1)SDB SOLUTION #198: V8 Cash Drawers
Implemented into the 07/20/01 822Core update, a new setting had been implemented: “Serial port cash drawer model” at the cash drawer page in workstation preferences. There you can select the model of the cash drawer from the list of drawers, specified in an external file. This makes RPro8 flexible enough to understand new models without having to create new updates every time a new model is certified.
The external file that holds the serial port cash drawer configurations are CashDrawer.ini, and CashDrawerRTI.ini. These files must reside in RPRO folder. RPro will look for CashDrawer.ini first. This file may be edited by technicians so that they can override any default settings provided in the CashDrawerRTI.ini. Any device described in CashDrawer.ini supersedes settings in CashDrawerRTI.ini. These files are plain text files and look like this:
[Serial]
Generic=”0″,”Generic”,”NONE”
GenericCTS=”0″,”Generic w/open detect”,”-CTS”
ECD232ND=”0″,”ECD-232ND”,”-RI”
SSTI4=”0″,”ICD SSTI-4″,”+RI”
To the left of the “=” sign, there is an internal label (this is the label stored in workstation preferences). You are not allowed to have two identical internal labels in the same file.
To the right of “=” sign, is the device description. It is comma-delimited double-quotation-mark quoted string. First field is internal model number. Right now Rpro8 will understand “0” only (greater values may be used later if needed). The second field is the display name. Anything is allowed here except quotation marks (“). This value is used to display the device name in workstation preferences, and again, it must not be referenced twice in the same file. Third field indicates how the cash drawer reports its open/closed status. It indicates the com port signal name and polarity of the signal that each drawer sets to indicate that it is OPEN. Allowed values are: “NONE”, “-CTS”, “+CTS”, “-DCD”, “+DCD”, “-DSR”, “+DSR”, “-RI”, “+RI”. No other parameters are supported at this time. Com port parameters are hard coded to 9600 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop-bit.
Note – The CashDrawer.ini and CashDrawerRTI.ini file are NOT case-sensitive, therefore labels GENERIC and Generic, ECD232NT and ecd232nd will be treated as equal. Same rule applies for display labels.
If the parameters cannot be parsed from the configuration file because of incorrect syntax, RPro8 will assume that the serial port cash drawer does NOT report open/closed status to host. This is the safest assumption it can make in such situation.
If the .ini files are both missing, you won’t be able to set the device model in workstation preferences, and again, RPro8 will assume that cash drawer does NOT report its status to host.
The CashDrawer.ini is not distributed by RTI. It will be the responsibility of the RTI BP to provide the file. Its structure is identical to CashDrawerRTI.ini.
In order to use CASHIER drawers, you must follow these instructions:
a) Set the cash drawer types to com-port connected drawers. Note – At this moment we do not support parallel or OPOS dual cash drawers as cashier drawers.
b) In W/S Prefs, turn “use cashier drawer” switch “On”.
c) In SYS Prefs, go to the employees section and assign the drawer number to each clerk. Allowed numbers are 1-255. Zero (0) is treated as drawer number 1 (default drawer). Recommended values are 1 and 2.
d) Configure the drawers to 9600 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop-bit. Opening character for each drawer should have numerical code equal to drawer number assigned for employees, so if you put 1 as drawer number then opening character will be Ctrl-A (#1), if you put 2 – it will be Ctrl-B (#2), and so on. NULL (#0) is not allowed.
