The PhoneGap NFC Plugin provides access to Near Field Communication (NFC) functionality, allowing applications to read NDEF message in NFC tags. A "tag" may actually be another device that appears as a tag.
- Android
- Blackberry Webworks (OS 7.0 and higher)
Requires PhoneGap 1.6.1+
Assuming you have an existing PhoneGap 1.6.1 Android project:
Download phonegap-nfc-android.jar and add it to libs/
Configure the NfcPlugin in res/xml/plugins.xml
<plugin name="NfcPlugin" value="com.chariotsolutions.nfc.plugin.NfcPlugin"/>
Download phonegap-nfc.js and add it to assets/www
Include phonegap-nfc.js in index.html
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="phonegap-nfc.js"></script>
Add NFC permissions
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.NFC" />
Ensure that the minSdkVersion is 10
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="10" />
If you want to restrict your application to only devices with NFC hardware, set uses-feature so Google Play will restrict the listing. If NFC is optional in your application, omit the uses-feature element.
<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.nfc" android:required="true" />
Assuming you have an existing PhoneGap 1.7.0 Blackberry Webworks project:
Download phonegap-nfc-webworks.jar
The webworks jar contains source code that must be included in the cordova jar file
Put phonegap-nfc-webworks.jar in the root of your webworks project.
$ mkdir build/plugin
$ cd build/plugin/
$ jar xf ../../phonegap-nfc-webworks.jar
$ jar uf ../../www/ext/cordova.1.7.0.jar .
$ jar tf ../../www/ext/cordova.1.7.0.jar
Ensure that you see the NfcPlugin classes listed during the last step
$ jar tf ../..www/ext/cordova.1.7.0.jar
library.xml
org/
org/apache/
org/apache/cordova/
...
org/apache/cordova/util/StringUtils.java
com/
com/chariotsolutions/
com/chariotsolutions/nfc/
com/chariotsolutions/nfc/plugin/
com/chariotsolutions/nfc/plugin/NfcPlugin.java
com/chariotsolutions/nfc/plugin/Util.java
You can delete phonegap-nfc-webworks.jar
Configure the NfcPlugin in res/xml/plugins.xml
<plugin name="NfcPlugin" value="com.chariotsolutions.nfc.plugin.NfcPlugin"/>
Download phonegap-nfc.js and add it to the www folder
Include phonegap-nfc.js in index.html
<script type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8" src="phonegap-nfc.js"></script>
The nfc object provides access to the device's NFC sensor.
- nfc.addTagDiscoveredListener
- nfc.addMimeTypeListener
- nfc.addNdefListener
- nfc.addNdefFormatableListener
- nfc.write
- nfc.share
- nfc.unshare
- nfc.erase
Registers an event listener for tags matching any tag type.
nfc.addTagDiscoveredListener(callback, [onSuccess], [onFailure]);
- callback: The callback that is called when a tag is detected.
- onSuccess: (Optional) The callback that is called when the listener is added.
- onFailure: (Optional) The callback that is called if there was an error.
Function nfc.addTagDiscoveredListener registers the callback for tag events.
This event occurs when any tag is detected by the phone.
- Android
- Blackberry Webworks (OS 7.0 and higher)
Registers an event listener for NDEF tags matching a specified MIME type.
nfc.addMimeTypeListener(mimeType, callback, [onSuccess], [onFailure]);
- mimeType: The MIME type to filter for messages.
- callback: The callback that is called when an NDEF tag matching the MIME type is read.
- onSuccess: (Optional) The callback that is called when the listener is added.
- onFailure: (Optional) The callback that is called if there was an error.
Function nfc.addMimeTypeListener registers the callback for ndef-mime events.
A ndef-mime event occurs when a Ndef.TNF_MIME_MEDIA tag is read and matches the specified MIME type.
This function can be called multiple times to register different MIME types.
