I put together a tool that lets you check where an item is from, and then search for Canadian alternatives. Looking for feedback, and I'm open to working with others to make this better!
I put together a tool that lets you check where an item is from, and then search for Canadian alternatives. Looking for feedback, and I'm open to working with others to make this better!
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/38473938
I spent last night putting together this tool. You can try it out here: https://isitcanadian.cynber.dev/product-search
Some barcodes that you can try with:
06735130015070013000052528It lets you search for a product by the barcode, and then using the Open Food Facts database, it will tell you where the product is from (origin of ingredients, location of manufacturing / processing, and where it is sold). You can then search for Canadian alternatives.
It uses the categories of the item to search for similar items in the database, and filters out items that aren't Canadian in at least one of the ways above. You can further filter by those categories or by origin and manufacturing / processing location.
I chose Open Food Facts because it is an existing open source initiative, run by a non-profit, and already has lots of data. When a product is missing or incorrect, you can contribute it with their mobile app. This has the added benefit of improving the data for everyone, and there's a lot more there than just the country of origin.
Some things I'd like to do:
- Ability to search by name, not just barcode
- Ability to scan a barcode instead of typing it in / pasting it
- Gather articles and compilations from community members since the search alone would be tedious
- Go through the mess I made of the code while trying to do it all in one night
I hope it's helpful, and I'd love to hear feedback. It's open source so if you want to contribute, you can find the code here: https://github.com/cynber/is-it-canadian
I'll be back again tonight to respond to comments and feedback. Thanks you!
I'm also planning to set up a community on this instance project, if there is enough interest for it. I didn't make the commuinity yet because I haven't settled on a name. I mentioned those plans here:
I want it to be, "Does it Canada?"
Good idea but url seems dead.
There's also this already https://madeinca.ca/
Maybe not completely the same, but similar idea.
Could you share which link? They seem to be working for me.
I was having DNS issues when setting it up, which could be related
This is great! I might remove the blog section and focus on the search functionality, since there are a lot of these compilations/guides already.
Seems it's my zenarmour blocking it.
This is really great, thanks for working on it!
Watching folks rally together like this warms my little heart and gives me hope. (I'm Canucks fan, so you can imagine how alien this whole "hope" thing feels to me.)
How hard would it be to add your camera to scan bar codes. Are there standing libraries to use
I've been trying a few packages, such as ZXing, some have worked better than others. I can get it to scan a barcode, but it doesn't work reliably yet. I have a few more issues to iron out, but it will be possible
…the hero we need