let a rep add an amount of that particular product to a quote form. Because each product sits on a different page, it can't be in the one page form. So as the rep is pressing the buttons on each product, they are getting stored somewhere. Then at the end, the rep can turn all those values into a word doc/pdf/excel by hitting a final submit button.
I have looked at web storage in html 5 but still not quite sure if I can get what I need using it.
Going through the explination here:
http://diveintohtml5.info/storage.html
looks like sites can store info but not sure how to turn this into a form or document at the end. This document is what the reps will email back to the head office.
Has anyone got any pointers on what I could do. Since the site/app has been created in html already, I would like to just build into the existing framework. Are there any other pieces of software that I could use? I do remember using spreadsheet converter to turn an excel file into a web form that exported a pdf but the form needs to be on a single page.
All help appreciated.
Thanks

mobile / web application for confrence text / photo messaging

Imagine a social network application similar to twitter which every user is following and is also followed by some other users and whenever a user sends a message (text or photo) it is displayed instantly on the screen of users following him/her. What is the best way to make such an application for:
mobile
web
I have some web programming experience and the only way I know to do this in web is to send an ajax call every second from a user's client. My feeling tells me there should be a better way. I did some research and found webrtc. Is that the way to go? I (and probably many other users) will be grateful if you can explain the pros and cons of the solution you suggest.
Thanks a lot.
If you want to build conference app/ messaging app for web/mobile platform you can use latest web technologies.
Node.js is an Javascript framework which does efficient and non blocking IO and it works really well with applications which are not data intesive which involve lot of calculations.
Please go through Node.js and libraries associated with it, you can ahieve building efficient chat application.

How to database iOS app data and display it on a webpage

First time post here, so forgive me for any bad etiquette/format.
I will preface by saying:
I have (over the last few months) been developing an iOS app for work. To be more specific, I am developing an inventory app to track bar inventory (liquor, beer, wine, etc). I can give more specifics on request if needed. I have most of the functionality done, only a couple more things I would like to implement. Eventually I will be porting it to Android as well.
At the moment, I have the model objects being archived to the local filesystem for saving and loading of data. However, my goal would be to database the model objects with the ability to display the information on a webpage. My logic is that no matter where the user is, he/she will be able to sign in to a service using a username and password, and view correctly formatted current/past inventories online. This is to allow the ability for a bartender to record the inventory, and have the bar manager view the inventory instances without having to have the physical device that recorded the inventory in his/her possession.
So here is my question:
Without being too general, what kind of service would I need to pull this off? I have a good amount of relevant front-end experience, specifically with iOS, Objective-C, HTML and CSS. However, I have ZERO experience on the back-end. I have researched around the internet, and I am aware of things such as cloud databases, web hosting and MySQL, etc. However, I cannot seem to find a definitive answer without asking my specific question. I suppose I would just like to be pointed in the right direction before investing money and time into a service that may prove useless to my cause.
Any resources and help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
There's not a definitive answer and you have a lot of options.
For me, the simplest is to set up a server with a database incorporated (mysql for example) and with a web service (written in PHP for example) that manages the database and queries on that.
Online you can find tons of guide on how to write a script in PHP that manages a database:
http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/phpmysql/2
For the iOS part you can follow also this guide:
http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/software-engineer/create-your-own-web-service-for-an-ios-app-part-one/
Good luck!

Options to enable web software to work offline? Or perhaps build desktop software?

I created a scheduling software for beauty salons as a web application. The idea is that the business owner can schedule customer appointments with a hair stylist. I made it web based because eventually these beauty salons need to integrated into a larger cloud service. So far, I've only put in about 40 hours of coding.
One challenge i am encountering is that a lot of beauty salons may have poor internet connectivity. They may experience temporary outage that last several hours to several days. But during this time, they still want access to this web application .. at the very least for read only purposes.
I understand that html 5 in modern browsers support offline capabilities via things like localStorage and cache manifest. It appears to me that at the moment, I need to do a drastic rewrite of my existing application to make use of localStorage and cache manifest to allow the web application to work offline. The reason this is so is because my web application writes/saves a lot of information to urls like http://mywebsite.com/api/somefunction?queryparams=value1 via ajax calls. These ajax calls need to be replaced by function calls that write to localstorage.
So my questions are:
a) To enable my web application to work offline (at the very least, read only of the website should be offline), I should replace my ajax calls with calls to localStorage. Is this the best approach?
b) Would it have been better to create this application as a .NET desktop application? Especially if there are microsoft technologies that help with synchronizing stored client data with an external database at a later time?
My opinion:
a) I wouldn't say you should replace your Ajax calls. Rather, you want your code to notice when it is offline and store stuff in localStorage then. You wouldn't always store in localStorage as your clients are going to be online sometimes.
b) That's kind of a loaded question I think. :) So... my thinking is this: Building a web site makes sense as it would let your clients at the salon access their data both from computers in the store and other devices as well. So for example - if the salon's internet access is down, the employees could perhaps use your website via their mobile phones too. Having the data be web bound gives them more ways to get to it.