afriscic
Use a red bar instead of the dot
It would be cool if we could use a red bar instead of the dot. A thin bar, which could be even better than the dot, filling the entire reading area, to help identify the beginning and end of the barcode reading
Hi.
Yes, a horizontal red bar, to help show the user where to focus, instead of the red dot, like this
You do realise that horizontal might be wrong? There is no reason for the user to read a horizontal barcode. A diagonal or vertical one would work just as well. Which is why the dot is very appropriate.
If you use a horizontal line, uses may start to rotate the device trying to scan the barcode, even though there's no reason to do so at all, and it makes it more error-prone and less user-friendly. I personally found this a huge disadvantage in some scanners, especially combined with auto-rotate enabled. You try to scan a vertical barcode, rotate the device to line up the horizontal line, and the app on screen rotates, so you horizontal line is wrong again.
Note that in that case, the scanning library actually only scanned horizontally, and it was completely impossible to scan barcodes in other orientations as long as auto-rotate was enabled. I quickly ditched that app.
I agree with @Ghostbird that using a bar is a bit archaic especially in context of 2D codes. But I also acknowledge that some people are more used to old barcode scanners that displayed a red bar when scanning. As all aiming features are optional you can easily enable or disable whatever suits you. No ETA for now tho...
@afriscic I agree with your conclusion, thought you seem to have misunderstood my reason.
My point was that there's no inherent relation between the rotation of the device, and the target barcode. The horizontal line is a fake throwback to historic limitations of 1D cameras, that confuses the UX. To the user it evokes a limitation that they must work to overcome, even though there actually is no such limitation The additional actions it may make the user perform might be harmful to the user (RSI), device (unnecessary manipulations increase chance of drop/hitting things) and functioning of the software (harder to scan while the user is in the progress of unnecessary device manipulations).