gaz_terminal-example-backend-livemode | Stripe Developers | Page 1

stuck wigeonBOT Feb 28, 2025, 5:48 PM

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gaz_api, 29 minutes ago, 25 messages

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mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 5:49 PM

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i set up the stripe terminal backend, and i want to use it in production mode so i set STRIPE_ENV to production however when i try to use the tap to pay it says

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Error: you used a live mode secret key to set up the example backend. Please use your test mode secret key. For more information, see https://stripe.com/docs/keys#test-live-modes

oak vine Feb 28, 2025, 5:51 PM

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Hi! The 'example backend' is not meant to be used as is in production, it's just meant as a sample, a place to start.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 5:51 PM

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oh, well surely there is a way to use it still?

oak vine Feb 28, 2025, 5:54 PM

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Using unmodified examples like this in production is dangerous unless you've made it secure, and of course doesn't actually do what your final application will do.

Also testing in livemode is a violation of (at least) Stripe's Terms of Service.

What is it that you're trying to do exactly?

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 5:54 PM

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we just need to take credit card payments from within an app ive written

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and we want to use this example backend for it, i dont want to write something new we have taken a long time just to get this to work

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so i just need a way to make the example backend work in production

oak vine Feb 28, 2025, 6:02 PM

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Did you change the code from the example?

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:02 PM

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no, but i see that i can probably just remove that error

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and it should probably work?

oak vine Feb 28, 2025, 6:05 PM

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Well, no, because the example doesn't actually do anything.

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Like, you need to build your server-side application logic and everything too right?

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:07 PM

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well everything is complete on the app and the server side, we just need to receive payments now

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we designed all this to use stripe to receive the payments on the phone using the app, and assumed that was the purpose of all of this

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like what is the purpose of having the credit card screen come up and read the nfc etc and all of that for no reason?

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all i need to do is receive the payment into our stripe account when the card is tapped, without error.

stuck wigeonBOT Feb 28, 2025, 6:15 PM

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oak vine Feb 28, 2025, 6:20 PM

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Cool. Does all that work in test mode?

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:21 PM

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yes all works in test mode, just need to be able to get the money from the card swipe into our stripe account

oak vine Feb 28, 2025, 6:24 PM

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If it all works in testmode, then you should be able to make it work in livemode by modifying where that error is happening, and it should work.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:24 PM

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its all for staff to use so only staff users will ever use the app, customer just swipes card when required

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i see where i could remove the error and the "return", but would the example backend actually cause the money to appear in the stripe account?

stuck wigeonBOT Feb 28, 2025, 6:24 PM

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gaz_terminal-example-backend-livemode

oak vine Feb 28, 2025, 6:25 PM

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DId it make test money show up in your test account?

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:25 PM

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hmm, im not sure, i didnt realise that could be done

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i thought as soon as the credit card screen went green and it looks like the card worked, that in production mode it would do the rest of the work to really accept the payment

oak vine Feb 28, 2025, 6:28 PM

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I would suggest you re-read the docs, and work through all of this in testmode so that it does everything you need it to do in testmode before you consider switching it to livemode.

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I've got to run, but my colleague is here if you have any further questions - but I would definitely suggest just sitting down and working through the docs and code at this point.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:31 PM

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hmm im confused, spent months to get this far

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thanks, would be better if there was a "real backend" i can use

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i kind of need to know what the backend does then

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anyone here? lol

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i need to know what i need to fix/change/implement to make this work

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someone scans card, it speaks to the example-backend, but how do we actually make the transaction real and appear in the stripe account. and what is the purpose of the example backend if it cannot do this, seems that it is literally entirely pointless it even existing if it cannot do that?

blazing nimbus Feb 28, 2025, 6:43 PM

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Hi, stepping in here. Sorry, I was helping on another thread .I did not realize you were referring to terminal on the previous thread. I should have clarified.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:45 PM

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yeh im using this thing https://github.com/stripe/example-terminal-backend

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we need to be able to actually process the transaction properly

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we do have a php guy who said a while back that he can process payments to stripe using an api he wrote, so if i understand it correctly we could go from the credit card scan screen to his api to make the genuine payment, and not use the example backend

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took us a long time to get the backend working and to fetch the token etc, we are even paying render to host this with no downtime, but i cant understand why if we cant use it

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also the credit card screen etc will not even work without speaking to the example backend to get the token, so we might need to keep that too, very confusing to simply make a payment on an app using a card.

blazing nimbus Feb 28, 2025, 6:48 PM

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Let me grab a teammate who have more exeprtise with Terminal. Thank you for your patience.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:48 PM

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thanks

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i wonder if all the stripe tap 2 pay sdk does is simply read all the info from the card, ready to pass to some other api? but, does it read everything? including csv etc? and if so how can we send that information safely to our php api to do the transaction "for real"

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 6:54 PM

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Hello! I'm taking over and catching up...

