Point-Of-Sale (POS) Screen Design

Hello and happy new year to all.

I am currently in the process of writing a Point-of-Sale, POS, system. I have seen many in person recently and they have fairly simple screens with a few options usually per screen and perhaps some tabs. Color is usually present but not usually overdone.

My question, I noticed they all have a gradient type of button in several formats and how do you th ink I should best approach my project to achieve a nice graident button and controls.

Here is what I have looked at thus far.

1) Skinning. If I find nothing else, this is the area I will probably land. When I am finished with my research, I will post my findings.

Through skinning, I can apply a theme to the Delphi application and at least get a completely different feel than the basic application colors with very little coding.

2) HMI (Human Machine Interface) I do not know much about this, yet, but this seems to be an option.

3) Just DIY, or do-it-yourself - create nice gradient designs in a paint program, save and apply to a TBitButton, but I could not figure out how to update text on the bit button without using the caption. I want the caption to be "over" the bitmap, not to the left/right/top/bottom.

4) Your idea(s)?????

I thank you and appreciate your comments.

My two cents:

I've noticed a proliferation of "decorated" controls in a lot of recent applications, and I'm not convinced they're all a good idea.

Much like the Web, desktop applications are subject to changes in what's fashionable at any given moment.  What looks new and "cutting edge" today may look stale and dated in a year - or less.

My preference is to strive for a "clean" and uncluttered user interface, one that feels approachable and intuitive.  I feel strongly that those attributes are far more important than "eye candy," and that a "clean" UI will have greater lasting appeal.

That said, if you want some tastefully decorated controls, I cannot speak highly enough of Raize Components.  They are pretty easy to use, offer many options in the "look" department, and they work superbly.

If you want to avoid the expense of a commercial component library, you might want to explore the (massive) JEDI VCL library.

Wes Peterson
Senior Software Engineer
Prestwood IT Solutions
http://www.prestwood.com

Daniel,

Yes, the JEDI VCL Library is huge. It's comprised of submissions from scores of independent developers. There's some duplication, and tons of things you may never need.

But it's size shouldn't put you off because Delphi is only going to link in what you use.

It does clutter up Delphi's component palette, but that's easily managed two ways:

• Use GExperts to organize your palette and add a drop-down button so you don't have to squint at all those tab titles.
• In your Projects' Options dialog, uncheck all the components you won't be using.  They'll disappear from the palette - but just for that project.

As for "roundness," you are using TXPManifest, right?

Wes Peterson
Senior Software Engineer
Prestwood IT Solutions
http://www.prestwood.com

Ooof (wow) to the Jedi - yes way too big; good, but big, nay huge!

I will look at the Raize components. It may be just waht we are looking for, just some basic color and some "roundness".

Thank you,

Daniel

On the Jedi comment, true.

I am using the XP Manifest, yes, but we needed a bit more flexibility for the POS.

I found http://www.lmd.de

They, like Jedi, have a slew of components, but the key was the ability to easily customize the buttons the user uses and sees.

I have worked with both Jedi and LMD, but did not have the latest of LMD - where they have exactly what we needed.

Thank you for the posts

As I promised, I will report my findings.

Hi,

First excuse my bad english, i speak only french,

I'm currently writing a POS system, front and back, i have a problem with sceen bouttons pos (articles), i do not know how to link articles tables to display in form (touch sales screen).

I want your help.

Tnks

Wes Peterson
Senior Software Engineer
Prestwood IT Solutions
http://www.prestwood.com

Hi Wp,

Thanks you for inswert,

I wasn't clear enough, but let me explain the reason how to insert dynamic buttons from my table (family and article) : exp : http://www.antamedia.com/images/all/screen-pos-software.png

Merci :)

You would like to build buttons at run-time? 

Here is what I did:

I built a generic form with several tabs - like yours. These tabs can be configured to be shown or not. I can share the table layout too if you like.

The generic form has all possible five tabs with 64 buttons for products on three of the tabs and 32 larger buttons on two of the other tabs. Now, the way I configured it was each product could be assigned to one or more forms - forms the Customer "creates" or defines using the application. All the forms are identical to start - 5 tabs as described above, however, each form can be, as I say, configured to have one tab or all 5.

