F4 Nextfile

[Tina]

Hello Dale,
Does the nextfile feature still work in pos6.28? When I press F4 it doesn't work for me as it did in the past.

Tina

[Tina]

Dale,
Disreguard the last post from me. I did get it to work..

Thanks
Tina

[Dale Harris]

Tina,

You almost caused a panic attack here because the setup I use depends upon this feature.

For the uninformed. POS has a hidden feature. From the main menu of the POS program you can press [F4] to suspend the POS program and run another program of your choosing. When the other program is finished you will be returned to the main menu of the POS program as though you had never left.

To do this you place in your POS folder on your hard drive a datafile named NEXTFILE.DAT which contains only the name of the program file you want to run, usually a DOS program (the program should be in the POS folder.) When the other program terminates it must do so by using the command RUN "POS"

Now when you press [F4] the POS program will see if there is a NEXTFILE.DAT file and then read it. It will then place a file on the disk so that POS will know when it restarts to return to the menu rather that starting from the beginning. It then RUNs the other program.

I use this feature to run my KEYFINDR program. This program will allow you to type in the customer's key blank number, key letters, key name, or vehicle name and then it will tell you which of our key blanks will match that key. This program will look up the information in a data base of over 300,000 items in well under a second. It will either tell you exactly which key blank to use or narrow it down to less than 10. Since my shop carries over 2,000 different blanks this is a big help.

So this would be a huge pain if this no longer worked. However from your second post (and my checking it out here) it seems that it still works so we do not have to worry about it.

What program comes up when you press [F4]?

[Tina]

Dale,
Sorry for the scare!!
The F4 feature I use may be helpful for others too. I have created a program in qbasic that when F4 is pressed it loads the program F4.EXE a simple program that works in conjuntion with 6 simple batch programs called BROWSE1, thru BROWSE6. When the F4.exe program is called from the main menu of your pos by pressing F4, the following menu appears...

VIEW SINGLE JOURNALS - TERMINAL MONITOR

1. View Journal For Register (1)
2. View Journal For Register (2)
3. View Journal For Register (3)
4. View Journal For Register (4)
5. View Journal For Register (5)
6. View Journal For Register (6)
7. TERMINAL MONITOR
8. EXIT To POS



Option 1-6 calls a bat file BROWSE1-6 that users can edit to view their Journal files.
Option 7 Runs the Remote Viewer Program
Option 8 will take you back into pos.

F4.exe works as a nifty feature that I wouldn't mind sharing with the rest of the pos users. To make it all work the package includes 10 Files, F4.exe, Browse.exe, BROWSE1 thru BROWSE6 that are the bats, Command.com, & the simple Nextfile.dat that calls f4.exe.

The only limitations to the program are that the pos Folder has to be named POS628C for it to work and the limit of Journals it allows is six. I left it at six because that's the number of register's your viewer program uses. How many people actually have more then 6 lanes? Probablly not a whole lot!! F4.exe was created by myself where as Browse.exe was created by a person named Horst Schaeffer which I downloaded off the Internet ages and ages ago. Browse.exe is a nice program that lets you view any file. The f4.exe program that I made was designed to tie it all in together to make it all work as one!!

I can put this all on a cd & mail it if you would like to check it out & perhaps you can put it up for download for other's to use as well!!

Take care,
Tina

[ibmsystems]

Tina,

You almost caused a panic attack here because the setup I use depends upon this feature.

For the uninformed. POS has a hidden feature. From the main menu of the POS program you can press [F4] to suspend the POS program and run another program of your choosing. When the other program is finished you will be returned to the main menu of the POS program as though you had never left.

To do this you place in your POS folder on your hard drive a datafile named NEXTFILE.DAT which contains only the name of the program file you want to run, usually a DOS program (the program should be in the POS folder.) When the other program terminates it must do so by using the command RUN "POS"


Now when you press [F4] the POS program will see if there is a NEXTFILE.DAT file and then read it. It will then place a file on the disk so that POS will know when it restarts to return to the menu rather that starting from the beginning. It then RUNs the other program.

I use this feature to run my KEYFINDR program. This program will allow you to type in the customer's key blank number, key letters, key name, or vehicle name and then it will tell you which of our key blanks will match that key. This program will look up the information in a data base of over 300,000 items in well under a second. It will either tell you exactly which key blank to use or narrow it down to less than 10. Since my shop carries over 2,000 different blanks this is a big help.

