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Show HN: QR Builder

qr-builder.io

10 pointssantafen18 comments

A new take on creating QR Codes with a modern interface.

Seeing this, I have to rant for a bit about paying for QR codes. Some not-tech friends hosted a pub quiz some time ago, paper with QR codes on each table with a URL that in the end points to an e-mail address for ordering drinks. Worked like a charm.

But halfway the evening, the 'QR code stopped working'. The paper didn't degrade or the ink or whatever, no, the redirect went out of some limit. That pissed me off, because a QR code doesn't expire, it still pointed to the same URL but that now wanted some money. The generator they used funneled everything through them so they could do this.

Told them to ask me next time, so I can just embed `mailto:beer@their-event.nl` into a QR code which will never stop working.

These codes will never expire. Unlimited scans.

There are hundreds of similar QR code builders, mostly for web (like this one, despite being labeled "cross-platform"). All equally crappy, as they try to monetize such a simple and widespread encoding to the unaware audience. Some of them put their own redirect links into encoded QR codes (which may stop working), and some charge for "advanced" features.

"Pay 200$/year and generate QR codes on up to 5 devices", really?

I don't mind competition, but this sort of "startups" always feels like cheating.

It's the ability to customize the codes that you're paying for. Ad logos, and an almost limitless amount of customization. If all you want is standard black and white squares, that's easy and free all over the place.

Adding logos to QR codes, changing colors or replacing squares with circles in QR code is a CS sophomore weekend project at best. It's really fun and quite easy to do. You don't even need to understand Reed-Solomon codes for that.

This project, however, doesn't even do it. It just imports popular react library `react-qrcode-logo` [1] which does all the job (few dozens lines, really) [2].

[1] https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-qrcode-logo

[2] https://github.com/gcoro/react-qrcode-logo/blob/master/lib/i...

This is like telling someone in Marketing "recompiling the linux kernel and turning on some new drivers is really simple. You don't even need to understand kernel architecture to do that."

Yes, it's simple for you, but for folks who just want to make sure that all their QR Codes reflect their brand, having to recreate that every time isn't worth it.

It's fine if this isn't your cup of tea.

How is this not just a thin, expensive wrapper around https://www.npmjs.com/package/react-qrcode-logo?

I'd love to understand business case behind this, from my perspective it's persuing market oversaturated with existing solutions, but could be wrong

I use a tool called Kuar for MacOS, which just allows me to encode whatever I like in it. I need to find a windows equivalent at some point though.

Having just struggled with bitly's QR code generator (kept freezing up in Firefox for some reason), I look forward to giving this a try.

fwiw if you need a simple string as a qr code quickly: Type the following search into duckduckgo.com and it will forward your text to the qrserver.com api. You'll be sent directly to a png file.

!qr Your desired qr code.

I use it to transfer my current URL to a phone quickly. It's my default search engine so I'll just add !qr before the URL and it gets me the QR.

The ! notation is called a Bang and you can use lots of them to get to other search engines. e.g. "!hn bangs".

See also here: https://duckduckgo.com/bangs

Thanks for reminding me about the !qr bang trigger~

It successfully encoded a long URL[1] that causes an error on OP's site. (And works better than the built-in chrome QR code generator)

[1]: https://mm.leftium.com?p=C4S2BsFMAIF5oEQCkD2ALAdgcgM7QDICGAr...

e.g. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=!qr+test

I have so many things to say that would possibly help this but it scares me to enable this kind of gouging for zero innovation

This is valueless trash. Everyone here knows it; the author knows it.

Products that try to tax ignorance have no place.

"Enterprise plan"? Fuck right off.

Thanks for your helpful input.

I'm sure you are pretty bitter about your project getting crapped on here, but it should have been a foregone conclusion. Someone, anyone, could have explained this position any time before you ran this thing all the way to the product stage and started announcing it. Whatever process you followed to get here appears to have been flawed; either you took too little advice, you took poor or unqualified advice, or you refused to accept valid criticisms.

If you want to wow this crowd with something as hackneyed as QR codes you're gonna have to do stuff that's on a different level[1]. Make that into a $10/month product bundled with all the bells and whistles of a mature marketing tracker and you might have something. I want to be clear that there's nothing wrong with what you have made, but the way you have positioned it to have more value than it actually offers. What you have today is the answer to a homework assignment, not a product, and it would be better received if you did not force it to wear a costume.

[1] https://qrcode.monster/

What is the 'calibre' (ebook manager) for qr codes? There must be a local app that can generate all the different qr codes, with custom redundancy levels, etc, etc, and is known as the comprehensive solution?

This looks like just another crappy web QR generator - it might make money if the SEO is good, or it's all dark patterns, but otherwise probably not.

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