Ofbiz for restaurants - please advise

[Bilgin Ibryam]

Hi everybody,
sorry for the long post, but please read ahead and tell me your opinion.
I have to implement a web based pos system for a restaurant.
Before start coding i will be glad to hear your opinions and advices.

First of all i decided to go web-based instead of using existing ofbiz POS because it does not cover all my needs. In the restaurant i need:
1) To enter the registered customers for order payments.
2) To edit orders.
3) To do Returns.
4) To visualize tables, seats, to do table reservations...

I decided to do a new ofbiz component, with UI similar to pos (but html, not swing) for easy using with touch screens, that allows order entering in a fast way (similar to order manger but with possibility to enter orders in lesser clicks).

Is there someone that has experience in this kind of things that can give me some advice? Do you see any possible difficulties and drawbacks in doing a web based pos system?

About the implementation:
The other thing that i have to care are the tables and people setting there. For tables i can use Fixed assets, but i cannot decide how to handle/group customer orders.
1) One way to go is to create a separate sales order for every person, so everyone can pay only for his/her products.
Then i can group the orders for the table with a work effort. I need to group the orders, because i need all the time to calculate the total for the table, the total product list and the complete all the orders for the table with one click, if needed.
Do you think that manipulating lots of orders could work fast enough, because for example the order creation in ofbiz is heavy_weight/slower than other operations?

2) The other way to go is to create only one order per table at a time and to create separate ship groups for every person. This way i can assign parties to ship groups, but it is NOT possible these parties to pay only for their products in the ship group. Is it possible somehow? This way i have to create, edit , complete only one order for all the people setting around a table at moment.

(In general my questions are: is it a good idea to do a web based pos and to manipulate lots of orders at the same time (like one order) regarding fast working needs of a pos system ?)

Please advise and thanks in advance.
Bilgin Ibryam

[Ray Barlow]

It would be nice to see a web deployable POS implementation of OFBiz,
unfortunately it's only a wish for me to see it as I have no time/paid
development to do it. I know the current POS can be setup to work
remotely for a central system providing extra resilience by being self
contained, so if the server or connection etc go down it can continue to
run and hook up again later which is all excellent.

But it would be great to be able to run a POS terminal from a central
server without having to do much more than plug in the hardware and tell
the server what the hardware spec is for that terminal. And this is
probably where several questions come in such as are you thinking of
running multiple POS terminals each with their own peripherals like
receipt printer, card read, cash drawer etc. The JavaPOS hardware API
uses java (no surprise!) so the client needs to be running java not just
html are you thinking of running an applet? or some other ePOS hardware
API? Then you're heading back round to if using an applet maybe you can
use a non HTML UI module as well to make sure it responds fast enough
for local requests by doing local validation and such. Any thoughts out
there as to whether the XUI layer could be bundled through a browser and
us something like RPC for the server calls? Then you could re-use or
adjust the existing POS module saving you time.

If you have no terminal hardware requirements then it sounds like you're
just dealing with a UI customisation, a much simpler task and probably
only of interest to others if you devise a similar customisable screen
system like the existing POS, simple XML file with button titles and
events etc. sounds like a widget!

Re orders, seems like a lot of effort to control lots of orders for a
table. You can apply multiple payments to an order, although that is not
specifically related to ship groups at the moment, if you choose that
route you could easily make that association. About speed I'd be
suspicious about the order editing code as it exists today because as it
has evolved over time it has lost it's way little and is already ear
marked for a rewrite (when someone has the time/effort/investment to do
it), it pretty much recreates the order and that could be to costly for
your environment.

Ray



Bilgin Ibryam wrote:

> Hi everybody,
> sorry for the long post, but please read ahead and tell me your opinion.
> I have to implement a web based pos system for a restaurant.
> Before start coding i will be glad to hear your opinions and advices.
>
> First of all i decided to go web-based instead of using existing ofbiz POS
> because it does not cover all my needs. In the restaurant i need:
> 1) To enter the registered customers for order payments.
> 2) To edit orders.
> 3) To do Returns.
> 4) To visualize tables, seats, to do table reservations...
>
> I decided to do a new ofbiz component, with UI similar to pos (but html, not
> swing) for easy using with touch screens, that allows order entering in a
> fast way (similar to order manger but with possibility to enter orders in
> lesser clicks).
>
> Is there someone that has experience in this kind of things that can give me
> some advice? Do you see any possible difficulties and drawbacks in doing a
> web based pos system?
>
> About the implementation:
> The other thing that i have to care are the tables and people setting there.
> For tables i can use Fixed assets, but i cannot decide how to handle/group
> customer orders.
> 1) One way to go is to create a separate sales order for every person, so
> everyone can pay only for his/her products.
> Then i can group the orders for the table with a work effort. I need to
> group the orders, because i need all the time to calculate the total for the
> table, the total product list and the complete all the orders for the table
> with one click, if needed.
> Do you think that manipulating lots of orders could work fast enough,
> because for example the order creation in ofbiz is heavy_weight/slower than
> other operations?
>
> 2) The other way to go is to create only one order per table at a time and
> to create separate ship groups for every person. This way i can assign
> parties to ship groups, but it is NOT possible these parties to pay only for
> their products in the ship group. Is it possible somehow? This way i have to
> create, edit , complete only one order for all the people setting around a
> table at moment.
>
> (In general my questions are: is it a good idea to do a web based pos and to
> manipulate lots of orders at the same time (like one order) regarding fast
> working needs of a pos system ?)
>
> Please advise and thanks in advance.
> Bilgin Ibryam
>  

[Jacques Le Roux]

Ray, Bilgin,

Quickly, first, no surprise I'd rather suggest to extend the POS.

