Section 11
Pole Display Messages

The Pole Display Messages Table contains the text you want to display on the customer display at various points throughout the receipting process. These can include a greeting, such as Hello. How can I help you? and detail messages about the transaction itself, such as the item description, fee amount, total due, change due, etc.

Each such message is customizable by you to say what you want. The pole display contains two lines of 20 characters each.

At various points during the processing steps, the program automatically searches for and displays specific messages based on where you are in the transaction cycle. For example, while the system is sitting at the main receipting screen, waiting for you to start a customer receipt, the system will display the GREETING messages. Once you have started a receipt, it will display the LINE-ITEM messages, and when you are done it will display the CHANGE-DUE messages. During most other activities, such as end of day reporting and table maintenance, the system will display the REPORTING messages.

Because messages can be displayed on two lines, there are two records available each group, e.g., GREETING-1, and GREETING-2.

1. MESSAGE_KEY-1   MESSAGE_KEY-2
   
   This is the message group that identifies the classes of messages to be displayed. The valid group names are:
   
   LOGIN
   GREETING
   LINE-ITEM
   TOTAL-DUE
   REPORTING
   CLOSED
   
   
   The association between the specific set of messages to be displayed and the area of the program being run has been coded to provide a meaningful message to the customer as to the status of the register (e.g, during inquiry and reporting functions, the message group used will be REPORTING). It is not possible for the end user to modify the specific group of messages to be displayed at any point in the process, but the specific message text to be displayed is under your control at all times.
2. MESSAGE_TEXT-1  MESSAGE_TEXT-2
   
   The pole display unit has two lines of 20 characters each that are used to convey information to the customer. The text that appears on these lines is defined initially to provide helpful information to the customer such as the total due and change due during the receipting steps. In addition, you can tailor the messages to display other text, such as your location name, a holiday greeting, etc., as your needs dictate.
   
   Here's an example of how you might set up the messages for a typical installation:
   Note that some of the lines have plain text, and others have variables that you can use to cause the program to substitute data values into the displayed text. These include:

   @DATE@
   @TIME@
   @DESCRIPTION@
   @FEE-AMOUNT@
   @TOTAL-DUE@
   @CHANGE-DUE@

   When the messages are created and sent to the pole display, the program substitutes the appropriate data value for the special key words noted above. All other text is sent as it is found in the table.
   
   IMPORTANT NOTE: The pole display responds to the first three characters of the message text in order to determine which line to display the text on, and for two other special purposes (time and scrolling). These rules are very simple:

   !#1 - displays up to 20 characters on line #1.
   !#2 -- displays up to 20 characters on line #2.
   !#4 -- scrolls up to 45 characters on line #1. Line #2 cannot be scrolled.
   !#5 -- displays the current time on line #2.
   

   
   
   If this option is used, only the time can be displayed on the 2nd line, e.g., the setting for line #2 must be: !#5@TIME@
   
   The pole display will show the clock and automatically update the time display without the computer having to resend the updated time repeatedly.

The RASWIN program has special logic to prevent use of other control code rules that could cause the pole display to operate incorrectly.

Other settings

In addition to the specific pole messages to be displayed, there are two MISCPARMS that must be set up for each workstation which will have a pole display unit attached to it. These tell the system how the display is connected, and whether it is active or not. These can be found in the HARDWARE options settings table.

The program will initially create the entries automatically using the default values described below. Note that the ACTIVE setting default is N, so you will need to change it to Y to cause the pole messages to display.

Here's an example of the settings for register #2:


Note that the key values are preceded by the register number , in this example, 002. This means that these settings apply only to register #2.

The xxx-pole-display-ACTIVE setting tells the program it should attempt to send messages to the pole display. If set to N the program will not attempt to send any messages at all. By default, the setting is N, so you will need to change this to Y to activate the pole display if you have one connected.

The xxx-pole-display-SETTINGS value controls the specific configuration of the serial port, including the COM port #, speed, parity, data bits, and stop bits. The normal setting is COM1:9600,N,8,1 and this will be the configuration of the pole display out of the box. If your pole display requires alternate settings, such as a different COM port or bit rate, you will need to adjust the xxx-pole-display-SETTINGS value to match your hardware configuration.