DHES

Here is a new feature for stores with a really small number of items in their stock table. It was designed with something like a snack bar, theater concessions stand, etc. in mind but will work for any store with few items.

It works like the "groups" feature that during a sale gives you a menu of different types of items in your store instead of asking you for the stock number. In the "groups" mode the screen displays the different groups, you pick the group you want, and then the screen displays the items in that group so that you can pick one.

But what is you only have 15 different items in your store? Then displaying the groups menu is kind of pointless.

If you go to the stock table and press "[F6] Groups" you will have an additional option of "[F8] Stock table default" This will make the first page of your stock table the default method of entering items into a sale. Now when you go to "1. Purchase" in the POS.EXE program the first page of the stock table will be displayed like...
<pre> 1|A|SMALL POPCORN | 2.50
2|B|MEDIUM POPCORN | 3.25
3|C|LARGE POPCORN | 4.00
4|D|EX. LARGE POPCORN| 4.75
|E| |
5|F|SMALL SODA | 1.00
6|G|MEDIUM SODA | 1.25
7|H|LARGE SODA | 1.50
|I| |
8|J|HOT DOG | 1.75
9|K|POLISH | 2.00
10|L|BAG OF CHIPS | 0.75
11|M|SMALL CANDY | 1.00
12|N|LARGE CANDY | 1.50
13|O|SOFT PRETZEL | 1.50
14|P|NACHOS | 2.50
15|Q|EXTRA CHEESE | 0.50
16|R|CUP CAKE | 1.00
|S| |</PRE>
Now to ring up an item into a sale you can type in the stock number and press [ENTER], scan the lightbar down to the item and press [ENTER], or press the letter displayed to the right of the stock number (you will not have to press [ENTER] ).

After selecting the item you will be returned to the regular purchase screen to enter the price and the quantity and then returned to the stock table to pick your next item.

However if you have set the "Scanner" feature in the POSCONFG.EXE program to "Always scanned" the program will use the stock table price as the price and a quantity of "1" and you will not leave the stock table. In this case to ring up another of the same item all you will have to do is press [ENTER] because the last item rung becomes the default for the next item to be rung.

Another new feature is that pressing [+] from the stock table page will total the sale just like from the regular purchase screen.

If you are in the stock table page pressing [ESC] will return you to the regular sale screen so that you can do reductions, park, discounts, etc. Pressing [F1] from the regular purchase screen will return the stock table page to the default.

So what does this mean, really? Well you will not have to put stock numbers on things because they are all displayed on the screen. If you have more than 20 items you can display additional pages by pressing [PG UP] / [PG DN].

And you can ring up items really quickly. (Assuming that you have the scanner set to "Always") all you have to do to ring up 3 medium popcorns and 2 small sodas it to press B three times, F twice, then [+], then you are at the point of choosing the payment method.

Pretty easy, pretty quick.

Here is the download link.

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

Make sure that you run this version from a backup (new) folder for testing. This is a full download.

Please report back here with your opinions / results.

If everything goes well this http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm will be the final BETA version of 6.39a and it will be released this weekend.

Give it a try folks and see if you can find any problems.

In BETA 5 the the new features concern the "Groups" feature. When you now use it if you press [+] from the group menu it will total the sale. Also when "Groups" is the default way of entering items into a sale it will be assumed that the next item you want to ring up will be from the same stock table page as the last item you rang up. Therefore you will return to the last stock table page instead of the groups menu. To return to the groups menu press [ESC]

Here are the new instructions for entering items into a sale are below. I am also looking for suggestions for the instructions.
<hr>
There are four ways to enter items into a purchase or return if you are using a stock table..

The default method is to either type in a stock number or to use a scanner to read the stock number from a barcode.

The second method is to use the “Vendor stock number.” To allow this you must go to the “Vendor list” feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program. The first thing you will be asked for is “Search first ???? lines.” This is the number of lines at the beginning of the stock table that you want to be able to use the vendor stock number to ring up an item. For example, if you set 200 in the “Search first” then only items on stock table lines 1 to 200 can be entered into a sale using the vendor stock number. If you try to use a vendor stock number to enter the item on line 201 into a sale the item will not be found. The reason for this is that looking up vendor stock numbers is slower than looking up regular stock numbers so you want to make the possible search as small as possible. If “Search first” is set to 0 then you will not be able to use the “Vendor stock numbers” to ring up items into a sale.

The advantage to using “vendor stock numbers” is that a “vendor stock number” can contain any letter / number / symbol that you can type on a keyboard, up to 30 characters. You can make the “vendor stock number” “WHITE SHIRT, SIZE 18R” if you want to.

To type in a “vendor stock number” when the purchase screen is asking you for a regular stock number, press the asterisk [*] key.

When the program looks for a “vendor stock number” it does what is called an instring search. This means that if you type in only a portion of the “vendor stock number” the program will find the first “vendor stock number” that contains what you entered. For example if you just type in “SHIRT” then it will find “WHITE SHIRT, SIZE 18R.” If it does not find the correct item press [2] to continue looking or [1] or [ENTER] if the correct item has been found.

