Camera Capture Button - Camera control not selected

[bjarvis]

Hi all,

Most tutorials for the Camera Control have you use the Camera Controls 'OnSelect' - which means you're tapping the screen to take the photo.

I would much rather have a 'Capture' button at the bottom of the screen to actually capture the photo

However, it seems that to do this the camera control must be selected first, and re-selected after every press of the button 'Capture' (otherwise the image doesn't capture)

Currently i have a button called 'Capture' that has this code in it's On Select (image attached)

Collect(local_photos, Camera.Photo); UpdateContext({PhotoDateTime: Now()})

Is there anything i can do to make sure the camera control is selected when a user presses the button?

[v-micsh-msft]

Thanks for the feedback.

Confirmed that the camera would need to be pressed before the Capture button could save the photo property.

To workaorund this, please take a try to use a variable to remind user to press Camera control first before press the Capture button, formula under OnSelect of Capture Button should be:

If(CameraPressed, Collect(MyData, {MyPic:Camera1.Photo,Date:Now()});UpdateContext({PhotoDateTime:Now(),CameraPressed:false}),UpdateContext({Message: "Please tab Camera first"}))

Formula under Camera OnSelect property:

UpdateContext({CameraPressed:true})

Add a Label control, change its text property as:

If(!CameraPressed,Message)

Color proeprty:

RGBA(255,0,0,1)

Regards,

Michael

[BrianHFASPS]

Any update on this? Making a button take picture without user clicking on photo box? Also anyway to disable click sound?

[mobaky]

Hello @BrianHFASPS,

I believe that you can achieve this by using the camera stream. Here is a link to a blog post that shows how to use it:

https://powerapps.microsoft.com/en-us/blog/ux-patterns-camera-shutter-button/

Also capturing images using this method shouldn't make any shutter sounds.

I hope this helps 🙂

[BrianHFASPS]

Thanks that works great. My problem is how to take the Stream image and use it to save. I am trying to upload to SQL Image column. If I do Camera.Photo via patch to that column it works but Camera.Stream doesn't. I I feed the Camera.Stream into a Collection and view it via gallery I can see it is working. Just not sure why it won't go into SQL. Is the Stream format different than Photo?

[BrianHFASPS]

The stream is text data only not Image it seems. I was able to patch into VARCHARMAX column type. Then PowerApps can read that back in as Image fine.

[mobaky]

@BrianHFASPS That's interesting! I didn't know that the output was different. I am glad it worked for you!

[BrianHFASPS]

In case anyone else comes accross this I would recommend https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qX3i8456YwU as it goes into the difference between image and varcharmax in Photo, Pen and Image upload. Also performance differences.

[jhall]

Same problem here.  I was trying to do this w/ a timer.  For example, pop up the camera on-screen, then start a countdown (e.g. 5...4...3...2...1) to then take a photo.  

The curious issue on this of course is that no error is thrown, and the Collection is populated with a single record in all scenarios below (with blank values for the .URL).  

So:

• Setting OnSelect for Camera1 to ClearCollect(myPhoto,Camera1.Photo) works
  • First(myPhoto).Url shows data/image
• Setting OnSelect for Button1 to same as above does not work (unless you first select the Camera1 control as noted above)
  • First(myPhoto).Url shows blank
  • CountRows(myPhoto) returns 1
• Setting OnEnd for Timer1 does not work unless you have Camera1 selected before the Timer expires
  • First(myPhoto).Url shows blank
  • CountRows(myPhoto) returns 1

We could work around this if there was an ability to programatically control TabIndex and/or force selection of a control.

[RandyHayes]

@jhall 

Not seeing the issue here.  I duplicated what you had explained - a Camera control and a timer.  I also put a Gallery tied to a collection which had an image control in it.  Timer set to repeat every 2 seconds.  Stream rate on Camera to 100.

OnTimerEnd - Collect(photoCol, Camera1.Stream)

Every 2 seconds a new row shows up in the gallery.  Didn't need to select the camera control or anything.  The only interaction was to start the timer (the timer itself).