zxing-android-embedded VS smali

Yes and no, if you look at https://github.com/journeyapps/zxing-android-embedded for example and its IntentIntegrator, you can also look at the source code itself and get how they use their DecoratedBarcodeView and skip the Activity altogether.

Zxing

I wrote an app, in french (https://pilldroid.foucry.net, which use the https://github.com/journeyapps/zxing-android-embedded to scan the code of medics.

ZxingDemo uses the ZXing Android Embedded Barcode scanner library for Android, which is based on the ZXing decoder. It is released under the terms of the Apache-2.0 License, and is hosted on GitHub.

zxing-android-embedded (Apache 2.0);

In the past I've used 2 different methods. First was simply modifying the smali code to change values to what I want. For instance, instead of saving media to the internal SD card, I would save it to the external (for a 4WD GPS), or change the maximum amount of downloads from 10000 to 1000000.

If you access the smali github wiki, you will find this definition:

Next we need to decode/decompile the APK. So navigate to where you downloaded the APK and using Apktool decode Smart Audiobook Player using the decode argument. So our command will be apktool decode ak.alizandro.smartaudiobookplayer_2021-06-06.apk It will make a folder called ak.alizandro.smartaudiobookplayer_2021-06-06 which will contain all of the smali code (the 'assembly' language for DEX files - someone correct me with a better explanation please), the manifest.xml file of the APK, and all of the resources needed to compile our app back into a working APK file.

If interested in reversing, you’ll need tools such as (https://ibotpeaches.github.io/Apktool/ ) and dex2jar (https://github.com/pxb1988/dex2jar) and jd-GUI (http://java-decompiler.github.io/) and I also highly recommend using smali (https://github.com/JesusFreke/smali) rather than trying to analyze the machine code if jd-GUI fails to recompile something back to the pseudo-Java. There’s actually a very good LinkedIn learning video on how to use all these tools together called Learning Android Malware Analysis, just get the trial or w/e and do the course then cancel.