You may want to have access to the full native camera app when you take a photo from within your app, this is how you do it. This is tested and demonstrated using the companion app on an Android 13 device.
Why do this:
- Images taken when the phone is held in portrait position are returned in the correct orientation (unlike with the camera component)
- you may want the full features of your native camera app, which may not be available when using the camera component
- this works, whilst using the intent:
android.media.action.IMAGE_CAPTURE, as shown in the documentation does not actually take/store an image file (more work is required with EXTRAS and possibly java code needed for this)
ActivityStarterStillCamera.aia (3.5 KB)
- we start off by getting the length of the number of items in the /DCIM/Camera folder
- We then call the camera with the activity starter, and start the clock timer
- We are taken out of the app to the full native camera app, to take a photo
- Use the Back button to return to the app
- As the clock timer fires, it check if the length of items in the /DCIM/Camera has increased, and if so
a. stops the clock
b. gets the file name and path of the newest image
c. shows the file path in a label and the actual photo in an image component
My thanks to @Anke for her work on helping and ideas to return the image to the app.
Things this demo does not do:
- setup the environment to work on any android version
- provide for copying or moving the latest photo to other locations
- handle permissions for file access and camera when compiled
- error check if a photo is not taken (the clock will then just keep running)
- provide options if a device does not save photos by default to /DCIM/Camera
- cope with the possibility that some other app, running in the background, adds a file to /DCIM/Camera at the same time a photo is taken!
The demo is created without extensions.
Have fun 