DHES

ITtech09,

Unfortunately a few of the users of this program do not comprehend the concept of "free" other than they do not have to pay for it.

Some of them demand that I turn over the souce code for the program to them. They tell me that since they use the program that I "owe" them the source code.

Others threaten that they will stop using the program if I do not drop everything else in my life to meet their psychotic demands. Well let's see, they did not pay anything for it and if they stop using it they will still never have paid anything for it. If they stop using it I do not see a downside for me.

The vast majority of DHPOS users are fine folks who have reasonable suggestions or questions. However the fringe of users do not hesitate to compose and send to me some truly bizarre email, it's endlessly entertaining. Sometimes I think I do this just for the email.

Dale

From reading the last few comments, I want to clarify that my suggestion was not intended as some kind of demand for personalising the software. I have used DHPOS for a while now and merely wanted to know whether my request was achieveable or not. I also intended on the feature being a bonus for everybody, not just for myself! I understand all the hard work that goes in to this, especially with it being free, and I would like to reiterate how grateful I am for a such a great program.
At the end of the day, if what I suggested is totally out of question, or would take too much time, life goes on.
Sorry for any confusion and thanks once again Dale for software which continues to amaze me!

Jam

Jam,
In my previous post I was replying to ITtech09's post, not yours.

So I guess I should reply to your post. (There are just not enough hours in a week to keep up with all the POS correspondance, work on the program, have an actual job, remodel the garage, and sleep on occasion. I would cut back even more on the sleep except that I love it so much and get so little now.)

Each individual invoice will be an actual sale so it will have all the information that was rung up. This includes a description for each thing that was rung up. The problem I see is that each invoice is a complete sale and you cannot add anything to it later. You would have to have multiple invoices for the same guest during his stay if it bought multiple things (like room service) at mutiple times.

A better idea might be to use the sale parking feature and to park the sale with the room number. This would allow you to add things to the sale multiple times and then only when the guest checks out would the parked sale be turned into an invoice. I hope that your deal has less that 255 rooms.

Dale

Sorry, I just got caught up in the conversation between you and ITech09 and was a little confused!

Thanks for the reply, never thought about using the sale parking feature, and having less than 255 rooms I will be able to use this to bill guests by using an invoice. That way they will see the descriptions on the printed invoice. Will the invoice labels be able to be edited as with receipts?

Jam

Hi Dale,

Any news on the costomer accounts. We all have not heard anything in a long time.

Things happened. Mostly in converting my garage into a workshop. But that is mostly done and it is now too damn cold to work in there anyway. So the updates on the customer accounts should be returning soon.

Dale

Thanks for the great version.

I have been testing since you posted it... works great.

BR,

Jake

Dale. Did the source file change? (http://www.dhpos.com/pos704x1.ex) I downloaded this version when it was first posted and the customer info printed OK on reprints. However my pc crashed and lost my POS. I DL it again but this version doesn't print the customer info on re-prints or show it on the Void screen. The extracted POS.EXE has a file size of 471 KB (482,636 bytes) and displays ver. 7.04x1 on the main screen.
Or is there something I missed?

Thanks,
b

daleadmin wrote:cwathen,

Wow, an actual beta test report, and so soon. I am grateful and impressed.

As your reward for an excellent job I have looked into the printing customer info on receipt reprints, it was always supposed to do that. I found a bug and squished it. So here is another beta version to test, version 7.04x1at http://www.dhpos.com/pos704x1.ex Let's hope I get some feedback soon from not only you but others also.

It is a full download even though the only file changed was the POS.EXE file.

Dale

I have finished the part of this feature that allows you to add new customers to the database without runging them up in a sale.

Dale

Is there any ETA at all for the new version's release yet, Dale? (or any other beta versions to test?)

cwathen,

At the rate this is going before I complete it the Andromeda galaxy will have just finished plowing through the Milky Way and the descendants of the human race will have far more urgent concerns on their hands than beta testing the latest version of DHPOS. Like trying to find the moon, "it was just there a while ago."

On the other hand a few billion years is a really long time and I might have it finished before then.

But don't bet on it.

I will continue to post my progress here assuming that any progress occurs.

Dale

Well I threatened to post here when there was some progress on this thing. I may not always keep my promises but I always follow through on my threats, so here is the latest.

I have the program creating the invoices and filing them on the hard drive. One slight bummer is that now the program has become so large that it will not compile, AGAIN. So now I have to reduce the size of the program by shipping off parts of it to other program files or getting the progam to do the same things but with less code. This may take a while.

Following are some screens (sort of) from the part of the program that is used to setup customer accounts. These will give you some idea of where this feature is going.
===========================================================
On the next screen you can set up invoicing. An invoice is a semi-
permanant record of a sale. The program will save the last 100,000,000
invoices however there are options where you can delete invoices. Each
invoice requires about 3,800 bytes to store so the maximum file size
will be 380 gigabytes. You can limit the number of invoices to
10,000,000 (38 gig.), 1,000,000 (3.8 gig.), or 100,000 (380 meg.).
After filling the file the next invoice will overwrite the first
invoice. For example if you are saving 100,000 then the 100,001st will
be numbered 000001 and will overwrite file #1.
You do not have to save invoices. However if you choose to you can
poll the invoices for information like who bought what and when it was
bought. Or find each day a particular item was purchased. There are
many other search options. However you can only search invoices that
have been saved. For example if you only create an invoice if a sale
was charged to a customer account then you can only search those
invoices for sales data.
Press any key.
===========================================================
This menu sets up invoicing. You have several options...
1. Not allowed. This option will not allow anyone to have an account
with your store. It will not save the sales data to invoice files.
2. Account only. This option will only create invoices if a sale is
charged to a customer account.
3. All customers. This option will create an invoice for all customers.
Invoices not charged to the customer account will be marked PAID. If
a sale is not linked to a customer an invoice will not be created.
4. Invoice all. This option will invoice every transaction.

1. Not allowed.
2. Account only.
3. All customers.
4. Invoice all.
===========================================================
Set the maximum number of invoices to be stored. Choose wisely. Does
your hard drive have enough free space, will it in the future? You can
increase the file size later but NOT if the new invoices have begun to
overwrite the old invoices (well actually you can but weird things will
happen.)

1. 100,000,000 invoices (380 gigabytes.)
2. 10,000,000 invoices (38 gigabytes.)
3. 1,000,000 invoices (3.8 gigabytes.)
4. 100,000 invoices (380 megabytes.)
===========================================================
COMMENTS ARE WELCOME

More progress if you can believe it.

After about 6 hours of messing with the code I finally got the POS.EXE program file to compile. This is getting harder and harder to do.

At the end of the sale where you pick the payment method the menu has this new look...
This will only display if this is a customer that has an account. It shows the customer's limit, current outstanding charges, the amount of the current sale, and the availible credit if this sale is charged to the account. Press [TAB] to charge this sale to the account.

If the [AVAIL} is a negative amount, which means that putting this sale on his account will exceed his limit, a password will be required to complete the sale.

Does anyone have a comment or suggestion? It is too late to get what you want after this is finished.

Dale

Hi Dale,

I like the way it sounds and can not wait to try it.

When is there going to be a beta

Peewee,

There will be a beta test version this millennium, definitely.

Dale