The third way to enter an item into a sale is to use the stock table itself. When the purchase screen is asking you for a stock number press [F1] instead. A window will pop up with the first 20 lines of the stock table displayed. You will have 4 options. You can type in the stock number and then press [ENTER]. You can use the arrow keys to scan down the list to the item you want and then press [ENTER]. (Press [PAGE UP] or [PAGE DOWN] to display additional stock table pages.) You can press [TAB] to search the stock table by stock number, description, price, category, or vendor. Or you can press the letter key displayed to the right of the stock number. (Note, even if the stock table is not displayed, and you are being asked for the stock number, pressing the letter key A-T will ring up the item associated with that letter from the first page of the stock table into the sale.)

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos2.jpg
Stock table screen</center>

If you have very few different items in your store you can even make the stock table screen the default method of entering an item into a sale. This is particularly useful for shops like concession stands. To do this go to the stock table (where you can enter new items into the table) and press “[F6] Groups” and then select “[F8] Use stock table as default.”

Now when the purchase screen comes up the stock table window will automatically pop up over it and all you will have to do is pick the items from the stock table to enter them into the sale. From the stock table window you can press [ESC] to close the window and return to the regular purchase screen or you can press [+] to total the sale. From the purchase screen you can press [F1] to return to the stock table display.

The fourth method to enter items into a sale is to use the “Groups” feature. The stock table method is really useful if you only have 20 – 40 items in your stock table, but what if you have dozens or hundreds?

When you press [F1] in a sale to display the stock table is it possible to first display a "menu" of similar items and then choose which section of the stock table you want to display next. To set this up go to the stock table (where you can enter new items into the table) and press “[F6] Groups” and then select either “[F6] Use groups as an option” or [F7] use groups as the default.” “Option” means that when you press [F1] from the purchase screen to display the stock table the “groups” will display first. “Default” means that you do not have to press [F1], the “groups” window will automatically pop up when you enter a purchase”

By using the GROUPS feature you can have the program display a menu of up to 20
'groups' like....

A. BREAKFAST ENTREE
B. LUNCH ENTREE
C. DINNER ENTREE
D. DRINKS
E. DESSERTS

If you then press 'D' a list of drinks will appear...

A. LARGE COLA
B. MEDIUM COLA
C. SMALL COLA
D. LARGE DIET COLA
E. MEDIUM DIET COLA

If you then press 'C' a SMALL COLA will be rung into the sale. If the item you want is not on the displayed page you can [PAGE DOWN] through DRINKS until you find the one you want. Up to 20 items per page.

If “groups” is set as the default the program assumes that if you picked one item from a group that the next item would be from the same group, so you will be returned to the same stock table page. If “groups” is set as an option pressing [F1] from the purchase screen will always display the groups menu. From a stock table page press [ESC] to return to the group menu or press [+] to total the sale.

Using “groups” means that you can find and enter hundreds of different items into a sale by pressing only 2 keys on the keyboard, the first key to select the group and the second key to select the item. (This assumes that you are using the letter keys to choose from the menus.)

For the program to actually use “groups” you MUST arrange your stock table with all of the items from the same group together. For example you would list all BREAKFAST ENTREES on lines 1 to 100, all LUNCH ENTREES on lines 101 to 200, etc. You can use any line to start a group that you want to. However during a sale the program will always begin displaying a group with a line that follows this formula "n X 20 + 1" in other words, lines 1, 21, 41, 61, 81, etc. would be at the top of the screen. If you have many items in your groups it is best to spread the start lines out like 1, 81, 161, 241 etc. Put the most popular items in a group at the beginning of the group, or use alphabetical order, or any order that makes sense to you.

A couple of enhancements to “Groups” or “Stock table is default.” If you go to the “Stock table” feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program and set “Prevent price changes during a sale when using a stock table” to “YES” then the program will not ask you for a price when you enter the item. However if you go to the “Scanner” feature of the POSGONFG.EXE program and set it to “All stock numbers are assumed to be scanned” then even if you type in the stock number the program will skip asking you for a price or the quantity. (It will use the price in the stock table and a quantity of “1”.) This means that if you use groups or the stock table as the default all you have to do to ring up 3 of the same item is to select it and press [ENTER] 3 times or press the letter associated with the item 3 times. If you are auto scanning and wish to change the price or quantity of the last item entered, press [ESC] to return to the purchase menu and then “Press [TAB] to modify the last line.”

Put me down as a "Love it"

BUT....
I have about 200 items, so I tried initally to use the groups feature. The display on the groups page showing the stock number instead of the description was what kept me away (too hard for the employees to figure what they had rung up without jumping around.) So I bit the bullet and bought a $150 programmable keyboard to do the job from the purchase screen (still way cheaper and way faster than a touch-screen), Oh Well .

Dale, do want to make it clear how grateful I am you wrote and shared this program. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I've played with it a bunch more, and tried it for real.

Love the revamped sales screen in the Groups menu (reordering the Description and the Stock Number was sheer brillance for those of us using Groups.)

