I have a BETA test version of the kitchen feature. The download link at the bottom will replace only your POS.EXE file and add a new file KITCHEN.EXE.
<u>YOU MUST,</U> before you download these new files, empty any parked sales. The sale parking file has been reformatted and if you try to read an old parked sale with the new program file it will crash.
To use these new files you must currently be using DHPOS version 6.40a, the two new files are 6.40b BETA2.
And how about some feedback on this. Does it work, does it not work for you? Is there anything you want changed or added?
KITCHEN FEATURE
Depending on your business it may be required that you send the details of your transactions to an off-site location. If you have a restaurant you may need the food orders to be sent to the kitchen. This is what the KITCHEN.EXE program will do.
To run KITCHEN.EXE your registers must be networked together. The basic concept is that each register will transmit the details of a sale to the server. The KITCHEN.EXE program will collect the individual transactions from all the registers and either display them on the screen or send them directly to the printer.
However if you only have one computer, two printers, and a long printer cable you can set up the one computer with both a LOCAL and a GLOBAL folder (see the “Network” section of this user’s guide.). You can then set up the KITCHEN.EXE program to only print receipts and then print the orders on the printer in the kitchen. The KITCHEN.EXE program must be run from the GLOBAL folder.
The POS program puts the sales information into a temporary communication file that is then read by the KITCHEN program. The KITCHEN program then erases the communication file. For those users that do not use the KITCHEN program this means that the communication file would grow without limit. To keep this from happening there is a 1000 line limit on the communication file. If you start up the registers before the KITCHEN program or if the KITCHEN program goes down, all receipts over the 1000 line limit will be lost.
Before you can use KITCHEN.EXE you must tell it how to function, At the “Welcome to Kitchen Viewer” screen you can press [F1] to enter the setup screen. There will be several parameters to enter.
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F:\POS\NETWORK Network PATH
KEYSHOP Register file name.
YES Print receipts on a printer.
NO Only print receipts on printer.
PAGE Print on a page printer or print continuously.
0 Number of blank lines between receipts. (Continuous) 0 - 20
0 Number of top margin lines. (Page) 0 - 5
60 Number of printed lines per page. (Page) 50 - 70
0 Number of bottom margin lines. (Page) 0 - 5
YES Use form feed at end of page. (Page)
80 Print 40 or 80 characters wide.
NO Forced line feed.
NO Print blank line between items.
COLOR Color or black and white display.
While these parameters are mostly just like the ones in the main POS software they are not shared with the POS software. For example if you print 40 character wide receipts on the main POS.EXE program you can set the KITCHEN.EXE program to print 80 character wide receipts. This means that setting these parameters in the main POS.EXE program will not also set them for the KITCHEN.EXE program.
Since most of these parameters are the same as those in the main program I will not explain them again here, I will only explain the new ones.
REGISTER FILE NAME
When you created your register you gave it a filename. If you have forgotten the name you gave to your register files then run the POSCONFG.EXE program. At the top of the main menu it will say something like "File name = THESTORE.POS" In this example the file name is THESTORE, “.POS” is not part of the file name.
PATH
The PATH tells the program where on the network is located the GLOBAL folder that contains all of the information that is shared by all the registers. The PATH you enter here must be EXACTLY THE SAME as the PATH you entered on all of your registers. See the “Network” section of this user’s guide.
NOTE: If you do not set a PATH and try to run the POS.EXE program and the KITCHEN.EXE program from a stand-alone computer using the same folder on the same drive the program may appear to function but eventually the POS.EXE program and the KITCHEN.EXE will try to access the same data file at the same time and both programs will die.
PRINT RECEIPTS ON PRINTER
You must set this parameter to YES is you wish to be able to print receipts in the kitchen.
ONLY PRINT RECEIPTS ON PRINTER
If this parameter is set to “NO” then the screen is the main way to view receipts in the kitchen, however by pressing [TAB] you can also print out the current receipt. If this is set to “YES” then the screen will not display receipts, all receipts will be printed to the printer and then erased from the file.
PRINT ON PAGE PRINTER OR PRINT CONTINUOUSLY
NUMBER OF BLANK LINES BETWEEN RECEIPTS
NUMBER OF TOP MARGIN LINES
NUMBER OF LINES PRINTED PER PAGE
NUMBER OF BOTTOM MARGIN LINES
USE FORM FEED AT END OF PAGE
CUTTER BAR
SET PRINTER PORT?
For an explanation of these parameters look in the “Printer setup” section of this user’s guide.
NOTE: If you run this program and the POS.EXE program from the same computer, then if you set the printer port to a different port from that which the POS program uses to print receipts, you can then print receipts at the register and orders in the kitchen. This assumes that you have set the KITCHEN.EXE program to “Only print receipts.”
DISPLAYING ORDERS
http://www.dhpos.com/kitchen.gif
A cooler graphic above
As you ring up orders the KITCHEN.EXE program will capture them and place then in a file. You can then display the orders on the screen. This assumes that “Only print receipts on printer” is set to “NO”
The POS.EXE program sends orders to the KITCHEN.EXE program whenever you park a sale or complete a sale. If you park a sale and then unpark it and add more lines to it, only the new lines will be sent when the sale is either parked again or the sale is completed.
You can display 2 orders on the screen at a time although the file can hold up to 160 orders. The top two lines of the screen are a “location bar” which tells you where you are in the file. The location bar is color coded. A cyan location is an order that still has items that need to be filled, purple are completed orders, and blue locations are blank. The upper left corner of the screen is the order that has been in the queue the longest. The two asterisks tell you which two orders in the file are currently being displayed. If you press the left or right arrow keys you will move through the file of orders. [CTRL] + [HOME] will send you to the oldest order, [CTRL] + [END] will send you to the newest order.
The displayed order on the left is the active order that you can manipulate, the order on the right is the next order and to manipulate it you must press the right arrow key to move it to the left and make it the “active” order.
The scroll bar on the left shows you which line in the active order you can mark or unmark. The center and right scroll bars show you where the display window is for the order to it’s left. While an order may have up to 60 lines you can only display 19 lines at a time. To more up or down the active order you may use the up and down arrow keys, [PAGE UP], [PAGE DOWN], [HOME], or [END] keys. The scroll bars for a particular order will not reset if you move to display other orders, when you return to the original order the scroll bars for that order will be in the same place.
When you fill an item in an order you can mark it by moving to that line in the order and pressing the [SPACEBAR], the line will then be dimmed. If you press the [SPACEBAR] again the line will be unmarked. When all the lines on an order have been marked the location of that order on the “location bar” will turn purple.
To actually remove an order from the file you must make it the active order and then press [DELETE]. That order will then be removed from the file and all the following orders will be moved up. It is important to remove filled orders because once you have 160 orders in the file new orders will be lost.
If you wish to print an order (assuming that you have set up this program to print orders) press [TAB] to print the active order. Lines marked will be preceded by ( * ).
If you press [ESC] you will then be asked if you want to restart the program or to quit the program. Quitting the program will not erase the file. If you quit, or for some reason the program or the computer dies, all data and changes to file will remain. The only way to erase the file is to kill the orders one by one.
Here is the download link...
<center>
http://www.dhpos.com/kitchen3.zip </center>
I will have the unenviable job of deciding if a post is a useful suggestion or the aforementioned bitching, whining, or complaining. All decisions of the judges (me) are final.
I may have led a sheltered life but I've never heard of that one. How are you supposed to do that - does the waiter go back to the table, make notes on who wants to pay for what then go away and print separate bills?
