How can we modify the default event badge barcode?

Question

We have a 3rd party event manager who scans bar codes, so it is great that civiCRM renders barcodes on events.

Our problem is that the 3rd party cannot process a barcode that contains a hyphen. For the event badge, we see that the barcode contains the contactID-registrationID

How can we remove the hyphen from the barcode?

We running version 4.7.16 on Joomla 3.6.5

Answer 1

Customizing your Badge Value:

To make it simple for someone, Let me explicitly tell the solution for this implementation in Joomla (found through many hours of trial and error testing :).

1. First make sure the field you want to show on the badge is defined in the list under the label (Administrator\CiviEvent\Event Name Badge Layouts).

2. create a hook, which is basically a .php file and copy the following code with whatever the variables you want to show in the barcode (inside PHP tags ofcourse) (here in my case I am showing a custom value)*:

function joomla_civicrm_alterBarcode(&$data, $type, $context ) { if ($type == 'barcode' && $context == 'name_badge') { // change the encoding of barcode $data['current_value'] = $data['custom_6']; } }

1. Save it under any name in the a new folder inside media. eg: \media\civicrm\customphp\civicrmHooks.php

2. Go to Civicrm and define your PHP folder (Administrator\System Settings\Directories) : Custom PHP Directory - [civicrm.files]/customphp/

3. Now go and find a Event Participant and click on the Badge Print and check the PDF printed. It should have the correct barcode.

4. I could not find a civicrm way to find the name of the custom field name so what I did was to add the following php code in civicrmHooks.php and go to the badge print page, where it output the variable name list.

foreach($data as $x=>$x_value) { echo "Key=" . $x . ", Value=" . $x_value; echo "
"; }

Answer 2

A better approach would probably to use the Barcode hook and alter the value in there instead of overriding the core file.

https://docs.civicrm.org/dev/en/latest/hooks/hook_civicrm_alterBarcode/

Answer 3

I found on the page /administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/CRM/Badge/BAO/Badge.php

line 273:

$data['current_value'] = $formattedRow['values']['contact_id'] . '-' . $formattedRow['values']['participant_id'];

I changed that to:

$data['current_value'] = $formattedRow['values']['contact_id'] . $formattedRow['values']['participant_id'];

removing the hyphen '-'.

I realize that is a hack since it affects core...

Any suggestions for a better approach?