POS version 7.05a released 5-3-11.

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daleadmin
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POS version 7.05a released 5-3-11.

Post by daleadmin » Thu Apr 28, 2011 2:34 pm

New features in version 7.05
The big new feature in version 7.05 is 26,000 lines in the stock table. This doubles the number of different items you can have in your stock table from 13,000. Very useful if you are a book store, grocery store, hardware store, etc.
Also since I had to go into all parts of the program to test this I also made a lot of little tweeks to the program and fixed many obscure bugs. They will be listed later in this email. So it is well worth downloading this new version 7.05.

HOWEVER!!!! In order to accommodate 26,000 lines I had to reformat the stock table index file. This means that you have to reformat this file on your register EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT USING ADDITIONAL LINES AT YOUR STORE!!!!
This is real complicated and will take about 20 additional seconds. After you have made a backup of your current POS folder, and downloaded the file and run the file to unzip it follow the next complicated steps. There are 2 methods of re-indexing the stock table.

METHOD #1
1. Run the POS.EXE program first.
2. You’re done.

Method #2
1. Run the POSCONFG.EXE program first.
2. Go to the “Stock table” feature.
3. Exit the “Stock table” feature.
4. You’re done.

Ok, maybe it is not that complicated. If you are running this on a network you do have to install the new program files on each LOCAL register and the GLOBAL one, but you only have to do the above steps on the GLOBAL register.
If you are running multiple registers on you computer (i.e., multiple register file names) then you will have to do the steps for each register.
If you now try to ring up an item into the sale and the register gives you the “Cannot find this item” error then you have some how managed to mess up the above steps or are typing in the wrong stock number.
One other change related to 26000 lines, is the method used to select the number of lines you want in the stock table. The old method was to go to the “Stock table” feature of the POSCONFG.EXE program and press [TAB] and the number of lines would increase by 1000. The new method is to just type in the number you want, type in 17 and you will get 17,000. Pressing [Tab] up to 26 times was just too much work.
Since this feature affects most of the program I had to test, and retest, the entire program along with my faithful beta-testers. The testing phase has actually taken longer than changing the code to accommodate 26000 lines. We found lots of minor booboos and things that could work better with a simple change to the code. Also since it has been a while since I last sent out one these emails I have found time to make some other new features and bug fixes. So now, in random order since that is how my brain works, I have a list of all the new features and bug fixes from version 7.04h to 7.05 that I can remember (the brain is also getting old.)

MORE NEW FEATURES

On credit / debit sales you now cannot enter a credit / debit payment amount less than the amount entered for “cash back.”

At the end of a sale, on payment methods other than “Cash”, you cannot enter more than the remaining amount due.

You can now force the use of a password during a sale when you want to void a line in the sale or void the entire uncompleted sale.

In a sale, after finding the customer in the database, if you choose “3. Use this, do not save” you will skip the next menu and go directly to the next part of the sale.

When you use the vendor stock number to enter an item into a sale, when the item is found it will display the vendor stock number at the bottom of the screen. While here I also tried to come up with an option to make the vendor stock number be the default method of entering items into a sale. However this caused my brain to hurt so I stuffed the concept back into the “think about it” pile.

The PURCHASE.EXE program will allow you to display only unpaid invoices.


BUG FIXES
In “Reports” a saved data file might have different figures from the displayed and saved text file.

The Theater program was not saving the tickets sold to the stock table. Also when setting up a venue the number of seats in the venue used for “general” seating was not saved the first time the venue was saved, they were saved when you entered it the second time.

When creating a new register the printing parameters for “sales check” and “forced line feed” were automatically set to “YES”, and the function for using the “Tax” password was turned on. This no longer happens.

When creating a new stock table the stock table would rarely begin with corrupted data which would activate the “Convert” program when you went to use the stock table in the POS.EXE program. This was not a recoverable error and you would have to erase the stock table and start over. This should no longer happen.

There had been a couple of reports of when closing the register that the program would die with an “Out of stack space” error. Now the program will clear and reload the stack whenever you choose “7. Close register”, this will cause a 1 second delay before the “Close” screen displays.

On receipts the line that followed the “Change due” line would be printed to the right of that line instead of underneath it. This no longer happens.

