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Maven migration guide

With the release v1.6.8 we are moving away from distributing static .aar files on our GitHub Repository and starting to distribute our libraries via Maven. This means there will also be changes in the way you integrate our libraries.

This is a short guide on how we suggest you migrate from using static .aar files and start using our libraries via Maven.

How .aar libraries were added until now

There are two ways you could include an .aar library into an Android project until now:

  1. As a separate module

    This was possible through Android Studio until a few versions ago - you could go to File -> New -> New Module -> Import .JAR-.AAR Package, and select the .aar file you wanted to include in your project. This would create a new module in your project, which would contain only a small build.gradle file and your .aar file. It would also add an entry to your settings.gradle file for the new module.

    Here is an example of what this looks like for our LibBlinkReceiptCore.aar library in our GitHub sample app - link.

    After that, you could reference the new module in your other modules, e.g. your app module, by adding it as a dependency in your build.gradle dependency block:

    build.gradle
    dependencies {
    implementation project(":LibBlinkReceiptCore")
}

  2. Copying the files into your project

    The second way was copying the .aar file(s) into your project, usually into a libs folder in the root of your project, and then referencing it in your build.gradle files like this:

    build.gradle
    dependencies {
    implementation files("../libs/LibBlinkReceiptCore.aar")
}

But this would only add our binary .aar file to your project, which meant you also had to include all our transitive dependencies manually - and keep track of them as we updated them.

How to migrate to our Maven integration

We’ve migrated over to using Maven as our main and recommended way of distributing our libraries and keeping track of our transitive dependencies. So, here are the steps you need to take to migrate over to using our maven integration:

  1. Remove the old integration

    1. Integration as a separate module

      If your current integration was As a separate module, you’ll have to remove/delete those modules for all of our libraries. I.e., if you were using our LibBlinkReceiptRecognizer module to scan physical receipts, you also had to use LibBlinkReceiptCore, LibBlinkReceiptCamera, and possibly LibBlinkReceiptCameraUi, which means you would have to delete each of these modules. Then, remove the include entries from the settings.gradle for those modules, i.e.:

      settings.gradle
       include ':app'
-include ':LibBlinkReceiptCore'
-include ':LibBlinkReceiptRecognizer'
-include ':LibBlinkReceiptCamera'
-include ':LibBlinkReceiptCameraUi'
      Lastly, remove the dependency declarations for these modules, i.e.:

      build.gradle
       dependencies {
 ...//your other dependencies
-implementation(project(':LibBlinkReceiptCore'))
-implementation(project(':LibBlinkReceiptRecognizer'))
-implementation(project(':LibBlinkReceiptCamera'))
-implementation(project(':LibBlinkReceiptCameraUi'))
}
    2. Integration by copying the files to your project

      If your current integration was by Copying the files into your project, you’ll have to delete the .aar files from your project. I.e., if you were using our LibBlinkReceiptRecognizer module to scan physical receipts, you also had to use LibBlinkReceiptCore, LibBlinkReceiptCamera, and possibly LibBlinkReceiptCameraUi, you would have to delete LibBlinkReceiptRecognizer.aar,LibBlinkReceiptCore.aar, LibBlinkReceiptCamera.aarand LibBlinkReceiptCameraUi.aar. Then, remove the dependency declarations to these files from your code, i.e.:

      build.gradle
      dependencies {
...//your other dependencies
-implementation(files("../libs/LibBlinkReceiptCore.aar"))
-implementation(files("../libs/LibBlinkReceiptRecognizer.aar"))
-implementation(files("../libs/LibBlinkReceiptCamera.aar"))
-implementation(files("../libs/LibBlinkReceiptCameraUi.aar"))
}

  2. Add our Maven repository to your project configuration

    Our libraries are hosted on our own Maven server, at https://maven.microblink.com. To be able to reference our libraries, you have to add our Maven server to your project configuration. There are currently two ways of doing this, either in your root build.gradle file or in your settings.gradle file. Older projects usually have the maven repositories declared in the root build.gradle, while newer ones have it in settings.gradle. To add our Maven server to your project configuration, do the following, depending on if you have the config in your build.gradle or settings.gradle file:

    1. build.gradle
      build.gradle.kts
      allProjects {
  repositories {
    ... // your other repositories
+    maven { url "https://maven.microblink.com" }
  }
}
      build.gradle
      allProjects {
  repositories {
    ... // your other repositories
+    maven { url = uri("https://maven.microblink.com") }
  }
}
    2. settings.gradle
      settings.gradle.kts
         dependencyResolutionManagement {
     repositoriesMode.set(RepositoriesMode.FAIL_ON_PROJECT_REPOS)
     repositories {
       ... // your other repositories
+      maven { url = uri("https://maven.microblink.com") }
     }
   }
      settings.gradle
         dependencyResolutionManagement {
     repositoriesMode.set(RepositoriesMode.FAIL_ON_PROJECT_REPOS)
     repositories {
       ... // your other repositories
+      maven { url "https://maven.microblink.com" }
     }
   }

  3. Remove transitive dependencies and reference our dependencies in your code

    All that’s left is to remove transitive dependencies and add our maven dependency declarations in your build.gradle dependencies blocks. Since we’re using a BOM implementation for our maven integration, you only have to declare the root version of our SDK using the platform declaration. You can then declare only the necessary modules you want to use, without specifying a version. Here are the changes you are supposed to make in your build.gradle, for each of our library modules:

    build.gradle
    dependencies {
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk8:1.9.23")
-  implementation("androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.7.0")
-  implementation("androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout:2.1.4")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.12.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-scalars:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okio:okio:3.9.0")
-  implementation("com.google.android.gms:play-services-tasks:18.2.0")
-  implementation("com.google.android.gms:play-services-auth:21.2.0")
-  implementation("androidx.webkit:webkit:1.11.0")
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime:2.9.1")
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime-ktx:2.9.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.8.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.8.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-play-services:1.8.1")
-  implementation("androidx.core:core-ktx:1.13.1")

+  implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.8.7"))
+  implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-recognizer")
   //BlinkReceiptRecognizer doesn't depend on BlinkReceiptCameraUi, so if you want to use our default scanning UI you also have to include the following dependency
+  implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-camera-ui")
}
    build.gradle
    dependencies {
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk8:1.9.23")
-  implementation("androidx.core:core-ktx:1.13.1")
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime:2.9.1")
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime-ktx:2.9.1")
-  implementation("androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.2.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.12.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:logging-interceptor:4.9.3")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-scalars:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okio:okio:3.9.0")
-  implementation("com.google.android.gms:play-services-tasks:18.2.0")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.8.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.8.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-play-services:1.7.2")
-  implementation("androidx.webkit:webkit:1.11.0")
-  implementation("androidx.datastore:datastore-preferences:1.1.1")

+  implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.8.7")
+  implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-account-linking")
}
    build.gradle
    dependencies {
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime:2.9.1")
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime-ktx:2.9.1")
-  implementation( "com.microsoft.identity.client:msal:5.5.0" ) {
-    exclude group: "com.microsoft.device.display"
-}
-  implementation("com.sun.mail:android-mail:1.6.7")
-  implementation("com.sun.mail:android-activation:1.6.7")
-  implementation("androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.7.0")
-  implementation("androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout:2.1.4")
-  implementation("androidx.fragment:fragment-ktx:1.8.3")
-  implementation("androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel-ktx:2.8.3")
-  implementation("androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-livedata-ktx:2.8.3")
-  implementation("androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-common-java8:2.8.3")
-  implementation("androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-runtime-ktx:2.8.5")
-  implementation("androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel-savedstate:2.8.3")
-  implementation("androidx.webkit:webkit:1.11.0")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.8.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.8.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-play-services:1.8.1")
-  implementation("com.google.android.material:material:1.12.0")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk8:1.9.23")
-  implementation("androidx.core:core-ktx:1.13.1")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.12.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:logging-interceptor:4.12.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-scalars:2.11.0")
-  implementation("androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout:2.1.4")
-  implementation("androidx.core:core:1.3.1")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okio:okio:3.9.0")
-  implementation("com.google.android.gms:play-services-tasks:18.2.0")
-  implementation("com.google.apis:google-api-services-gmail:v1-rev110-1.25.0" exclude module: "httpclient")
-  implementation("com.google.api-client:google-api-client-android:2.7.0" exclude module: "httpclient")
-  implementation("com.google.http-client:google-http-client-gson:1.45.0" exclude module: "httpclient")