- Android
- Blackberry Webworks (OS 7.0 and higher)
Registers an event listener for any NDEF tag.
nfc.addNdefListener(callback, [onSuccess], [onFailure]);
- callback: The callback that is called when an NDEF tag is read.
- onSuccess: (Optional) The callback that is called when the listener is added.
- onFailure: (Optional) The callback that is called if there was an error.
Function nfc.addNdefListener registers the callback for ndef events.
A ndef event occurs when a NDEF tag is read.
NOTE: Registered mimeTypeListeners takes precedence over the more generic NDEF listener.
- Android
- Blackberry Webworks (OS 7.0 and higher)
Registers an event listener for formatable NDEF tags.
nfc.addNdefFormatableListener(callback, [onSuccess], [onFailure]);
- callback: The callback that is called when NDEF formatable tag is read.
- onSuccess: (Optional) The callback that is called when the listener is added.
- onFailure: (Optional) The callback that is called if there was an error.
Function nfc.addNdefFormatableListener registers the callback for ndef-formatable events.
A ndef-formatable event occurs when a tag is read that can be NDEF formatted. This is not fired for tags that are already formatted as NDEF. The ndef-formatable event will not contain an NdefMessage.
- Android
Writes data to an NDEF tag.
nfc.write(ndefMessage, [onSuccess], [onFailure]);
- ndefMessage: The NdefMessage that is written to the tag.
- onSuccess: (Optional) The callback that is called when the tag is written.
- onFailure: (Optional) The callback that is called if there was an error.
Function nfc.write writes an NdefMessage to a NFC tag.
This method must be called from within an NDEF Event Handler.
- Android
- Blackberry Webworks (OS 7.0 and higher)
Shares a NdefMessage via peer-to-peer.
nfc.share(ndefMessage, [onSuccess], [onFailure]);
- ndefMessage: The NdefMessage that is shared.
- onSuccess: (Optional) The callback that is called when the message is pushed.
- onFailure: (Optional) The callback that is called if there was an error.
Function nfc.share writes an NdefMessage via peer-to-peer. This should appear as an NFC tag to another device.
- Android
- Blackberry Webworks (OS 7.0 and higher)
Stop sharing NDEF data via peer-to-peer.
nfc.unshare([onSuccess], [onFailure]);
- onSuccess: (Optional) The callback that is called when sharing stops.
- onFailure: (Optional) The callback that is called if there was an error.
Function nfc.unshare stops sharing data via peer-to-peer.
Erase a NDEF tag
nfc.erase([onSuccess], [onFailure]);
- onSuccess: (Optional) The callback that is called when sharing stops.
- onFailure: (Optional) The callback that is called if there was an error.
Function nfc.erase erases a tag by writing an empty message. Will format unformatted tags before writing.
This method must be called from within an NDEF Event Handler.
- Android
- Blackberry Webworks (OS 7.0 and higher)
The Ndef object provides NDEF constants, functions for creating NdefRecords, and functions for converting data. See android.nfc.NdefRecord for documentation about constants
Represents an NDEF (NFC Data Exchange Format) data message that contains one or more NdefRecords. This plugin uses an array of NdefRecords to represent an NdefMessage.
Represents a logical (unchunked) NDEF (NFC Data Exchange Format) record.
- tnf: 3-bit TNF (Type Name Format) - use one of the TNF_* constants
- type: byte array, containing zero to 255 bytes, must not be null
- id: byte array, containing zero to 255 bytes, must not be null
- payload: byte array, containing zero to (2 ** 32 - 1) bytes, must not be null
The Ndef object has a function for creating NdefRecords
var record = Ndef.record(Ndef.TNF_ABSOLUTE_URI, Ndef.RTD_URI, [], Ndef.stringToBytes("http://chariotsolutions.com"));
There are also helper functions for some types of records
Create a URI record
var record = Ndef.uriRecord("http://chariotsolutions.com");
Create a plain text record
var record = Ndef.textRecord("Plain text message");
Create a mime type record
var payload = "Hello Phongap";
var mimeType = "text/pg";
var record = ndef.mimeMediaRecord(mimeType, nfc.stringToBytes(payload));
See Ndef.record, Ndef.textRecord, Ndef.mimeMediaRecord, and Ndef.uriRecord.
