Layouts and visual components

Layouts define what is shown after a user has signed on to Centara. Layouts are container of things that are made visible on the POS. Layouts can contain buttons, programmable user interface component

There are three main layouts that Centara system initiates on its own. Other layouts can then be added on top of those layouts to further design the user interface.

Main layouts

Centara supports a very flexible POS layout system but there are three key layouts that define a whole screen designs that Centara will initiate during different circumstances.

• Default screen

  • The "home" screen, appears after the user has signed on and again at the beginning of each transaction.

• Journal menu screen

  • Activated when a user selects an item line in the journal grid.

  • Gives the possibility to customize a whole screen for buttons that act solely upon the selected product.

• Quick menu screen

  • Activated when a user clicks on the Centara logo located at the bottom right corner of the POS

  • Used for various non-sale related operations.

The layout configuration is accessible through Setup -> POS Layouts. In order to be able to assign those three layouts they first need to be created. The quickest way to get started is to click the Create initial layouts button, which is visible with a new database or when no layouts have been defined, to generate a set of default layouts.

At this stage, data needs to be published for it to be usable in further configuration. Since this is early in the configuration process, there might me some validation errors in the publish area, so select only to publish those newly created layouts, and then click Publish.

Other layouts

The Centara POS user interface is heavily layout oriented. Once the main layouts have been created, other layouts, called sub-layouts, can be created to be added on top of them. Those layouts can then contain buttons that run operations or other visible components. Buttons can then be programmed to show layouts that either occupy the whole screen or just replace the parent layout from where the button is being clicked.

Sub-layout types

Sub-layouts can be added to layouts in two different ways.

1. By adding a Menu component to a layout and specifying one of four roles to it. Other layouts can then be assigned to each of the four roles. The benefit of this property is to be able to add this property in many different location with the same role which will always show the same layout that is specified in one place for that role. The roles are:

   1. Action: For a layout containing tender operation buttons.

   2. Journal: For a layout containing operation buttons that act on selected sale lines.

   3. Quick: For a layout containing non-sales related operation buttons.

   4. Sales: For the main product layout.

2. By adding a Sublayout component to a layout and specifically points to a single layout. In this case the layout assignment is attached on a property of each added component.