Basics of Using the Touchscreen Designer

Basics

This guide will show you how to download the Touch Designer and log in.  It will also offer the basics on how to navigate and make basic changes to your till layouts, as well as assigning the layout to relevant till groups and activate them. The areas we will briefly go into are: Layers, using keys to take you to different layers and adding products to buttons so that when the button is touched in the till, the product is added to the sale.

IMPORTANT

The touch designer program responds to certain windows settings like screen resolution and the windows 10 feature which is for making icons and apps bigger for people with poor eyesight. However, for the program to work correctly we may need to adjust these settings.

Downloading

Navigate to the following link and click "Install": http://clickonce02.nedfox.net/NedFox.RetailVistaPos.TouchDesigner/publish.htm
Please run and install the program (Some antivirus programs will not trust this file. If a box pops up, continue the installation if you know how to or call/email to our support).

Open the Touch Designer program.

To edit your current touch screen menu layout click on File -> Load Layout from RetailVista

A screen will appear like this example below; 

Basics of using the Touchscreen Designer

If the Frontoffice URL is different to the above image, please type in exactly as shown. You will only need to add this URL again if the program is installed to another computer.

Then input your RetailVista Username, Password, Company No. (Company number is shown when you go to log into your RetailVista back office). If you are a single store, then your store will be "1".

You will then need to pick your latest instance of the touch screen layout that you wish to edit. Simply double-click the chosen touch screen design.

You should now see the main screen you are used to seeing on the till, see the example below;

Of note:

Notice the left side menu. The only button types we will look at in this guide are "Activate Layer" and "Add Article". To add one of these features, simply drag from the left menu into the desired place on the layout. Adjust box size and position, and fill in the relevant properties.

The home "Layer" is always number 0.

Products and Articles are the same thing. (there is an ongoing task of uniformly translating the text to English with terminology English speakers are familiar with)

There are 39 layers for you to make touch keys.

As is visible in the image above, buttons can be made in all sizes; you can fit many buttons in one layer.

Some areas are best left for NedFox support to help you with. For changes to Payment types etc please email support@nedfox.nl. 

Navigating Layers

The till is comprised of layers. You can easily imagine touching an "Outdoor Plants" button, and the till buttons change to ones relevant to Outdoor Plants. This is simply switching between the layers. To switch between layers in the Touch designer simply click "View" and choose the layer you wish to view

Basics

The areas we will briefly go into will be; Layers, using keys to take you to different layers and adding products to buttons so that when the button is touched in the till, the product is added to the sale.

When a button is clicked, its properties appear in the box on the right side of the screen. Here, Outdoor plants have been chosen. 

Very basic example of Outdoor plants leading to a new layer:

See below for the properties of ActivateLayer buttons and ActivateArticle buttons

ActivateLayer

Relevant Button Properties:

Canvas - This is the layout you are in. The only other relevant canvas would be "Payment" for example. (But we are not going near the payments menu in this guide)
Colour - Select from a few colour options.
Font - Stick with as shown.
Gottolayer - The relevant menu layer that, if this button is pressed, the till will navigate to.
Image FIle, Image Position - See separate guide on "Adding Images to the touchscreen designer"
Text - Wording used on this button - For text to appear on a second or third line, use this symbol located on your keyboard: " | " (just next to the left shift key on your keyboard). Or, as shown in these images, you can use "\r\n". (which means R= Return and N = New line)

ActivateArticle 

These are properties involved with creating a button that adds a specific product to the till.

Relevant Button Properties:

Article Number - This is the product number of the product you wish this button to add to a sale.
Canvas - This is the layout you are in. The only other relevant canvas would be "Payment" for example. (But we are not going near the payments menu in this guide)
Colour - Select from a few colour options.
Font - Stick with as shown.
Image FIle, Image Position - See separate guide on "Adding Images to the touchscreen designer"
Text - Wording used on this button - For text to appear on a second or third line, use this symbol located on your keyboard: " | " (just next to the left shift key on your keyboard). Or, as shown in these images, you can use "\r\n". (which means R= Return and N = New line) 

Saving Changes

When you make a new layout or make changes to an existing layout, you must save this layout and then apply it. Even if you save it under the same name you still need to assign the latest version of that layout in RetailVista.

To save the new/edited layout - Click File -> Save Layout to RetailVista

Then you need to open RetailVista backoffice and apply the new layout to your tills.

In RetailVista click on Administration -> Point of Sale -> Till Groups. Here you should see one or two till groups (one for main shop, another for cafe/restaurant if applicable).

Double click required till group. Click on the edit icon (bottom left). Wait for it to load - Can be a few seconds. In the POS layout field, use the drop down box to select your latest layout and save.

Synchronize and restart your tills and the new layout will have applied.

How to use practically:

1. Pick an action on the left side menu (Activate layer/Article)
2. Drag the action to the layer you wish it to live on - Amend size, position
3. If it's a layer, assign the layer number that the button will take us to, colour, text
4. If it's an article, assign product number, colour, text
5. Save changes - File - Save Layout to RetailVista
6. Assign new layout to relevant Till Groups
7. Sync and restart tills