+  implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.8.7"))
+  implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-digital")
}
    build.gradle
    dependencies {
-  implementation("androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.7.0")
-  implementation("com.google.android.gms:play-services-tasks:18.2.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.12.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:logging-interceptor:4.12.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-scalars:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okio:okio:3.9.0")

+  implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.8.7"))
+  implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-earnings")
 }
    build.gradle
    dependencies {
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk8:1.9.23")
-  implementation("androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.7.0")
-  implementation("androidx.core:core-ktx:1.13.1")
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime:2.9.1")
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime-ktx:2.9.1")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.10.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:logging-interceptor:4.10.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-scalars:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okio:okio:3.9.0")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.8.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.7.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-play-services:1.8.1")
-  implementation("com.google.android.gms:play-services-tasks:18.2.0")
-  implementation("com.google.android.material:material:1.12.0")
-  implementation("androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout:2.1.4")
-  implementation("androidx.fragment:fragment-ktx:1.8.3")
-  implementation("androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-viewmodel-ktx:2.8.3")
-  implementation("androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-runtime-ktx:2.8.5")

+  implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.8.7"))
+  implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-surveys")
 }
    build.gradle
    dependencies {
-  implementation("androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.7.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.12.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-scalars:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:logging-interceptor:2.9.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:logging-interceptor:2.9.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okio:okio:3.9.0")
-  implementation("androidx.lifecycle:lifecycle-runtime:2.6.1")
-  implementation("com.google.zxing:core:3.5.1")
-  implementation("com.google.android.gms:play-services-tasks:18.2.0")

+  implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.8.7"))
+  implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-barcode")
}
    build.gradle
    dependencies {
-  implementation("androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.7.0")
-  implementation("androidx.core:core-ktx:1.13.1")
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime:2.9.1")
-  implementation("androidx.work:work-runtime-ktx:2.9.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-core:1.8.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlinx:kotlinx-coroutines-android:1.8.1")
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk8:1.9.23")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:okhttp:4.12.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okhttp3:logging-interceptor:4.12.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:retrofit:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-gson:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.retrofit2:converter-scalars:2.11.0")
-  implementation("com.google.android.gms:play-services-tasks:18.2.0")
-  implementation("com.squareup.okio:okio:3.9.0")
-  implementation("androidx.preference:preference-ktx:1.2.1")

+  implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.8.7"))
+  implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-core")
}
    build.gradle
    dependencies {
-  implementation("org.jetbrains.kotlin:kotlin-stdlib-jdk8:1.9.23")
-  implementation("androidx.core:core-ktx:1.13.1")
-  implementation("androidx.appcompat:appcompat:1.7.0")
-  implementation("com.google.android.material:material:1.11.0")
-  implementation("androidx.fragment:fragment:1.5.7")
-  implementation("androidx.fragment:fragment-ktx:1.8.3")
-  implementation("androidx.swiperefreshlayout:swiperefreshlayout:1.1.0")

+  implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.8.7"))
+  implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-camera-ui")
}

  4. Combining multiple libraries

    If you want to combine multiple libraries, you only have to declare the BOM dependency once, and then list the other dependencies, e.g., if you wanted to use the BlinkReceiptRecognizer, BlinkReceiptAccountLinking and BlinkReceiptDigital libraries in the same project, your dependencies block would look something like this:

    dependencies {
    implementation(platform("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-bom:1.8.7"))
    implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-recognizer")
    implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-account-linking")
    implementation("com.microblink.blinkreceipt:blinkreceipt-digital")
}

    Since BlinkReceiptRecognizer depends on BlinkReceiptCore and BlinkReceiptCamera, it will pull them in without you having to declare them as dependencies. Same goes for BlinkReceiptAccountLinking and BlinkReceiptDigital which depend on BlinkReceiptCore.