De : "Ray Barlow" <[hidden email]>
>Any thoughts out
> there as to whether the XUI layer could be bundled through a browser and
> us something like RPC for the server calls?

 This might turn interesting : http://xui.sourceforge.net/wikka/wikka.php?wakka=XUI3 see Added an HTML Builder. But beware I already
did some tests with XUI v 2.0.7 and we are still stuck to 2.0.6. This should not be to hard though and I hope to migrate to v3 one
day (not enough hours in a day, a pity ;o)

> Re orders, seems like a lot of effort to control lots of orders for a
> table. You can apply multiple payments to an order, although that is not
> specifically related to ship groups at the moment, if you choose that
> route you could easily make that association. About speed I'd be
> suspicious about the order editing code as it exists today because as it
> has evolved over time it has lost it's way little and is already ear
> marked for a rewrite (when someone has the time/effort/investment to do
> it), it pretty much recreates the order and that could be to costly for
> your environment.

Yes, speed might a problem in a restaurant I'm afraid. Though when cached, thru the POS it's not so slow. This makes sense, less
functionnalities, faster...

> Ray
>
>
>
> Bilgin Ibryam wrote:
> > Hi everybody,
> > sorry for the long post, but please read ahead and tell me your opinion.
> > I have to implement a web based pos system for a restaurant.
> > Before start coding i will be glad to hear your opinions and advices.
> >
> > First of all i decided to go web-based instead of using existing ofbiz POS
> > because it does not cover all my needs. In the restaurant i need:
> > 1) To enter the registered customers for order payments.

I hope to do some work around this on POS before end of year, maybe soon (waiting for a client).

> > 2) To edit orders.
> > 3) To do Returns.
> > 4) To visualize tables, seats, to do table reservations...
> >
> > I decided to do a new ofbiz component, with UI similar to pos (but html, not
> > swing) for easy using with touch screens, that allows order entering in a
> > fast way (similar to order manger but with possibility to enter orders in
> > lesser clicks).

Did you chose to use html because there aer already some screens and logic available or have you deeper reasons ?

> > Is there someone that has experience in this kind of things that can give me
> > some advice? Do you see any possible difficulties and drawbacks in doing a
> > web based pos system?

I think it's doable, at least this exists here http://www.fastmag.fr/?lang=eng. But it seems that this system is used mainly in
dress shop, restaurant is harder to deal with I guess. Here you can even test it http://www.fastmag.fr/page.ips?p=demo (just ask for
login/pwd)

> > About the implementation:
> > The other thing that i have to care are the tables and people setting there.
> > For tables i can use Fixed assets, but i cannot decide how to handle/group
> > customer orders.
> > 1) One way to go is to create a separate sales order for every person, so
> > everyone can pay only for his/her products.
> > Then i can group the orders for the table with a work effort. I need to
> > group the orders, because i need all the time to calculate the total for the
> > table, the total product list and the complete all the orders for the table
> > with one click, if needed.
> > Do you think that manipulating lots of orders could work fast enough,
> > because for example the order creation in ofbiz is heavy_weight/slower than
> > other operations?

This might be very costly in time

> > 2) The other way to go is to create only one order per table at a time and
> > to create separate ship groups for every person. This way i can assign
> > parties to ship groups, but it is NOT possible these parties to pay only for
> > their products in the ship group. Is it possible somehow? This way i have to
> > create, edit , complete only one order for all the people setting around a
> > table at moment.

Ray suggestion (multiple payments ) seems better to me

> > (In general my questions are: is it a good idea to do a web based pos and to
> > manipulate lots of orders at the same time (like one order) regarding fast
> > working needs of a pos system ?)

This is more related to the underlying code than the UI, I think. The brower eats a bit of CPU but less disk accesses are involved.

Looking forward for your project.

Good luck

Jacques

> > Please advise and thanks in advance.
> > Bilgin Ibryam
> >
>

[Bilgin Ibryam]

Ray, Jacques, thank you for answering.

Ray, first i will answer your questions.
I will need to run multiple pos terminals, possibly with own peripherals and some shared (printers may be). As you guessed for this purpose i will use applets. But the applet should be used only for this tasks, not for the whole UI.
For now, the only hardware requirement are touchscreen and printers, so at this stage it will be mostly UI customization. But the hardware requirement will come after that.
The screens should be similar to existing pos (i checked other pos systems, they all looks the same), but i donot want to use XML for button titles and product hard coding as it is in ofbiz pos. The products should come dynamically from categories and catalogs, like in order manager (especially as ecommerce).

