POSper 2.

0 2012-08-24
=====================
POSper is a point of sales application designed for touch screens.
POSper Quick Start
==================
Unzip the bundle into a directory. It's best to have an account 'posper' and
install POSper in /home/posper. This is the default assumed by the posper startu
p
script. If you install POSper into a different directory please adapt the
PROGRAM_DIR= variable in posper and config accordingly.
Database setup
==============
Decide which database you want to use:
For testing, the java built-in HSQLDB
will be used.
For production, we strongly recommend to
use a production grade DB like Postgresql
or MySQL or others.
Download the respective JAVA connector for
the DB you want to use.
The DB connector for MySQL is supplied with
the bundle. The follwing instruction apply
to HSQLDB/MySQL respectively.
- Install MySQL >= 5.0 on your local machine or
a connected server. It's not a good idea
to connect to a server outside your LAN
because performance won't be sufficient
for productive use. For remote administration
of POSper performance is still fine.
- It is recommended to install MySQL Tools
to handle db administration tasks.
- For DB's other than HSQLDB, create an empty
database schema.
- Take care to setup a user login with ALL access rights and a safe password,
in MySQL e.g.
grant all privileges on *.* to '<user>'@'%' identified by '<pw>';
POSper config
=============
- Run config
In Linux, make posper and config executable
(chmod a+x) and run ./config.
config detects and checks your Java runtime
environment and starts the POSper config dialog.
In Windows, run config.exe.
In the database tab you'll find HSQLDB settings

as default. If you use MySQL, configure the

database connector to point to the mysql
connector in the base directory and change the
database name to the name you've chosen for
your database scheme.
Enter the database username and password you've chosen for posper use.
For other DB's configure the JAVA connector
respectively.
You can adapt any other settings to you need
at any time. Choosing the Configuration menu
in posper brings up this config dialog.
Set register host to the same value as host.
If register host is not set some of the reports
won't work (register host defines the host that
produced the transactions you want to be
evaluated
- Save your settings even if you didn't make
any change!
Config will create a file
posper.properties in your home directory
containing the configuration settings.
Warning: running POSper from a different
account will require to repeat the configuration
process (or copy the posper.properties file).
Having a properties file for each account allows
to run POSper with different settings or even
different DBs (e.g. one for learning and testing).
- Serial and USB interface
If you have configured any device to be connected
through a serial or USB port, like printer and
customer display, you need to install the Java RXTX
library, e.g. librxtxSerial.so for Linux or
rxtxSerial.dll for Windows. In this case choose mode 'rxtx'.
Download RXTX 2.1.7 from http://rxtx.qbang.org.
Other than mentioned in the RXTX install instructions
the RXTX library can be placed in the POSper
install directory which is the default java
library path. This is a safe way to retain the RXTX
library when you ugrade your Java version.
The RXTXserial.jar file is already present in libs.
If you choose 'serial' the Java Comm API is used.
The Java Comm library libLinuxSerialParallel.so
can be placed in the POSper
install directory which is the default java
library path. This is a safe way to retain the Comm
library when you ugrade your Java version.
The necessary jar file with javax.comm is already
present in libs as well as the javax.comm.properties
file which configures the names of the system specific
ports. An adapted javax.comm.properties can also be
placed in <JRE>/lib where it takes precedence.
Unfortunately there seems to be no Windows driver library

to support the Java Comm API.

Sun/Oracle say on their Download Area:
"Note: Sun no longer offer's the Windows platform binaries
of javax.comm, however javax.comm 2.0.3 can be used for
the Windows platform, by using it in conjunction with the
Win32 implementation layer provided by the RxTx project.
To use that, download javax.comm for the 'generic' platform
(which provides the front-end javax.comm API only, without
platform specific back-end implementations bundled).
Then acquire the Windows binary implementation rxtx-2.0.7pre1
from http://www.rxtx.org."
www.rxtx.org no longer exists, so grab this version from
http://rxtx.qbang.org. I havn't tested Java Comm on Windows
so I can't tell if it works.
When do I use 'rxtx' and when do I use 'serial'?
Try rxtx first and 'serial' if you're facing problems with rxtx.
This can be system and/or device specific.
If you are a developer and want to compile POSper you might face
problems downloading the javax.comm library. You can download
the library from the Oracle site and include it in your local
repository by hand
- Run posper
In Linux, run ./posper.
If POSper won't start, run config
to check your configuration. Additional configuration
settings are available in the posper script.
In Windows, run posper.exe.
POSper will ask if you want to have a
databse created and populated with sample data.
Answer both questions with yes.
Database triggers
=================
In order to automatically create a serial number
for close cash reports and reference numbers
for products and categories you can use the
trigger definitions in mysqlTrigger.sql.
There's also a procedure to create a serial number by month
for payments created in the payments dialog.
Obviously, all trigger definitions are designed
to work in MySQL. For other DBs you might need to
adapt the procedure.
Enjoy working with POSper!
Hans Artmann
(C) arcarsys 2009, 2012
info@arcasys.de