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Simple script to open URLs baked into QR Codes using a USB barcode scanner.
License: BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License
py_qr_scan_url's Introduction
Barcode Scanner + Python Script = Open URLs contained in QR Codes
- Barcode Scanner = Tera D5100 (USB device configured for a "Virtual COM connection")
- Tera D5100 uses generic Windows drivers
- On my machine, the D5100 appears in Device Manager under
Ports (COM & LPT) as USB-SERIAL CH340 (COM3)
- Tested on a Windows 10 machine
- Tested using Python 3.9.12
- upon program launch, you will be shown a list of available COM ports and prompted to make a selection
- program assumes a baud rate of 9600
- once connected, the program should sit quietly in the background until a QR Code is scanned
- once a QR code is scanned a new broswer tab will open and will be directed to the URL baked into the QR Code
- New tabs should open in your default browser
- As written, the program is 'stupid' in the sense that it does not check to confirm that the scanned code is a legitimate URL
- If you scan the UPC on a box of cereal it will try to navigate to http://cheerios_upc/
- If the scanned code does not begin with
http:// or www. or a typical url scheme, webbrowser assumes you are trying to open a file
- On my Windows machine,
webbrowser tries to open files using... gasp!... Internet Explorer (not my default browser!)
- IMPORTANT DETAIL: the program assumes that the scanned QR Code terminates with a carriage return (
\r aka 0x0D in hex)
Quick Install Guide (Windows 10)
- Make sure python is installed
- open a command prompt and type
python --version
- if you don't have python go to python.org and install version 3.9 (any version 3.x will likely work)
- Create a folder to store the
qr_scan_url.py script (e.g. C:\Documents\Code\qr_scan_url\)
- Copy the
qr_scan_url.py script from this repo into your newly created folder
- Fire up VScode
- go to File → Open Folder
- select the folder you just created
- go into the terminal (to open a terminal go to View → Terminal)
- you should be positioned inside your newly created directory (e.g.
C:\Documents\Code\qr_scan_url\)
- type
python -m venv venv .... this creates a virtual environment
- type
.\venv\Scripts\activate .... this activates the virtual environment
- type
pip install pyserial .... this installs the pySerial package inside the virtual environment
- to confirm that pyserial has installed correctly type
pip list
- open the
qr_scan_url.py script (should be visible in the left side Explorer window)
- you should be able to run the program by clicking on the
Run Python File icon in the upper right corner (looks like a Play button)
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