I need to generate a lot of QR code target images, each one different.
All the 'office work' behind the project is on my G3 (OS8.6) and all the
software that needs the images is on that machine too, so it makes sense
to use the same machine when generating the QR codes.

There are two possible routes that I have identified:

1) Write a short program in PHP and use a QR code generator that may be
built into the server.

2) Use a free online website to do a few at a time, taking care not to
exceed the daily limit.

The first option is not open to me at present because the server I use
doesn't have a built-in QR code generator and I don't have acccess to
one that does.

The second option is rather limited by the browsers available on OS 8.6,
none of which can cope with 'https' webpages. I have found a website
which works on my machine
<https://www.morovia.com/free-online-barcode-generator/qrcode-maker.php>
but the output is on-screen. and the instruction to right-click the
image to download it obviously doesn't work with a single-button mouse.
I have tried option-clicking and CMD-clicking, but thay don't work
either. I have searched through the source code of the webpage but
failed to find the URL of the generated image.

At present I take a screeshot of the code and then process it to a .gif
in PhotoshopLE, but this seems terribly clunky. Can anyone suggest a
better way?

--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

On 25/06/2023 18:14, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
> I need to generate a lot of QR code target images, each one different.
> All the 'office work' behind the project is on my G3 (OS8.6) and all the
> software that needs the images is on that machine too, so it makes sense
> to use the same machine when generating the QR codes.
>
> There are two possible routes that I have identified:
>
> 1) Write a short program in PHP and use a QR code generator that may be
> built into the server.
>
> 2) Use a free online website to do a few at a time, taking care not to
> exceed the daily limit.
>
> The first option is not open to me at present because the server I use
> doesn't have a built-in QR code generator and I don't have acccess to
> one that does.
>
> The second option is rather limited by the browsers available on OS 8.6,
> none of which can cope with 'https' webpages. I have found a website
> which works on my machine
> <https://www.morovia.com/free-online-barcode-generator/qrcode-maker.php>
> but the output is on-screen. and the instruction to right-click the
> image to download it obviously doesn't work with a single-button mouse.
> I have tried option-clicking and CMD-clicking, but thay don't work
> either. I have searched through the source code of the webpage but
> failed to find the URL of the generated image.
>
> At present I take a screeshot of the code and then process it to a .gif
> in PhotoshopLE, but this seems terribly clunky. Can anyone suggest a
> better way?

A variation on option 1, is to install MacPython from here:

<https://homepages.cwi.nl/~jack/macpython/macpython-older.html>
(Follow the "even older" link at the bottom for MacOS 8 versions.)

Hopefully (!) it will be able to install and run the libraries needed to
enable you to generate QR codes locally per the following example code:

<https://towardsdatascience.com/generate-qrcode-with-python-in-5-lines-42eda283f325>

It's all a bit "might work" I'm afraid. :-(

--
Bruce Horrocks
Surrey, England

Bruce Horrocks <07.013@scorecrow.com> wrote:

> On 25/06/2023 18:14, Liz Tuddenham wrote:
> > I need to generate a lot of QR code target images, each one different.
> > All the 'office work' behind the project is on my G3 (OS8.6) and all the
> > software that needs the images is on that machine too, so it makes sense
> > to use the same machine when generating the QR codes.
> >
> > There are two possible routes that I have identified:
> >
> > 1) Write a short program in PHP and use a QR code generator that may be
> > built into the server.
> >
> > 2) Use a free online website to do a few at a time, taking care not to
> > exceed the daily limit.
> >
> > The first option is not open to me at present because the server I use
> > doesn't have a built-in QR code generator and I don't have acccess to
> > one that does.
> >
> > The second option is rather limited by the browsers available on OS 8.6,
> > none of which can cope with 'https' webpages. I have found a website
> > which works on my machine
> > <https://www.morovia.com/free-online-barcode-generator/qrcode-maker.php>
> > but the output is on-screen. and the instruction to right-click the
> > image to download it obviously doesn't work with a single-button mouse.
> > I have tried option-clicking and CMD-clicking, but thay don't work
> > either. I have searched through the source code of the webpage but
> > failed to find the URL of the generated image.
> >
> > At present I take a screeshot of the code and then process it to a .gif
> > in PhotoshopLE, but this seems terribly clunky. Can anyone suggest a
> > better way?
>
> A variation on option 1, is to install MacPython from here:
>
> <https://homepages.cwi.nl/~jack/macpython/macpython-older.html>
> (Follow the "even older" link at the bottom for MacOS 8 versions.)f
>
> Hopefully (!) it will be able to install and run the libraries needed to
> enable you to generate QR codes locally per the following example code:
>
> <https://towardsdatascience.com/generate-qrcode-with-python-in-5-lines-42e
> da283f325>
>
> It's all a bit "might work" I'm afraid. :-(

Thanks for the information. I've downloaded Python1.5.2c1, but can't
find any reference to QR codes, so I suspect that version was too early
for them. Later version need OSX or Linux.

--
~ Liz Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk

Liz Tuddenham <liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid> wrote:
> Thanks for the information. I've downloaded Python1.5.2c1, but can't
> find any reference to QR codes, so I suspect that version was too early
> for them. Later version need OSX or Linux.

Python 1.5 is positively jurassic, so I'm doubtful anything modern would
work with it.

I think your best bets is either to code up the QR algorithm in some
language the G3 can handle natively, or to run a basic server on another
machine that is G3-friendly (no https) and have that serve QR codes in
response to queries from the Mac.

Probably the former is simpler. For example, here's some implementations in
C and C++:
https://github.com/nayuki/QR-Code-generator

You would need to add some code to generate images in the format of your
choice.

Theo