There was a problem with sales reports in that the figures for
TOTAL PAYOUTS
TOTAL DISCOUNTS
TOTAL REDUCTIONS
TOTAL COUPONS
TOTAL VOIDS
would be all zeros even though there were actual figures to report. This has actually been an unknown problem for a couple of years.

If you printed receipts 40 characters wide AND you printed to a page printer AND you choose to printer receipts without a stock number AND the receipt was over 60 lines long, two things happened. 1. You demonstrated that you are a very silly person. 2. The program would print fewer lines per page than it was supposed to. I have fixed the “lines” thing but you are still a silly person.

Upgrade instructions http://keyhut.com/upgrade.htm#current
Download from http://keyhut.com/pos3.htm
Remember that when you click on the icon to download the file if you choose [RUN] instead of [SAVE] you will put dozens of files all over your desktop and be really unhappy.
For the 64 bit Windows users there is a download .ZIP file since the .EXE files will not extract under 64 bit.

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by cwathen » Fri Apr 29, 2011 4:23 pm

Small bug in version 7.05. In 'Stock Table' in POSCONFIG, the option to warn if inventory is zero on specific lines hasn't been updated to allow for the 26,000 line stock table; you can only display the warning for up to 13,000 lines as before.

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by daleadmin » Fri Apr 29, 2011 6:21 pm

cwathen,

I have fixed this. It is the same version number 7.05 and you can download it from the usual place.

Dale

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by daleadmin » Fri Apr 29, 2011 11:30 pm

Well things are going well so far except for the one minor thing reported above. And there have been 228 downloads just today.

It is beginning to look like version 7.05 will not be responsible for the extinction of all life on Earth. Although there were moments in the week before it was released where it was a pretty close thing.

So now I am looking to maybe increasing the number of possible lines in a sale past 60.

Yep, we are going to take another shot at that "all life extinction" thing.

Does anyone want to suggest a larger number of sale lines? Something between 60 and a googol. (Yes, "googol" is spelled correctly, go look it up.)

Dale

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by cwathen » Sat Apr 30, 2011 6:52 pm

If you are open to relatively easy to implement new features, I *really* wish you'd put back in that feature from an experimental version a couple of years ago (was it 7.04x1??) where if you edited the descriptions on an item and then went back in and reviewed the sale the changes would stay, rather than them going back to whatever the description in the stock table is which happens in all the 'official' versions.

It was a really useful way of adding sales notes, serial numbers etc. I realise you did it as a basis for the not yet implemented customer accounts feature, but in itself it was a really useful feature that I'd like to see back!

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by daleadmin » Sat Apr 30, 2011 7:24 pm

cwathen,

Making typed in descriptions "stick" would be part of the reformatting of the .REC file needed to increase the number of lines in a sale.

So how many lines do you want?

Dale

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by brucef2112 » Sat Apr 30, 2011 11:58 pm

Hi Dale,
I've been using DHPOS for 4 years at different types of stores and I think the max number line items I've used in a sale was twelve (includeing reductions).
So in my world the current 60 lines leaves me plenty to not worry about. Without regard to the techncal portion of this (coding/added storage space/program performance), I would bump it to 200. Even when my wife goes to Walmart I don't think she has ever bought more than 100 differnt line items. I would think 200 would let you capture that .01% of potential users that have turned away from DHPOS soley becuase of the 60 line item limit.

I give a BIG SECOND to cwathen comment about includeing the 7.04x1 feature which keeps the discription changes. In my store we have alot of custom orders that lend them self to ring up a barcode and then append the item discription with a color or style. When I saw this feature was added in 7.04x I installed it right away. Hated to find out later that x wasn't a version stepping but was experimental! Compatability issues aside, I have not upgraded my POS just becuase of this one feature alone. I would sure love to see this feature come back in 7.05a. [bruce grabs a crisp hundred dollar bill between his thumb and index finger of each hand and snaps it taut a few times 8) ]
Later,
Bruce

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin - Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by small » Sun May 01, 2011 5:08 am

Dale,

If there is no problems with memory or anything like that on number of lines in a sale then I would go as big as you can. If it only affects the amount of storage that should not be a problem as storage is very cheap now days. but you know if you made it 200 lines then someone would say they need 400 lines so you make it 400 lines and some one says 400 lines won't work for me i need 800 lines, so you can never please everyone in this world.