Jacques,
First i tried to go extending POS. I saw your message in opentaps forum saying that customer recording will be soon implemented in pos. Then there is issue in jira for manipulating configurable products through POS (it is almost finished), issue for loading orders to POS created from order manager...
Even all these future POS improvement plans, implementing other requirements will need much more time for me, mainly because i am not well familiar with XUI framework. And also there are lots of ready things for web in ofbiz. On the other hand, the peripherals will be harder to integrate, but there should be something difficult ;)
With 'using html' i mean that i will use ofbiz widgets and ftl (but not XUI). Possibly mostly ftls for more flexibility in applying custom styles.
Thanks for the links. Till then i could not find a web pos example. It looks there are lots of interesting things in French sites :)

Regarding orders, i will listen to you both and try to find a way for one order per table. There is no multiple orders editing example in ofbiz, and it could be risky and for sure time consuming operation.
The main requirement for me is to group the products for each customer in the order/table and then multiple payments (usually one payment per group).
Is there any other way to group products in the shopping cart? I guess only for ship groups.

Thanks for your valuable time and comments.

[Ray Barlow]

Comments below...

Bilgin Ibryam wrote:

> Ray, Jacques, thank you for answering.
>
> Ray, first i will answer your questions.
> I will need to run multiple pos terminals, possibly with own peripherals and
> some shared (printers may be). As you guessed for this purpose i will use
> applets. But the applet should be used only for this tasks, not for the
> whole UI.
> For now, the only hardware requirement are touchscreen and printers, so at
> this stage it will be mostly UI customization. But the hardware requirement
> will come after that.
>  

As mentioned in another thread touch screens are OS driven and only tend
to result in XY mouse click events, therefore not part of the
application deployment more OS driver configuration, LTSP maybe.
If you require one hardware item like a printer then you need some sort
of terminal configuration system which will just as easily scale to
multiple. Perhaps you can wrap a table or two around the existing xml
configuration files to serve those to terminals as they log in, maybe
linked to IP address, machine name or even a cookie?
> The screens should be similar to existing pos (i checked other pos systems,
> they all looks the same), but i donot want to use XML for button titles and
> product hard coding as it is in ofbiz pos. The products should come
> dynamically from categories and catalogs, like in order manager (especially
> as ecommerce).
>  
OK that's a nice addition to have a data driven panel for categories and
products, but you have a lot of other buttons, panels and screens to
handle so what are you proposing for those?

> Jacques,
> First i tried to go extending POS. I saw your message in opentaps forum
> saying that customer recording will be soon implemented in pos. Then there
> is issue in jira for manipulating configurable products through POS (it is
> almost finished), issue for loading orders to POS created from order
> manager...
> Even all these future POS improvement plans, implementing other requirements
> will need much more time for me, mainly because i am not well familiar with
> XUI framework. And also there are lots of ready things for web in ofbiz. On
> the other hand, the peripherals will be harder to integrate, but there
> should be something difficult ;)
>  

Maybe I'm not understanding your reason but you seem to be suggesting
the use of html because you're not familiar with XUI rather than any
technical reasoning. Is that correct? I'm no expert on XUI and you don't
need to be to work on the POS module, one day and you can learn the
basics of it.

Don't misunderstand me I'm not fanatical about keeping XUI but I would
like to see your implementation replace the existing POS as an
improvement, where by it provides the same features and more. But rich
UI using html can be hard work, it may have gotten easier with AJAX and
others but you need to prove there won't be to much latency with server
round trips or get bogged down with lots of java script code which is
always a nightmare.

Ray

> With 'using html' i mean that i will use ofbiz widgets and ftl (but not
> XUI). Possibly mostly ftls for more flexibility in applying custom styles.
> Thanks for the links. Till then i could not find a web pos example. It looks
> there are lots of interesting things in French sites :)
>
> Regarding orders, i will listen to you both and try to find a way for one
> order per table. There is no multiple orders editing example in ofbiz, and
> it could be risky and for sure time consuming operation.
> The main requirement for me is to group the products for each customer in
> the order/table and then multiple payments (usually one payment per group).
> Is there any other way to group products in the shopping cart? I guess only
> for ship groups.
>
> Thanks for your valuable time and comments.
>
>  

[Jacques Le Roux]

Comments inline.

