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Show HN: I open sourced the QR designer from my failed startup

711 pointsby kochalmost 2 years ago
My designer is somewhat special, if I do say so myself, as it allows you to put arbitrary designs in the middle area of the QR while still being totally scannable.

22 comments

TechTechTechalmost 2 years ago
Thanks for open sourcing this.<p>Reminds me of halftone QR codes <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vecg.cs.ucl.ac.uk&#x2F;Projects&#x2F;SmartGeometry&#x2F;halftone_QR&#x2F;halftoneQR_sigga13.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;vecg.cs.ucl.ac.uk&#x2F;Projects&#x2F;SmartGeometry&#x2F;halftone_QR&#x2F;...</a>
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krasinalmost 2 years ago
Very cool! Years ago, I was also inspired by <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;research.swtch.com&#x2F;qart" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;research.swtch.com&#x2F;qart</a>
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karolistalmost 2 years ago
What product was your startup building, how did having a fancy QR designer benefited your product? Was QR designer the product? Why did it fail and what are your plans next?
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kochalmost 2 years ago
If anyone is still hanging out in this thread I just fixed images so they work locally now<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;kochrt&#x2F;qr-designer&#x2F;commit&#x2F;3ad0a4edea33d17aeb086c040df8c5cf076fb170">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;kochrt&#x2F;qr-designer&#x2F;commit&#x2F;3ad0a4edea33d17...</a><p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;robko.ch&#x2F;qr-designer&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;robko.ch&#x2F;qr-designer&#x2F;</a>
willsmith72almost 2 years ago
This is really cool. If you fixed the image upload, removed the 25 character requirement (less would be fine), and made the link customisable in the site, I think you could have a really neat product&#x2F;business. I&#x27;d definitely send it to my startup&#x27;s founder, we&#x27;re already using QR codes and these would be way nicer than a plain one.
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unholinessalmost 2 years ago
&gt; Compared to other QR designs, this does not take advantage of error correction that QR codes use, but rather deterministically turns some pixels in the code pattern on or off without affecting what the QR code is pointing to.<p>Can someone explain how this is done? Is it adding characters to the URL that somehow browsers will ignore?
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david422almost 2 years ago
&gt; In order to maximize designer space, the url that the QR codes links to is expected to be exactly 25 characters long<p>Seems like a cool QR code, but also limited for general use.
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jmull3nalmost 2 years ago
This is really good, I wish I saw it before I built something similar. Mine is server-side rendered at the edge. It allows any value but still has no where near the functionality as yours. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jmcmullen&#x2F;qr-kit">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;jmcmullen&#x2F;qr-kit</a>
naedishalmost 2 years ago
Very cool - I used a website with a custom qr code generator [1] and some hacky RPA tool about 8 years ago to create custom QR codes for each guest at our wedding. My wife created a wedding logo and we had that in the middle of our QR code - it worked well. The QR code was a personalised URL for each guest&#x27;s rsvp which used a URL shortener [2] installed on our wedding domain (hosted on a free micro AWS instance).<p>Was a fun way to do my part for our wedding planning.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.unitag.io&#x2F;qrcode" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.unitag.io&#x2F;qrcode</a> [2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;yourls.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;yourls.org&#x2F;</a>
Alifatiskalmost 2 years ago
It’s done in Nuxt, cool!<p>I have a huge interest in starting using Nuxt on my next web projects. Might even start earlier because of this.<p>How does Nuxt handle the backend part? Any recommendations?<p>I am used to how Rails does it by using ActiveRecord and it’s flexible ORM.
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RadiozRadiozalmost 2 years ago
Eh, not a big fan of QR codes with images in the middle. One of my favorite things about QR codes is their extremely generous error correction capability, which is greatly reduced when you instead use that valuable space for a logo. It looks nice, but makes the code less scannable than an equivalently sized one with larger pixels or more error correction bytes.
ketzualmost 2 years ago
Just a warning to users: light-on-dark QR codes can not be parsed by all QR code readers, even though they look nice.
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steventeyalmost 2 years ago
Very cool stuff, thanks for open-sourcing this! Might incorporate it into Dub , an open-source link management tool that I&#x27;m building: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;steven-tey&#x2F;dub">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;steven-tey&#x2F;dub</a>
nudpiedoalmost 2 years ago
The tool is very cool, although at first sight it looks to me like the perfect side hustle rather than a startup… may I know what was your napkin business plan for such a startup?<p>I guess you put a lot of love in the tool. Freeware, abandonware and open source is sort of a tragedy of the commons for the IT professionals (yes HN, I know there is a global benefit, just no one seems to talk about the cons).
didntknowyaalmost 2 years ago
i have a lot of people unable to recognize QR codes as scannable. making it more picture-like would reduce usability?
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TimLelandalmost 2 years ago
Very cool could you share what features people wanted from QR codes? I&#x27;m looking into ways to improve <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;t.ly&#x2F;qr-code-generator" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;t.ly&#x2F;qr-code-generator</a>
taubekalmost 2 years ago
I really like the tool. I used some similar desktop apps few years ago, but they missed the simplicity of your solution. Almost a 1000 GitHub stars within one day. Really impressive.
Pricklealmost 2 years ago
Man I really wish I had access to this functionality ~ 5 years ago.<p>Thankyou for open sourcing this! Always nice to see stuff like this. I will definitely pass this onto some underclassmen.
andrewxhonsonalmost 2 years ago
Does the readme&#x27;s last example have sections of one code embedded in the empty space between another code&#x27;s sections? That&#x27;s pretty cool.
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xfalcoxalmost 2 years ago
The add image feature is not working for me.
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brundolfalmost 2 years ago
This is so cool. I think I&#x27;ve already got a project idea I can use this for
phoenixreaderalmost 2 years ago
Why did your startup fail?
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