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:55 PM

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thanks Rubeus

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im very worried now because i dont know how to proceed

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and ive wasted so much time on this

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 6:57 PM

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Read through the thread, and I want to reitterate what was shared earlier: the example backend you're using is just that, an example. It's meant as a minimal example for you to experiment with and use as a reference, it's not production-ready code and should not be used in live mode.

A Terminal integration like the one you're trying to build requires you to build your own custom backend to meet your specific needs. If you don't have the development resources to build that you can either hire a developer or use an off-the-shelf third-party Terminal solution. There are several options here, for example: https://stripe.partners/?f_stripe-solution=in-person-payments

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:59 PM

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that backend should not exist then, it just wastes time and money for everyone

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 6:59 PM

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Regarding your question about the Tap to Pay SDK, it does not do what you described above, and is significantly more complicated than that. There are a lot of rules and regulations around taking in-person card payments which require a lot of complexity under the hood to make things work.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 6:59 PM

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can u point me to "real" backends that i can buy off the shelf

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so what does the tap2pay sdk do and how do we actually make real payments?

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:00 PM

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I don't know of anyone who makes such a thing. It would be incredibly difficult to make a generic backend that worked with various custom frontends. Everything I know of that would be a turn-key solution is a complete solution, not just the backend part.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:00 PM

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and if my php guy can handle the payments using his code (not sure he can) how can i pass what the tap to pay read to his api?

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:01 PM

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Your two options are to build a full custom solution yourself, including the frontend and backend, or to use a third-party system that someone else has built.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:02 PM

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hmm, we have everything implemented and working, we only need the bit which actually transfers the money when the card is swiped

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:02 PM

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If you have someone who knows PHP they should be able to help you with the backend. That person would need to read through our Terminal documentation and work with whomever built your mobile app to come up with a complete solution.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:02 PM

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right, yeh i wrote the app, and he did say he could handle stripe transactions, so together hopefully we can make it work

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but im not sure what the tap 2 pay sdk outputs, in order to use it with the php?

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:04 PM

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It's not a matter of a simple output. The app and the backend need to talk to each other at several points throughout the process and coordinate a lot of functionality. It's much more involved than you're describing.

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Depending on your use case and business needs it might be relatively quick to build what you need, but it could also be something that takes a fair bit of effort. It depends on the specific functionality you require, but having someone who knows both the client side of things and the server side of things working together is key to getting it up and running.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:08 PM

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hmm thats a huge shame, spent so long getting this to work, and stripe seems like it should be able to simplfy the process. I simply want to receive payments in an app, surely there is an off the shelf solution to this

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we dont need any functionality just to be able to receive payment

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:09 PM

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There are many off-the-shelf solutions for this, but they're all by third parties. Stripe doesn't provide one.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:09 PM

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i mean this would be very easy if we just forced the user to enter their credit card details i would think

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we were just trying to simplify it with a swipe

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:09 PM

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That would require you to meet a lot of PCI compliance burdens, and it would still require a backend component you'd have to build.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:10 PM

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yeh, im beyond confused now lol

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i thought we were finished here

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seems like ive been wasting my time

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:11 PM

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I recommend you work with the developer you mentioned who knows PHP and see what they think about finshing what you've built so far.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:11 PM

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yes, i will arrange a meeting with him

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i dont quite understand the point of the swipe though

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can u briefly explain what happens when a card is swiped?

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i assumed it did all the magic for you and the money would magically appear in the stripe account

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:12 PM

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Do you mean tapped or swiped? You mentioned Tap to Pay specifically before.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:12 PM

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erm, yeh tap sorry, i thought they were the same thing

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:12 PM

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No, they're different. Swiping requires reader hardware which reads the data off the card's magnetic strip.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:13 PM

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yeh we were trying to do this without a card reader, just using the phone, but if it is easier with a card reader we will probably go that route

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i thought it was so amazing when i realised it could be done on the phone without a reader

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:14 PM

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For a tap, the card's NFC chip communicates with the NFC chip in your phone to exchange information required to process the transaction. Setting up the NFC reader on your phone to accept those taps, then decoding and using the information provided by the card is handled by both the Stripe Terminal SDK running on the phone and the Stripe code running on your server, both of which talk to the Stripe API to process payments.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:15 PM

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right so i have all that working on the phone, and i think we already accept stripe payments properly using the API for other things

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so we just need to link them somehow

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:16 PM

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Yep, by building a backend.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:17 PM

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yes we have a backend and already receive many payments using stripe

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so the confusing bit is what does the terminbal sdk in the app do, to contact the backend, and what does it send

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:18 PM

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Yeah, so whoever built that backend should be able to help you extend it to support Terminal and Tap to Pay.

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What it specifically does depends on what you built and what features you're using.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:19 PM

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right, well as far as i know we just want to get money from the customers card and transfer it

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nothing fancy

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but yeh i will have to speak to him

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i really feel like stripe is misleading people with all of this

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it should work as is suggested

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they make it sound so simple and easy

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:20 PM

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What specifically are you referring to?