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by daleadmin » Sun May 01, 2011 8:55 am

Small,

For adding extra lines to a sale the main memory problem is storing the extra descriptions and running out of string space. So to overcome that I plan to switch storage from memory to a temporary disk file. That does leave the numeric array needed to store amounts of the sale for each line but I think that I can use the memory saved from the descriptions for that.

While disk memory is now vast remember that I still want this to be able to work on old computers so the number of lines allowed in a sale still has to be reasonable. So I am still asking your folks for a defination of "reasonable."

Dale

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by small » Sun May 01, 2011 2:42 pm

Dale,


I would make the number of lines in a sale between 120 and 200 if possiable. 200 different items is a lot of items and should be suffisient for a small to medium size business. If you are selling over 200 items in a single sale then you should be able to afford a paid pos software to accomidate that big of a store. unless you are selling nuts and bolts then you may need more.

Just my 2 cents.

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by cpb14 » Sun May 01, 2011 3:20 pm

Dale my Honest opinion is 120 is plenty even 100 would be fine. as per the descriptions thing i like the sound of it.

CB

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by cwathen » Mon May 02, 2011 12:41 pm

TBH, the 60 line limit has never been an issue for me. If you do feel the need to increase it, then surely 99 lines is the most logical since it will not require reformatting or redesigning any screens nor will any changes to the interface be needed to manage larger sales as might be a consideration if you could suddenly have hundreds of lines in a sale.

If you are looking into expanding the scale for which the program can be used by means of the bigger stock table and the extra lines, then could you maybe give some thought to expanding the history to record more than 10,000 sales before old sales fall off the end? One thing I have really valued in the commercial EPOS systems I've used is that they don't have a limited history but will keep recording every sale either until you run out of disk space or you decide to purge some. Ideally I'd like an 'all' option for number of sales recorded' but could it at least be a higher number, say 100,000?

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by daleadmin » Mon May 02, 2011 7:11 pm

200 line news.

I spent today converting the POS.EXE program to store the descriptions in a sale to being stored on disk instead of being stored in memory. This went suspiciously well. It went so well in fact that I am seriously concerned that I am somehow missing some disaster. So I am going to post the file for you folks to test out. http://keyhut.com/pos.exe

This download is version 7.05a200 and will exactly replace version 7.05. It is the POS.EXE program file only. If you replace 7.05 with this file you should not be able to tell any difference in the execution of the main cash register program. I can't.

After creating the above file and uploading it I then change all the 60s in the program code to 200s and I rang up a 200 line sale, no problem. I then printed a receipt, no problem. Then the program tried to save the sale to the .REC file and the results were not pretty. My computer still will function but it is very nervous that I might try it again despite my repeated assurances that I will not. It is currently in huddling in the corner of my office whimpering.

So it will be possible to change the maximum number of lines in a sale to 200 as long as I reformat the .REC file.

I am using this to sneak up on the "customer accounts" program. If that ever gets done, and you create an invoice for each sale, you will be able to store up to 1,000,000 or more invoices that you can use for data mining. That should make cwathen happy.

Dale

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by small » Mon May 02, 2011 10:25 pm

Dale I downloaded the new 200 line and when i got to 60 lines it said no more could be entered.

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Re: POS version 7.05 released 4-28-11.

Post by daleadmin » Mon May 02, 2011 10:37 pm

small,

Yep, the 7.05a200 version at the upload link only has the change where the descriptions during the creation of a sale are not held in memory but are saved to the disk. If everything is working correctly there is no way that you should be able to tell the difference between running 7.05 or 7.05a200. That is the test, they run exactly the same as far as you can tell. If they do not run the exactly same then there is a problem.

AFTER I created the 7.05a200 then I made a test version that would ring up 200 items. YOU DO NOT want that version. That version will totally distroy your .REC file and then horribly die. Which is expected since I have not yet reformatted the .REC file.

However if you really want the main processor in your computer to run away in pain and terror let me know and I may let you borrow it.

Dale

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