De : "Ray Barlow" <[hidden email]>

> Comments below...
>
> Bilgin Ibryam wrote:
> > Ray, Jacques, thank you for answering.
> >
> > Ray, first i will answer your questions.
> > I will need to run multiple pos terminals, possibly with own peripherals and
> > some shared (printers may be). As you guessed for this purpose i will use
> > applets. But the applet should be used only for this tasks, not for the
> > whole UI.
> > For now, the only hardware requirement are touchscreen and printers, so at
> > this stage it will be mostly UI customization. But the hardware requirement
> > will come after that.
> >
> As mentioned in another thread touch screens are OS driven and only tend
> to result in XY mouse click events, therefore not part of the
> application deployment more OS driver configuration, LTSP maybe.
> If you require one hardware item like a printer then you need some sort
> of terminal configuration system which will just as easily scale to
> multiple. Perhaps you can wrap a table or two around the existing xml
> configuration files to serve those to terminals as they log in, maybe
> linked to IP address, machine name or even a cookie?
> > The screens should be similar to existing pos (i checked other pos systems,
> > they all looks the same), but i donot want to use XML for button titles and
> > product hard coding as it is in ofbiz pos. The products should come
> > dynamically from categories and catalogs, like in order manager (especially
> > as ecommerce).
> >
> OK that's a nice addition to have a data driven panel for categories and
> products, but you have a lot of other buttons, panels and screens to
> handle so what are you proposing for those?

Yes that's great. I wanted to do something like (mmm ...) 2,5 years ago. The reason it's done like that in the POS (Andy did it) is
because it's supposed to use a lot of items and the main entry mean obviously can't be anything else than scanner and bar codes. In
case of a restaurant (or hairdresser, bakery, etc.) the problematic is not the same : less products and I can't see how to use bar
codes there (even McDo is not using bar codes ;o).

> > Jacques,
> > First i tried to go extending POS. I saw your message in opentaps forum
> > saying that customer recording will be soon implemented in pos. Then there
> > is issue in jira for manipulating configurable products through POS (it is
> > almost finished), issue for loading orders to POS created from order
> > manager...

Yes there are some issues waiting I agree. I currently work on an ERP-eCommerce project but I should begin to work on some of those
issues in the POS in a near future... Tonight I will send a list of the issues...

> > Even all these future POS improvement plans, implementing other requirements
> > will need much more time for me, mainly because i am not well familiar with
> > XUI framework. And also there are lots of ready things for web in ofbiz. On
> > the other hand, the peripherals will be harder to integrate, but there
> > should be something difficult ;)
> >
> Maybe I'm not understanding your reason but you seem to be suggesting
> the use of html because you're not familiar with XUI rather than any
> technical reasoning. Is that correct? I'm no expert on XUI and you don't
> need to be to work on the POS module, one day and you can learn the
> basics of it.

Yes it's really easy to learn and use. And morevover it extents AWT and Swing which allow you to use them if needed (but it's very
rarely needed). Also did you have a look at the link I sent you ( http://xui.sourceforge.net/wikka/wikka.php?wakka=XUI3 look at
"Added an HTML Builder") ? If you need some help I could help you at least with some advices (not with the "HTML Builder" though : I
never used it yet)

> Don't misunderstand me I'm not fanatical about keeping XUI but I would
> like to see your implementation replace the existing POS as an
> improvement, where by it provides the same features and more. But rich
> UI using html can be hard work, it may have gotten easier with AJAX and
> others but you need to prove there won't be to much latency with server
> round trips or get bogged down with lots of java script code which is
> always a nightmare.

But please don't feel any pressure. If you think it's not the way to go, forget it ;o)

Jacques

> Ray
> > With 'using html' i mean that i will use ofbiz widgets and ftl (but not
> > XUI). Possibly mostly ftls for more flexibility in applying custom styles.
> > Thanks for the links. Till then i could not find a web pos example. It looks
> > there are lots of interesting things in French sites :)
> >
> > Regarding orders, i will listen to you both and try to find a way for one
> > order per table. There is no multiple orders editing example in ofbiz, and
> > it could be risky and for sure time consuming operation.
> > The main requirement for me is to group the products for each customer in
> > the order/table and then multiple payments (usually one payment per group).
> > Is there any other way to group products in the shopping cart? I guess only
> > for ship groups.
> >
> > Thanks for your valuable time and comments.
> >
> >
>

[Ray Barlow]

Jacques Le Roux wrote:

>> Don't misunderstand me I'm not fanatical about keeping XUI but I would
>> like to see your implementation replace the existing POS as an
>> improvement, where by it provides the same features and more. But rich
>> UI using html can be hard work, it may have gotten easier with AJAX and
>> others but you need to prove there won't be to much latency with server
>> round trips or get bogged down with lots of java script code which is
>> always a nightmare.
>>    
>
> But please don't feel any pressure. If you think it's not the way to go, forget it ;o)
>
> Jacques

Sorry was not meaning to put pressure on anyone, people should choose
whatever path they want. I was just being selfish thinking about the
bigger picture and how best it might help the OFBiz project as a whole
rather than what may decided is best for an individuals project. In
simple terms it would be great to see this as POS version "2" a future
replacement for POS version "1" rather than an alternative POS because
it didn't quite deliver what version "1" could do.

After reading comments in the Dojo thread it did make me think maybe the
movement of tools and technology has reached the point where doing a
rich html UI is realistic. Time has not permitted me the pleasure of
playing with it yet, so I'm happy to be shown the light!

