Prompt user for camera access on Android.

[MicahZoltu]

At the moment, if you try to scan a QR code without camera permissions the app tells you it needs camera permissions and gives you a link to the settings on Android. This is not the proper way to prompt the user for camera access on modern versions of Android because it doesn't allow the user to provide fine grained control like "just this time" instead of "always".

You can get more information about the correct way to prompt for camera access at https://developer.android.com/training/permissions/requesting, which will result in the user receiving an OS prompt where the user can provide fine-grained permissions, rather than needing to grant permanent permissions. It is also a better user experience to give the OS prompt directly instead of sending them to the settings screen.

[debeldami]

Hi, @MicahZoltu

For me I get a prompt to grant permission to the app to use the camera.

[MicahZoltu]

When I click the "Scanner" button on the main screen of Vault, I see a page that says "In order to scan QR codes, AirGap Vault needs the camera permission." and it has a single "Continue" button. If I click the "Continue" button, I get an OS popup that says "Settings" "You can enable the missing permissions in the device settings." and has two buttons, "Cancel" and "Open Settings". Clicking "Open Settings" takes me to the OS App Info page, where I can manually adjust Permissions.

I get this flow when I have the camera configured to "Ask every time".

Further testing just now reveals that if I instead set the permission to "Don't Allow", clicking the Scanner button instead gives me the pop-up! One of the options is "Ask every time", and if I choose that, then close the app & lock/unlock the phone and navigate to the Scanner again I am back to the situation where it does not give me the prompt and instead tells me to go to settings.

So the issue seems to be narrowly around using "Ask Every Time" setting, and the camera does the correct thing when you have it configured to "Don't Allow". This is surprising to me as I would have expected that the app cannot tell the difference between "Don't Allow" and "Ask Every Time", but apparently it can!