The Ndef object has functions to convert some data types to and from byte arrays.
See the phonegap-nfc.js source for more documentation.
Events are fired when NFC tags are read. Listeners are added by registering callback functions with the nfc object. For example nfc.addNdefListener(myNfcListener, win, fail);
- type: event type
- tag: Ndef tag
- tag
- ndef-mime
- ndef
- ndef-formatable
The tag contents are platform dependent.
id and techTypes may be included when scanning a tag on Android. serialNumber may be included on Blackberry.
id and serialNumber are different names for the same value. id is typically displayed as a hex string ndef.bytesToHexString(tag.id).
Generating the following tag and
Writing this NDEF message to a tag and then scanning on Android and Blackberry will produced the following events.
var ndefMessage = [
ndef.createMimeRecord('text/pg', 'Hello PhoneGap')
];
{
type: 'ndef',
tag: {
"isWritable": true,
"id": [4, 96, 117, 74, -17, 34, -128],
"techTypes": ["android.nfc.tech.IsoDep", "android.nfc.tech.NfcA", "android.nfc.tech.Ndef"],
"type": "NFC Forum Type 4",
"canMakeReadOnly": false,
"maxSize": 2046,
"ndefMessage": [{
"id": [],
"type": [116, 101, 120, 116, 47, 112, 103],
"payload": [72, 101, 108, 108, 111, 32, 80, 104, 111, 110, 101, 71, 97, 112],
"tnf": 2
}]
}
}
{
type: 'ndef',
tag: {
"tagType": "4",
"isLocked": false,
"isLockable": false,
"freeSpaceSize": "2022",
"serialNumberLength": "7",
"serialNumber": [4, 96, 117, 74, -17, 34, -128],
"name": "Desfire EV1 2K",
"ndefMessage": [{
"tnf": 2,
"type": [116, 101, 120, 116, 47, 112, 103],
"id": [],
"payload": [72, 101, 108, 108, 111, 32, 80, 104, 111, 110, 101, 71, 97, 112]
}]
}
}
addTagDiscoveredListener behaves different on Android and Webworks.
On Android addTagDiscoveredListener scans non-NDEF tags and NDEF tags. The tag event does NOT contain an ndefMessage even if there are NDEF messages on the tag.
On Webwork addTagDiscoveredListener does NOT scan non-NDEF tags. Webworks returns the ndefMessage in the event.
{
type: 'tag',
tag: {
"id": [ - 81, 105, -4, 64],
"techTypes": ["android.nfc.tech.MifareClassic", "android.nfc.tech.NfcA", "android.nfc.tech.NdefFormatable"]
}
}
{
type: 'tag',
tag: {
"id": [4, 96, 117, 74, -17, 34, -128],
"techTypes": ["android.nfc.tech.IsoDep", "android.nfc.tech.NfcA", "android.nfc.tech.Ndef"]
}
}
The raw contents of the scanned tags are written to the log before the event is fired. Use adb logcat on Android and Event Log (hold alt + lglg) on Blackberry.
You can also log the tag contents in your event handlers. console.log(JSON.stringify(nfcEvent.tag)) Note that you want to stringify the tag not the event to avoid a circular reference.
Intents can be used to launch your application when a NFC tag is read. This is optional and configured in AndroidManifest.xml.
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.nfc.action.NDEF_DISCOVERED" />
<data android:mimeType="text/pg" />
<category android:name="android.intent.category.DEFAULT" />
</intent-filter>
Note: data android:mimeType="text/pg" should match the data type you specified in JavaScript
We have found it necessary to add android:noHistory="true" to the activity element so that scanning a tag launches the application after the user has pressed the home button.
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Copyright (c) 2011-2012 Chariot Solutions
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