Ray

[Jacques Le Roux]

De : "Jacques Le Roux" <[hidden email]>

> Comments inline.
> > > Jacques,
> > > First i tried to go extending POS. I saw your message in opentaps forum
> > > saying that customer recording will be soon implemented in pos. Then there
> > > is issue in jira for manipulating configurable products through POS (it is
> > > almost finished), issue for loading orders to POS created from order
> > > manager...
> > > Bilgin
>
> Yes there are some issues waiting I agree. I currently work on an ERP-eCommerce project but I should begin to work on some of

those
> issues in the POS in a near future... Tonight I will send a list of the issues...

POS issues waiting in Jira that I find time (or anyone else) to solve

Majors
POS take deposits and complete sales with deposits https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-287 (need to link a customer)
Percentage item and sale discounts not working https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-289 (actually it works now but there is
still an issue with taxes)
POS Z report https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-235
POS Cash/Paid in and out of drawer https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-237 (it works but some enhancements maybe needed)

Minors
Problem with POS modal window on Linux. https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-567 There is already a workaround, not really a
solution, no pb in Windows
Passwords in POS are shown in clear text https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-1106
Load a sales order in POS https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-565 It works but with shopping list only not real order (ok
for receipts swapping for instance)
BigDecimal is not used at all in POS https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-522
Ability to add items with modifiers https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-1109

Requests a client has asked for (this has been evaluated and we agreed, I'm waiting an official document to begin)
Member Deposit. (same as https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-287 )
Member Sales (I mean the loyalty part development for ofbiz pos)
Reports for POS paid in and out.
Implementation of VAT
Tax report from POS.
One button to print all the sales receipt of the day (this one is not as easy as it looks !)
See the list of sales receipt of the day and reprint them if necessary
Total for the day (Currently total is based on POS close and POS open).
Implementation of Line Display

When the POS will have all this implemented it will look much more attractive. This could be done before end of year.

Jacques

[Dan Shields-2]

I spent much of the last year fiddling with jpos and reading and
learning about the internals of the POS application within OFBiz, and
I feel confident that I could take on a few of the issues listed by
Jacques.

Please allow me to volunteer to do work on the following issues which
are crucial for the success of my client:

POS Z report https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-235
Passwords in POS are shown in clear text
https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-1106

Also I would like to work on the following new feature:
Proper reporting and display of GST for Canadian businesses.

If anyone has patches that are relevant to any of the above issues,
please let me know.

[Jacques Le Roux]

Hi Dan,

De : "Dan Shields" <[hidden email]>

> I spent much of the last year fiddling with jpos and reading and
> learning about the internals of the POS application within OFBiz, and
> I feel confident that I could take on a few of the issues listed by
> Jacques.
>
> Please allow me to volunteer to do work on the following issues which
> are crucial for the success of my client:
>
> POS Z report https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-235
> Passwords in POS are shown in clear text
> https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/OFBIZ-1106

You are welcome. About POS Z report (or whatever such reports), it could be interesting to be able to produce not only from date to
date but also from date/time to date/time. Time need seems  minor, but who knows ?

> Also I would like to work on the following new feature:
> Proper reporting and display of GST for Canadian businesses.
>
> If anyone has patches that are relevant to any of the above issues,
> please let me know.

AFAIK nothing yet for both of them.

Jacques

[BJ Freeman]

for history sake here is a good post about POS from 2005


Hi Matt and BJ,

I know what you mean about TCP/IP reliability in legacy equipment
environments, most companies are STILL RUNNING FLAT NETWORKS! With
thousands of hosts! There are a few options to consider here  one is
RS485, this protocol is very popular in manufacturing and device control
environments. I have experience in RS485, RS232 and converting them to
TCP/IP as well but the crux of the matter is at some point these legacy
protocols MUST be converted to TCP/IP luckily they do sell RS485 PCI
boards, but try to make one work in Linux or UNIX). The good news is there
are plenty of reputable companies selling products that do RS485/RS232 and
even RS422 to TCP/IP conversion. The only limitation is generally 32
devices per box on RS485 for some reason. I have no experience with RS422
unfortunately, it was very popular as well.

As far as printers are concerned I am working on piece of Postal equipment
with a Moxa RS232/RS485 to Ethernet converter and a separate RS232 to USB
conversion as we speak. The Moxa device creates virtual com ports so that
you can assign separate IP addresses to each device and will treat them as
separate entities. I was working on this project just today as a matter of
fact. I have had plenty of success in the past but I could not see any
action from the Postage Machine as far as RX TX on the Moxa. I think I do
not have the correct pin-out on the RS232 side but I was only 3 hours into
the project and building my own cables, so more research is needed.

I am not sure about the old Centronics printer to anything conversion
other than RS232 to Centronics. One of our technicians was able to
purchase a "black box" to perform the conversion, here you would
definitely be limited to distance, again on a Postage Machine. This is why
I am trying to convert to USB/RS232 and Ethernet so that our customers are
not locked into buying a separate (proprietary) over priced printer just
to run postal accounting reports, I would like to afford them the
opportunity to send it to an existing USB or network printer as a courtesy
to our customers.

