User documentation

User documentation

This page aims to help you get started with Dionysus.

Login window

Access to the software is "password-protected". Consequently, the first window asks you to provide a password (and a login for versions >= 1.x).
For versions 0.1 and 0.1.5, there is only a single password which is stored in clear in the file passe.txt.
For higher versions, a login will also be required. This allows to differentiate transactions performed by each registered vendor in the shop, useful for example for student pubs which are run by different teams on different days. Once logged in, logging out is found under File > Change vendor.
Login data is stored in the file called logins.txt, with one line for each vendor using the following pattern login:screen_name:password. All characters are allowed for each field, except of course the separator : . Suggestions to encrypt the password properly with the Java standard library are warmly welcome.

Overview

The interface of Dionysus is split between 4 panels:

• Cash desk: this is the view you will use most of the time. It allows the registration of purchases made at your shop, as well as the edition of tickets.
• Users: management of customer accounts, which can be created, edited, credited or deleted
• Articles: management of the articles and associated stocks; change prices, deactivate unused items
• Transactions: the history of all operations performed with the software. Note that the only way to create new transactions is by registering purchases through the Cash desk view.

Releases higher than 0.1.5 will see the additional panel:

• Categories: helps you sort articles in categories, to save screen real estate in the Cash desk view and make discounts easier to manage and implement.

For all views, the big text area at the bottom of the screen is meant to display any stock alerts when stock management is used. It will become smaller in versions >= 1.x.

Cash desk view

This is meant to be the main view of the software.
For versions < 1.x:

• the user frame which allows to choose the current user (or default when the customer is unregistered) is at the top left;
• the list of all articles (more precisely, the ones which are marked as 'active') is at the bottom left. If the number of articles becomes too large, the buttons are likely to become too small to be usable: future versions will display only categories here, each category containing several articles. Each button has a tooltip, which gives the code, name and prices of the article.
• a numeric pad is provided to type numbers (quantities, article codes). Obviously, it is also possible to use the keyboard; this is mainly intended for touchscreen-based setups.
• on the right, you can find from top to bottom the current state of the ticket, the current total, and the choice of payment methods. No specific hardware is supported here, because the pub did not have any at the time of writing. If you require hardware support, please find another program.
• finally at the top, there is a text box to type codes and quantities. Just above it, the software will provide you with some instructions and display the current article being added.

In order to start registering a sale, you must first select the user it will be applied to, or choose 'default' if the user is not registered in the list and does not want/need to create an account. Then you can add items to the ticket by choosing an article, either by clicking on the corresponding button or providing the article code. You will then be prompted to enter the quantity, and choose the correct price if this article has several prices registered. Always follow the instructions provided by the software; not doing so will result in unpredictable behavior, and you will have to restart the software.
At this point, you can choose to add other articles, or close the ticket by selecting the right payment method. There can only be one payment method for a given ticket. After payment is complete, the transactions for each article in the ticket will be stored in the database, inventory will be updated, and the whole ticket edition process can be started again.
There is no possibility to temporarily close a ticket while waiting for the payment.

Users and Articles view

Both views share the same properties: they list the contents of the corresponding databases. Entries can be filtered using the search box, or by clicking on the column headers. It is also possible to add, delete or modify entries with the provided buttons.

A user has a first name, a last name, a third field corresponding to his/her graduation year (for example), an account balance.
An article has a name, a code (for example the barcode, or any other significant integer). You can use the stock management features so that the software can keep track of the number of units sold, and (if requested) display a warning when the number of units for a given article becomes too low. It will also belong to 0, 1 or more categories. Finally, it can have up to 3 prices (hardcoded number). The original idea was to have a different price depending on the type of customer (member of the student association, non-member, visitor). If you need fewer prices, please start from the beginning (Price #0) and leave unused fields blank (no zeroes please!).

Transactions view

This view displays all transactions performed with the software. Unlike users or articles, transactions cannot be added or edited (this happens indirectly on the Cash desk view), but they can be deleted. You have the possibility to also revert the changes (user balance, number of articles in stock) if needed.