So this would be a huge pain if this no longer worked. However from your second post (and my checking it out here) it seems that it still works so we do not have to worry about it.

What program comes up when you press [F4]?

lol another feature i didnt know about

[FormicaFun]

That sounds like an extreemly helpful program. However editing ones journals is not recomended. I'm sure the tax guys would agree.

Otherwise it sounds like a great addon to DHPOS, would it be possible (perhaps with a bit of coaching from Dale's knowlage of programing) to change the required filename to an editable field?

-Ryan :-)

[Tina]

Actually the part that you edit isn't the journal itself. It's a batch file that runs the actual program that views the journals.

[Robert Nel]

Hi Tina,

Is there anyway I can obtain your little program.

Thanks

Robert Nel

nelrr@lantic.net

[anwoke8204]

I would like a copy of the batch file as well if possible
many thanks

[ChrisKraus]

Tina,

You almost caused a panic attack here because the setup I use depends upon this feature.

For the uninformed. POS has a hidden feature. From the main menu of the POS program you can press [F4] to suspend the POS program and run another program of your choosing. When the other program is finished you will be returned to the main menu of the POS program as though you had never left.

To do this you place in your POS folder on your hard drive a datafile named NEXTFILE.DAT which contains only the name of the program file you want to run, usually a DOS program (the program should be in the POS folder.) When the other program terminates it must do so by using the command RUN "POS"

Now when you press [F4] the POS program will see if there is a NEXTFILE.DAT file and then read it. It will then place a file on the disk so that POS will know when it restarts to return to the menu rather that starting from the beginning. It then RUNs the other program.

I use this feature to run my KEYFINDR program. This program will allow you to type in the customer's key blank number, key letters, key name, or vehicle name and then it will tell you which of our key blanks will match that key. This program will look up the information in a data base of over 300,000 items in well under a second. It will either tell you exactly which key blank to use or narrow it down to less than 10. Since my shop carries over 2,000 different blanks this is a big help.

So this would be a huge pain if this no longer worked. However from your second post (and my checking it out here) it seems that it still works so we do not have to worry about it.

What program comes up when you press [F4]?

Just curious, but where do you get that keyfinder program?
- Chris

[Andrew]

Chris,

Dale wrote the key finder program - it's his own creation.

[ChrisKraus]

Chris,

Dale wrote the key finder program - it's his own creation.

neat. i think that would be kind of neat to play with.
on another note, you might be able to integrate this with dhpos for ringing up the keys sold, but this might just cause mass headaches.

- chris

[Tina]

I have a JPEG of the main menu of my program that I would like to post. How do I do that? I would also like to upload this somewhere for users to try out.

In order for this Add-On Menu to work you
will need a new directory on your c:\ drive
called POS628C & copy all of your Pos files
into that folder. I started making the F4
Add-On programs when Pos628c was released &
my program needs that folder to operate. I
will work on fixing this at a later date.

After you have all of the files copied into
the new POS628c folder, you will need to place
these small programs & batch files into the
POS628C as well.

browse.exe program to view journals
Browse1.bat batch files you need to edit to view registers 1-6 works with browse.exe
Browse2.bat
Browse3.bat
Browse4.bat
Browse5.bat
Browse6.bat
To get to the Add-On Menu press F4 from within DHPOS

Please note my program currently supports viewing 6 register journals only


Bu.bat batch file you may edit to backup your pos files
F4.EXE Main program for menu system
nextfile Data file that calls the F4.exe (Menu Program) from within DHPOS
LOGON.EXE Program to secure the menu system
MENU2.EXE Program that calls the browse1-6 bats for the journal
feature
PASS.EXE Program that works with Logon.exe to get back into menu (f4.exe)
SECURE.EXE Program to call secure menu

Other notes... The Logon.exe and Pass.exe programs are security features
that I am currently working on. The default user Id & Password are all
9's Eight of them.
ID would be 99999999
Pass would be 99999999

Currently there is no way to change this. These are just the logons to
get you back into the Menu System.

[Tina]

http://www.cbmccoop.com/DHPOS_F4/f4.JPG

this is the Screenshot

Tina

[peewee3ie]

Hi Tina

I could host it for you or i can put it in 3rd party software as i host it for Dale.

send me PM and i will reply with me e-mail address