When it comes to connecting to RS232 you are limited to about 100 feet in
my experience before you begin to experience severe dispersion and jitter
in the signal, Ethernet being the same, 100 meters before it must traverse
another switch or repeater but can only happen so many times before the
delay becomes a problem, with the exception of LRE and fiber optic
(another topic for a different day). RS485 can be ran as far a 3,000 feet
from what I have read, such as a factory floor or assembly line but I have
not had the opportunity to test this and scope the signal. It is a simple
bus configuration and is only two wires, kind of hard to mess that up.

In cases like this, shielded twisted pair I.E.(Cat 5 STP MUST be used with
SHIELDED connectors on both ends firmly grounded at the connectors and
MUST BE AT THE SAME GROUND POTENTIAL) but this is THE most popular
protocol used in industrial applications. For sensors, servos, controllers
etc next to RS422, (a Sony Protocol).

BJ’s question,

“been working on how to allow badge readers, Touch Screens, printers,
scanners and scales to interface to ofbiz and not be tied to serial,
parallel ports.
two versions, are network aware using Ethernet.
the other is Wifi aware.
ofbiz entity would then define the list of IP and ports they map to for
functionality.

any input?”

BJ, I could definitely be wrong here but it is my opinion that everything
is moving to USB as far as connectivity to the PC for POS peripherals. If
you order a new Dell you must ask for PS2 interfaces specifically,
otherwise its all USB, and trust me on this one (recent experience) a
keyboard wedge scanner and a USB converter is NOT reliable!

I have seen loads of various USB to Ethernet converters and this could be
used to our advantage in the appropriate environment. I have found that in
many board meetings if you mention WI-FI the frowns begin to appear around
the table when it comes to sensitive data like I.D./personal data being
sent over a WI-FI connection. HIPPA is spreading like a rash even in
HRS.(I believe I have a workaround for this if it is not to memory or
processor hungry. Speaking of HRS I have some screenshots from an
application designed for higher education and there are a lot more
parameters involved when it comes to HRS than I would have ever imagined
these screen shots definitely make yo realize just how much there is to
HRS.

If anyone is interested I will e-mail them to you for examination please
feel free to e-mail me direct at dkey at card-x.com

When we are talking printers, scales, Scanners and the like, JavaPOS can
be of great help, I realize that they are not entirely up to date but
these are the only resources available for standards based interfaces,
which I believe is the future. Most are serial in nature, I have often
thought of using Infrared to connect such devices to a POS unfortunately I
have not found a vendor who builds such an animal, but I do have a brother
who engineers just about anything electronic. I always try to make my POS
installs as neat and tidy as possible but there are just too many wires
and I cringe at even my best installs.

I was not aware that touch screens would be a problem, I have no
experience in PC based touch screens. I was under the impression that they
were handled just like a mouse and keyboard. PLEASE ADVISE IF YOU KNOW
DIFFERENT especially in a Linux invironment.

I have done extensive research on I.D. “Badge” readers and could
definitely use some help on your side with this as far as Java goes. Most
badge readers are either RS232 or USB, but we both know these have their
limitations. The company I “Currently work for” has two sides, one being
postal solutions and the other, I.D./POS solutions. I can definitely point
you in the right direction as far as I.D. badge solutions go, as well as
my experience with smartcard I.D. deployments if that is what you are
looking for. I can point you to the most cost effective microprocessor
cards on the market and why they are one of the best cards available. I am
currently waiting for Philips USA to open on Monday as they have been
closed for the past week and I have been assigned to a technical rep for
clarification on which readers go with which cards and what type of
communication interfaces are available for each etc.

Philips is at the forefront of Smartcard development along with Samsung,
they (Samsung) currently have the quickest read/write time 115 kb per
second but they are very expensive. This is definitely the way things are
heading (IMHO), along with RFID tags for inventory and product tracking,
something I would like to see in OfBiz at some point. I recently viewed a
report on T.V that over 40% of class 2 prescription narcotics arrive at
their destination as counterfeit products, having being replaced by
thieves. Definitely food for thought when it comes to inventory control.


Sorry for the Mini Novel I just want to help as much as I can since my
work keeps me away from the Java books so much.