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:20 PM

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the ability to accept payments from inside an app

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(using tap to pay)

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:21 PM

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No, I mean what specific part of Stripe made it sound easier than it actually is? Was it a certain web page? A doc? A guide?

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:21 PM

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ah yeh its been a while, i have wasted 4 months just getting this to work!.. and it all started with a web page that made it seem very easy.

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it has been very difficult to get the card screen even working and being able to swipe on it.. and now i find that it basically does nothing once you swipe

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i just hope our php guy knows whats going on but i doubt he will know how to interface with the android app

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:22 PM

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Our documentation should make that part clear.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:22 PM

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he is basically just writing php scripts and at some point the info will need to flow from the app to the php using a normal http call

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and i dont know what info that is or even if the terminal sdk collects or outputs anything

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the documentation is sadly lacking, confusing, points to old resources all over

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most ppl in these help channels do not even know the example backend exists*

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:24 PM

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If you work with him through it step by step I think it will become more clear.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:24 PM

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yes i hope so

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i will probably advise against stripe for future projects of my own

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need something that makes it far easier

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but everyone always says use stripe its simple!

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be easier to use paypal, could be done in no time

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:26 PM

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You should go with whatever works best for you and your business, for sure.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:26 PM

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yep

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i assume the client uses stripe due to low fees or something

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i mean google pay could prob do all this too i assume or apple pay

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ive not taken many payments from within an app so i assumed it would be very simple by now

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anyway thanks for your help, i appreciate it,

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would be good to see some docs that show how to actually do this if they exist

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:27 PM

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No problem! Good luck with getting it all working!

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:27 PM

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like what do you have to do after the card is tapped, in terms of coding, what has to happen to process the payment

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:28 PM

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The main docs for Terminal are here: https://docs.stripe.com/terminal

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:28 PM

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and to be honest i would buy a library or something if it did it all for me

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:28 PM

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That's where you and your backend developer should start when you collaborate on this.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:28 PM

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great thanks

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haha i think these are the docs

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that make it sound so simple

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when in fact its like a phd just making one transaction 🙂

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:31 PM

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Yeah, Stripe provides tools and APIs for you to build custom Terminal solutions that meet your needs. We try to make the development process as easy as possible, but it is still a development process and requires experienced frontend and backend developers to build everything required.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:31 PM

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yeh

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ive been making mobile apps now for 23 years

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and it still managed to con me into thinking it would work

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hopefully something can be worked out, or it will be a nightmare starting again

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so this example app https://github.com/stripe/stripe-terminal-android

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thats what i based my code on

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and the example back end

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still cant understand how they cant work together to complete it, its right ther ein the docs telling you to use them

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:36 PM

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They can and do work together just fine, but the backend is an example. It's not production ready, it's just a reference for development and testing. You need to build your own production-ready backend with your PHP developer.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:37 PM

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yeh but what i dont understand is what gets transferred betweeen them

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the app must send something to the backend

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but what does it send?

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:37 PM

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You can work with your PHP developer to understand that.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:38 PM

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lol

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yeh!

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do you actually know or not?

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:38 PM

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Or you can read through the docs.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:38 PM

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read them docs to death but i must have missed some pages

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:38 PM

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I do know, but it's out of scope for me to explain it in detail when you have access to both our docs and the code itself, both of which provide what you're asking.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:38 PM

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lol

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i wish the code did show it!

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we have just proven that it does not

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and i cannot find it in the docs

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:40 PM

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I understand your project isn't going as planned and you're frustrated, but I don't know how much more help we can provide here. You have a next step, which is working with your PHP developer to build the backend you need. Unless you have any other outstanding questions I think we're good to close this thread, correct?

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:40 PM

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i wonder if it would be easier to have the app go to a webpage,

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well i guess you can, you have been more helpful than the other guys but still seem to shy away from actually really helping

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not sure why stripe does that

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i sitll cannot find what info is passed to the backend etc

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and it is not in the docs as far as i can see

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:43 PM

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It is in the docs. It's also in the example backend code; you can see exactly what that code is doing by reading it.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:44 PM

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are you referring to web.rb ?

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in the backend?

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:45 PM

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I'm referring to this collectively: https://github.com/stripe/example-terminal-backend

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Not just one file.

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:46 PM

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yeh but thats the only one with actual logic in really

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:46 PM

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The bulk of the functionality is in that file, yes.

stuck wigeonBOT Feb 28, 2025, 7:48 PM

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mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:48 PM

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yeh its all very simpole and generic code

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i guess somehow the goodness is in the json it sends back and forth

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anyway yeh i guess we cant do much more here

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thanks a lot for the help

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im frustrated as hell, but hopefully i will survive 🙂

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:49 PM

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No problem! I think working with your PHP developer will help a lot and get you back on track!

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:50 PM

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yes i think so, i will set up a meeting with him tomorrow!

atomic flicker Feb 28, 2025, 7:50 PM

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Have a great day and great weekend!

mossy lion Feb 28, 2025, 7:50 PM

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thanks again, have a good weekend.

#gaz_terminal-example-backend-livemode