Deprecate useFront camera property

[marksherman]

Deprecates the code relating to the property and removes it from the designer.

Fixes #180 (at least in the short term, by taking the feature away)

@josmas @jisqyv

[josmas]

Please hold on doing anything with this at least until applications for GSoC15 are over. One of the challenges involves this property and people can get confused if it disappears right now. cc/ @jisqyv @halatmit

[osmidy]

I was looking into #180 yesterday. Apparently there exists no intent to specify which camera to use (other than the unofficial) non-working one; the user should decide what camera to use. Unless we want to deal directly with android.hardware.camera, dropping the property is best. For what it's worth, Camcorder currently lacks the property. @halatmit @josmas

[halatmit]

How does the android camera app let the user pick which camera to use?

== Hal Abelson
hal@mit.edu
Prof. of Comp. Sci. and Eng.
MIT Dept. of Elec. Eng. and Comp. Sci.
MIT Media Lab, Second Class Faculty

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 3:20 PM, osmidy notifications@github.com wrote:

I was looking into #180
#180 yesterday.
Apparently there exists no intent to specify which camera to use (other
than the unofficial) non-working one; the user should decide what camera to
use. Unless we want to deal directly with android.hardware.camera, dropping
the property is best. For what it's worth, Camcorder currently lacks the
property. @halatmit https://github.com/halatmit @josmas
https://github.com/josmas

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#335 (comment)
.

[osmidy]

Whatever camera app is used by default on the phone should have a button to switch between the front- and back-facing cameras.

[marksherman]

The system camera app, like most camera-using apps, accesses the camera
system directly, through which it can query available cameras and select
which to use. (I've looked at this api)

App Inventor has always used an intent to launch the external camera app,
and that intent does not have any way of specifying, and it definitely
cannot query device state.

Building in direct camera access into app inventor (and no longer launch an
external app) is the inevitable solution. osmidy's assessment is correct-
until we're ready to do that, we should deprecate the feature.

I have the deprecation ready to pull, and am waiting for GSoC15 to conclude
before submitting (as instructed by José).

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 3:25 PM hal notifications@github.com wrote:

How does the android camera app let the user pick which camera to use?

== Hal Abelson
hal@mit.edu
Prof. of Comp. Sci. and Eng.
MIT Dept. of Elec. Eng. and Comp. Sci.
MIT Media Lab, Second Class Faculty

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 3:20 PM, osmidy notifications@github.com wrote:

I was looking into #180
#180 yesterday.
Apparently there exists no intent to specify which camera to use (other
than the unofficial) non-working one; the user should decide what camera
to
use. Unless we want to deal directly with android.hardware.camera,
dropping
the property is best. For what it's worth, Camcorder currently lacks the
property. @halatmit https://github.com/halatmit @josmas
https://github.com/josmas

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
<
#335 (comment)

.

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https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__github.com_mit-2Dcml_appinventor-2Dsources_pull_335-23issuecomment-2D86680977&d=AwMFaQ&c=TqceLeU8_c9CVUat-eLTFu19-lyGiWSvB_skZXlxt8Q&r=k-tN9RiDS5X8a15wxR_FMzWjUtK1yw-seWE6tKapqes&m=DUPKdN574xP1jai3p-7hyhda6Gy1KT4g_mAVIqe_rWM&s=dUMfOKVEaAnQxRq-SFl1vW89BkrQ5bcqGXmUT2bo7RY&e=
.

[halatmit]

If we could implement the chooser button, then couldn't we implement that
same chooser as a property of the camera component? Or am I just
confused?

== Hal Abelson
hal@mit.edu
Prof. of Comp. Sci. and Eng.
MIT Dept. of Elec. Eng. and Comp. Sci.
MIT Media Lab, Second Class Faculty

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 3:30 PM, osmidy notifications@github.com wrote:

Whatever camera app is used by default on the phone should have a button
to switch between the front- and back-facing cameras.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#335 (comment)
.

[marksherman]

If we rewrite the camera component completely with the camera API, we will
be able to have lots of good stuff, including a switch button. Also, we'd
be able to query the cameras available from the blocks, and choose cameras
from the blocks.

But we don't use the camera API. we simply open the default camera on the
device, and that app (which varies device to device) typically has a switch
button. But we have no control over it.

A less-critical problem with our current solution is we can't write
consistent instructions on what to do when the camera is open, and our
users can't predict the experience for their users. The camera apps
interfaces vary. Samsung's camera, beyond the big button to take the
picture, looks nothing like the nexus camera, etc.

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 3:33 PM hal notifications@github.com wrote:

If we could implement the chooser button, then couldn't we implement that
same chooser as a property of the camera component? Or am I just
confused?

== Hal Abelson
hal@mit.edu
Prof. of Comp. Sci. and Eng.
MIT Dept. of Elec. Eng. and Comp. Sci.
MIT Media Lab, Second Class Faculty

On Thu, Mar 26, 2015 at 3:30 PM, osmidy notifications@github.com wrote:

Whatever camera app is used by default on the phone should have a button
to switch between the front- and back-facing cameras.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
<
#335 (comment)

.

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.

[halatmit]

also see issue #338
also issue #180

[marksherman]

@josmas is GSoC15 sufficiently over yet? This trigger awaits to be pulled.

[thequixotic]

Rewriting the Camera Component is tricky because of the vast types of devices out there. There is a standard way of doing things neatly that should work on all devices, but it requires a SurfaceView (http://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/SurfaceView.html) with a size of at least 1x1 px . SurfaceView can be achieved by upgrading the Canvas Component.

However if you ignore older devices (<API 11) we can use SurfaceTexture (http://developer.android.com/reference/android/graphics/SurfaceTexture.html) to use camera and take pictures without a preview.

Again the Camera api has so many settings which are different for different camera sensors. So images taken on some devices with improper settings can give you too dark images (due to very low exposure setting). To fix this there seems to something called AutoFocus(http://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/Camera.html#autoFocus(android.hardware.Camera.AutoFocusCallback)).
Maybe we can get default camera preferences.

Not to mention the deprecated status of android.hardware.Camera.. The newer one is android.hardware.camera2 (android.hardware.http://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/camera2/package-summary.html). This might not be a problem though.

Obviously depracating useFront is easy, but I think we should wait till the Canvas Component can be upgraded to show live Camera preview. As of right now it doesnt crash the app if UseFront is checked, it simply ignores because the Camera App doesnt even know the extra intent data being passed) ..

One camera App that does accept the UseFront intent data is Camera KK (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.moblynx.camerakk&hl=en) .. So UseFront does work with this Camera App linked.

[josmas]

@marksherman yes, GSoC applications are over (results are not out yet, though) so taking the tag off now.

[halatmit]

@afmckinney @jisqyv
This should be ready to merge.
PTAL

[jisqyv]

@marksherman Because you are deprecating a block, you have to update YOUNG_ANDROID_VERSION and the version of the Camerca Component. Make sure the upgrader does the right thing with projects that have the block in use AND have set the useFront property in the designer.

The code as written causes projects which set useFront in the designer to fail to load.

[marksherman]

You know what's funny? The existing useFront currently works perfectly on my OnePlus One (Cyanogen 12s).

So current status is that this feature sometimes works, depending on the device and camera app.

[halatmit]

I'll do this as soon as we fix the deprecation code.

[jisqyv]

Implemented in 27a5823 Closing this one.