Love hitting "+" to go right to the Total Screen from the Groups menu

Love what happens when I switch to "All are Scanned"

You know there had to be a but ...
Since I have 250+ items I still need to use the "F6 Groups" option of the program. (With strategic spaces and groupings my stock table is about 480 lines) The only thing you've changed that does not work for me is:
After picking an item, rather than returning to the Group table menu, it returns me to the item itself. I think this is to enable easy quanity adustments by just hitting enter. I would agree when I need to do this, this is nice, but I am many times more likely to be entering a different item instead from a different screen. In which case I have to hit the ESC key to get back to the group menu. I would much rather either ring the item a second time, or ESC out to the sales screen and then press TAB which will allow me to type in a new quantity.

One other VERY minor issue. I use a laptop, and from the regular sales menu, the = works as well as the + (<Shift>=). From the group screen, only the + (<Shift>=) works ... don't mean to be too picky, just I noticed this.

Just me again, nobody else is responding so I'll keep talking to myself.

Anyway, I retract what I said last post about wanting to go back to the Groups Menu instead of staying at the item (allowing hitting enter to increase quantity). After reviewing the beta with my employees who are the ones actually using the register for real, I think we found a solution with the programmable keyboard which makes it work really really well for us AS IS.

So, my vote is now Release AS IS (beta 5). Don't change nothin'. I Love it.

One possible Bug / Issue that did come up a couple of times, but I can not duplicate it ... The stock table Zero Inventory Warning (which I have turned off ("0 to 0 Lines" in POSCONFIG Stock Table page)) popped up. I ran through about 200 sample transactions total (on 3 computers) and it came up twice.

Also the +/= key issue I included in the last post ... on the first laptop I loaded it on the = key did not work without shift from the Groups menu. The second laptop I loaded it on, it did. Go figure.

Granita,

Unfortunately as this is a free program with one staff member (Dale) and a few volunteers who respond to posts where able, however this is on an "as available" basis.

As your request really is for Dale's attention - no-one else can really reply as to whether or not the change(s) you suggested would be implemented.

Following my ongoing policy of no longer saving users from themselves I have uploaded POS version 6.39 BETA 6 at...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm </center>

You now have 5 options for "Groups"...

[F5] No groups.
[F6] Groups as an option.
[F7] Groups default - return to stock table page after picking item.
[F8] Groups default - menu default - return to group menu after picking item.
[F9] Stock table default.

How about testing this out and reporting back so I can releast this thing on the weekend?

I could not ask for more Dale! (other than to be saved from myself, of course)

I believe though, inadvertently the ability to pick off the Groups menu with the letter keys got shut off (applies to the "top" F1 menu only, though still functional with arrow keys and Enter). This made it difficult to really put the beta through the paces, doing my best I could find nothing else wrong.

As a user of the "Groups" feature, I LOVE IT!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

p.s. to Andrew ... I fully realize (and GREATLY appreciate) the staffing and volunteer ways of this software and support ... Montitoring the forum for a while it seems like the user base a very active bunch, and I was just kind of suprized no one else was participating. I was not trying to be demanding in any way, shape or form, and apologize if it seemed that way.

Granita,

Ok, this is why we have BETA testing.

Strange thing, I tried it out here in the source code and the problem showed up. I put some break points in the program to see what was happening but did not change the code. I then ran the program again and the problem had gone away. I removed the break points restoring the program the way it was and still no problem.

Spooky

So I recompiled the puppy and here it is...

<center> http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm</center>

Give it a try and let me know if the poltergiest has returned.

This just in. The problem was that using the letter keys to pick a group did not work if [Caps Lock] was off.

Dale,
I discovered this problem yesterday. Right now, i'm just using the arrow keys.

When I try Beta 8:

From the First Groups Menu Screen, when I choose any letter (Cap Lock on or off), it goes up to the "A" line and blanks it and fills in 0.00 for the price, but never actually leave the page (i.e. it is not going to a page in the actual stock table). Can't play with it too much, as it seems to corrupt the stock table too ... If I exit and try to come back, the Convert program intervenes and then has a fatal error. Only solutions then seems to be start over fresh.


p.s. I'm happy being a Beta Tester! But my current schedule is such that I'm gone for a couple of days, then back for a couple.

Granita,

How have you set the groups feature, [F6], [F7], or [F8] ?

Are you using this over a network?

It was on [F6] - Use groups as an option.

The .POS (and all the files used) we copied over from my currently in use register using version 6.39.

I extracted the Beta, copied in all the files which matched the "first name" of my .POS file, (via the DOS copy command) and started running.

That file had it set up as [F6] and I never got far enough along testing the Beta to play with that. When I hit [F1] to get to the First Group Menu everything seemed fine. It was the next key stroke that caused the problem.

Should I have set up an all new .POS file?

Granita,

I have been trying this for quite a while and I cannot reproduce the error. Is it still happening to you?

If it is can you email you .POS and .TBL files to me as an attachment to an email? Then I can try it out here with your settings.