Hope this helps,

Dale


Bilgin Ibryam sent the following on 9/10/2007 4:54 AM:

> Hi everybody,
> sorry for the long post, but please read ahead and tell me your opinion.
> I have to implement a web based pos system for a restaurant.
> Before start coding i will be glad to hear your opinions and advices.
>
> First of all i decided to go web-based instead of using existing ofbiz POS
> because it does not cover all my needs. In the restaurant i need:
> 1) To enter the registered customers for order payments.
> 2) To edit orders.
> 3) To do Returns.
> 4) To visualize tables, seats, to do table reservations...
>
> I decided to do a new ofbiz component, with UI similar to pos (but html, not
> swing) for easy using with touch screens, that allows order entering in a
> fast way (similar to order manger but with possibility to enter orders in
> lesser clicks).
>
> Is there someone that has experience in this kind of things that can give me
> some advice? Do you see any possible difficulties and drawbacks in doing a
> web based pos system?
>
> About the implementation:
> The other thing that i have to care are the tables and people setting there.
> For tables i can use Fixed assets, but i cannot decide how to handle/group
> customer orders.
> 1) One way to go is to create a separate sales order for every person, so
> everyone can pay only for his/her products.
> Then i can group the orders for the table with a work effort. I need to
> group the orders, because i need all the time to calculate the total for the
> table, the total product list and the complete all the orders for the table
> with one click, if needed.
> Do you think that manipulating lots of orders could work fast enough,
> because for example the order creation in ofbiz is heavy_weight/slower than
> other operations?
>
> 2) The other way to go is to create only one order per table at a time and
> to create separate ship groups for every person. This way i can assign
> parties to ship groups, but it is NOT possible these parties to pay only for
> their products in the ship group. Is it possible somehow? This way i have to
> create, edit , complete only one order for all the people setting around a
> table at moment.
>
> (In general my questions are: is it a good idea to do a web based pos and to
> manipulate lots of orders at the same time (like one order) regarding fast
> working needs of a pos system ?)
>
> Please advise and thanks in advance.
> Bilgin Ibryam

[Bilgin Ibryam]

Dale,

Thanks for your interesting comments on this issue.
Pos is the most hardware dependent/connected component.
I will keep in mind that.

[Bilgin Ibryam]

Ray,
>As mentioned in another thread touch screens are OS driven and only tend
>to result in XY mouse click events, therefore not part of the
>application deployment more OS driver configuration, LTSP maybe.
>If you require one hardware item like a printer then you need some sort
>of terminal configuration system which will just as easily scale to
>multiple. Perhaps you can wrap a table or two around the existing xml
>configuration files to serve those to terminals as they log in, maybe
>linked to IP address, machine name or even a cookie?
With 'touch screen requirement' i mean a requirement for touch screen friendly UI style (with big buttons and labels, similar to POS buttons for example). So it is only about adding custom CSS (the ofbiz CSS are designed mostly for mouse clicks,rather than  touch screen clicks).
Can you explain your idea about ' terminal configuration system' especially the part with wrapping a table or two ... please ?

>OK that's a nice addition to have a data driven panel for categories and
>products, but you have a lot of other buttons, panels and screens to
>handle so what are you proposing for those?
I cannot understand your question here. What could be the problem in a web UI (like ecommerce) to have data driven panel for products ? Is there a problem that i cannot see ?

>Maybe I'm not understanding your reason but you seem to be suggesting
>the use of html because you're not familiar with XUI rather than any
>technical reasoning. Is that correct?
This is only one of the reasons. The other reasons are explained in my initial message. There are some other reasons that i didnot write. Of course, even all these reasons, it is possible to do it in XUI, possibly even better to do a pos system with XUI, but i will give a try for a web-based :)

>Don't misunderstand me I'm not fanatical about keeping XUI but I would
>like to see your implementation replace the existing POS as an
>improvement, where by it provides the same features and more. But rich
>UI using html can be hard work, it may have gotten easier with AJAX and
>others but you need to prove there won't be to much latency with server
>round trips or get bogged down with lots of java script code which is
>always a nightmare.

Bilgin

[Bilgin Ibryam]

Jacques,
>Yes it's really easy to learn and use. And morevover it extents AWT and Swing which allow you to use >them if needed (but it's very
>rarely needed). Also did you have a look at the link I sent you ( >http://xui.sourceforge.net/wikka/wikka.php?wakka=XUI3 look at
>"Added an HTML Builder") ? If you need some help I could help you at least with some advices (not with >the "HTML Builder" though : I
>never used it yet)

I checked the XUI site and some related ones. I really like it. I think POS is unreplaceble application in some use situations. But for now i need something like FastMag Shop...

There is even tries to integrate web based applications (sugar crm)  to XUI,  interesting, http://www.sugarexchange.com/product_details.php?product=242

Also nice to see some movements in POS jira issues. I also can help with testing them, when possible.
Thanks for showing me the possibilities of pos. I appreciate that.

Bilgin Ibryam

[Christopher L]

I missed a great thread.  Here's my 2c on the POS issues that have been
brought up.

1)  Touchscreen:  This is handled by the OS and is basically translated into
mouse clicks.  I haven't yet seen a pos web application that would work well
with a touchscreen, because touchscreens aren't exact like a mouse.  Large
buttons are pretty much a requirement.  I would also be *very* hesitant to
do anything that would give anything (the browser) control over button
location, as changes in layout or presentation will directly affect waiter
speed with the POS.  Go watch a waiter at a busy bar.  Those guys fly
through the menus, because they remember where all the buttons are.