So, back to the products. Each product can be assigned to one or more forms and in different locations on the form.

Maybe on one form the Customer has a tab called "Soft Drinks" and then they have 64 buttons available to them to assign products. So, Coke is placed here. At the bar, they have a tab named "Beverages" The Coke product can be shown here as well - takes only one more row in the form-to-product association table.

The forms table:

 CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS forms(

  id INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,

  DateLastUpdated TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,

  LastUpdatedBy [VAR_CHAR(]15) DEFAULT NULL,

  FormName [VAR_CHAR(]45) NOT NULL,

  InitialTab TINYINT(1) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,

  Tab1Settings [VAR_CHAR(]150) DEFAULT NULL,

  Tab2Settings [VAR_CHAR(]150) DEFAULT NULL,

  Tab3Settings [VAR_CHAR(]150) DEFAULT NULL,

  Tab4Settings [VAR_CHAR(]150) DEFAULT NULL,

  Tab5Settings [VAR_CHAR(]150) DEFAULT NULL,

  PRIMARY KEY (id),

  UNIQUE INDEX ndxFormName (FormName)

)

In the TabXSettings column I have a color,TabName - if null, then the tab is not shown.

To control the behavior of the products-to-buttons behavior I have:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS tblformcontrols_2(

  idtblformcontrols INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,

  id_product INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,

  FormName [VAR_CHAR(]45) NOT NULL,

  TagNumber INT(11) NOT NULL,

  Caption [VAR_CHAR(]45) NOT NULL,

  FontSize SMALLINT(5) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,

  DateLastUpdated TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,

  LastUpdatedBy [VAR_CHAR(]15) DEFAULT NULL,

  ButtonBackgroundColor [VAR_CHAR(]10) NOT NULL,

  ButtonImageLocation [VAR_CHAR(]150) DEFAULT NULL,

  PRIMARY KEY (idtblformcontrols),

  UNIQUE INDEX Index_2 (FormName, TagNumber),

  INDEX ndxid_product (id_product)

)

The tabs are "numbered" logically: starting with 100 and going to 500

The buttons are "numbered" logically tab one starts with button 100 to button 107 in the first row, button 110 to button 117 in the second row and so on. Tab two it is 200 to 207 and 210 to 217 and so on.

I can then read the "forms" table and see what tabs to display and in what color. I then read the "formcontrols" table to see what buttons to display and how to colorize them or place images on the buttons.

The "id_product" column in the "formcontrols" table is a logical foreign key back to the products table. I put this value in the TAG property of the button. When the button is pressed, I already know what product is being purchased as I have the ID of the product in the TAG. You could use the Hint property or some other property too.

Hope this helps.

i realy thank you for your help,it means so much to me. as a first time Delphi programer , i'm gonna be more persistent and kindly ask you to give me the project source for this explication.

waitinting for your answer ,it means so much to me.many thanks.

sincerly yours.

anas,

What Daniel Kram has described is a very sophisticated system or "framework" build with; or "on top of" Delphi. His is a generous offer and  It may, or may not, be useful to you.

You mentioned that you are a "first time" Delphi programmer.  We all were at one time or another.

Now, I can almost promise you that, even if you had all the code to Daniel's product, you'd have trouble making the most of it before you have better developed your foundation Delphi skills.  I recommend starting at the beginning and working through the tutorials that come with Delphi.

Also browse the web for "starter" projects.

Wes Peterson
Senior Software Engineer
Prestwood IT Solutions
http://www.prestwood.com

Anas:

Wes is correct. Moreover, I cannot share code from the application without breaking copyright rules/laws. Yes, I wrote it, but I do not own it, my employer owns the code - not me.

Follow what, Wes, indicates and see where it takes you. I do the same thing with languages I learn such as Ruby, or PHP.

The other thing you probably need is a solid understanding of database design. if you do not have a DBA, or database administrator, available to you, I would suggest looking at some materials from "In a Nutshell" series about database design.

Another idea: Download a POS available for demo purposes and you may be able to see the tables in SQL Server or MySQL and gather some ideas from their structure. It will help in any case with how to organize a good POS system.

Finally, this is one of many great sources for Delphi info: http://delphi.about.com/

Stop back if you have specific questions. We are here to help.