2) Handling group/customer orders, aka split checks.  The best way I have
seen this handled in a POS system is the table is initially grouped
together.  At any point, the check can be split, which pops a new screen
where the existing order items can be distributed to new orders.  This
ensures that order items aren't lost during the splitting and allows for
quick creation of the new orders.

3) To edit orders.  Orders are editable in the current POS system.  I would
look at the Load/Save a Sale functionality put in by JLR recently.  IMHO,
it's not perfect, but it's 80% there, there just needs to be some tweaking
of the business rules.  This functionality is closely related to the ability
to associate orders to tables.

4) To visualize tables, seats, to do table reservations.  Visualizing
tables, IMHO would be pretty easy.  You would need to a) create a
representation of the restaurant and tables in XUI, and b) have a way of
associating orders to tables.  The rest of the functionality could be pretty
much cut and pasted from the Load/Save a Sale feature.  I haven't given much
thought to table reservations, so I'll defer on that one for now.

5) To enter the registered customers for order payments.  Is having
"registered customers" part of a loyalty program?  Is this essentially a
patron "running a tab"?  I'm not sure of the use case in this scenario.

6) To do Returns.  Returns?  Returns don't exist as "returns" in a
restaurant context AFAIK.  Is this something sent back to the kitchen to be
fixed?  Is this a monetary credit because of a problem?  If it's a monetary
discount to the order, this exists today in POS.

7) The products should come dynamically from categories and catalogs, like
in order manager (especially as ecommerce).  I agree with this completely,
and is how I'm handling item configuration.  Adding this functionality could
be done with a medium amount of effort.

Chris Lombardi

[BJ Freeman]

I have been chunking away at Restaurant from some software i wrote in
cobol in 84.

The concept is a chain of restaurants.

the actual menu separate Catalog with BOM for dishes, that eventually
become products.
This allows the manufacturing to be implemented for ERP and kitchen
displays of preparation.

there is also a catalog that is used by the chefs or restrauant manage
to order supplies, that does not show up on the catalog for the Item
sold to the public.

for some restaurants They have terminals at the table for the customer
to  select menu items. this is a modified Ecommerce site. Some terminals
would have cc swipes and the cc processing would happen like and e
commerce site.

At this point then the POS is more a reconciliation for payment, and
change order.

the order in most cases would be comp by the restaurants manager in case
of bad service. here the pos would be used to recall the order.

You also have to reconcile orders that are walked out on and no payment
is made. The POS is used as a login and waitress, orders review for a shift.

You then need localization for the restaurant's flavor Like Mexican,
chinesse, and English, depending on the clients.

clearchris sent the following on 9/14/2007 9:44 PM:

> I missed a great thread.  Here's my 2c on the POS issues that have been
> brought up.
>
> 1)  Touchscreen:  This is handled by the OS and is basically translated into
> mouse clicks.  I haven't yet seen a pos web application that would work well
> with a touchscreen, because touchscreens aren't exact like a mouse.  Large
> buttons are pretty much a requirement.  I would also be *very* hesitant to
> do anything that would give anything (the browser) control over button
> location, as changes in layout or presentation will directly affect waiter
> speed with the POS.  Go watch a waiter at a busy bar.  Those guys fly
> through the menus, because they remember where all the buttons are.
>
> 2) Handling group/customer orders, aka split checks.  The best way I have
> seen this handled in a POS system is the table is initially grouped
> together.  At any point, the check can be split, which pops a new screen
> where the existing order items can be distributed to new orders.  This
> ensures that order items aren't lost during the splitting and allows for
> quick creation of the new orders.
>
> 3) To edit orders.  Orders are editable in the current POS system.  I would
> look at the Load/Save a Sale functionality put in by JLR recently.  IMHO,
> it's not perfect, but it's 80% there, there just needs to be some tweaking
> of the business rules.  This functionality is closely related to the ability
> to associate orders to tables.
>
> 4) To visualize tables, seats, to do table reservations.  Visualizing
> tables, IMHO would be pretty easy.  You would need to a) create a
> representation of the restaurant and tables in XUI, and b) have a way of
> associating orders to tables.  The rest of the functionality could be pretty
> much cut and pasted from the Load/Save a Sale feature.  I haven't given much
> thought to table reservations, so I'll defer on that one for now.
>
> 5) To enter the registered customers for order payments.  Is having
> "registered customers" part of a loyalty program?  Is this essentially a
> patron "running a tab"?  I'm not sure of the use case in this scenario.
>
> 6) To do Returns.  Returns?  Returns don't exist as "returns" in a
> restaurant context AFAIK.  Is this something sent back to the kitchen to be
> fixed?  Is this a monetary credit because of a problem?  If it's a monetary
> discount to the order, this exists today in POS.
>
> 7) The products should come dynamically from categories and catalogs, like
> in order manager (especially as ecommerce).  I agree with this completely,
> and is how I'm handling item configuration.  Adding this functionality could
> be done with a medium amount of effort.
>
> Chris Lombardi
>
>
>
>