I missed a great thread. Here's my 2c on the POS issues that have been brought up.
1) Touchscreen: This is handled by the OS and is basically translated into mouse clicks. I haven't yet seen a pos web application that would work well with a touchscreen, because touchscreens aren't exact like a mouse. Large buttons are pretty much a requirement. I would also be *very* hesitant to do anything that would give anything (the browser) control over button location, as changes in layout or presentation will directly affect waiter speed with the POS. Go watch a waiter at a busy bar. Those guys fly through the menus, because they remember where all the buttons are. 2) Handling group/customer orders, aka split checks. The best way I have seen this handled in a POS system is the table is initially grouped together. At any point, the check can be split, which pops a new screen where the existing order items can be distributed to new orders. This ensures that order items aren't lost during the splitting and allows for quick creation of the new orders. 3) To edit orders. Orders are editable in the current POS system. I would look at the Load/Save a Sale functionality put in by JLR recently. IMHO, it's not perfect, but it's 80% there, there just needs to be some tweaking of the business rules. This functionality is closely related to the ability to associate orders to tables. 4) To visualize tables, seats, to do table reservations. Visualizing tables, IMHO would be pretty easy. You would need to a) create a representation of the restaurant and tables in XUI, and b) have a way of associating orders to tables. The rest of the functionality could be pretty much cut and pasted from the Load/Save a Sale feature. I haven't given much thought to table reservations, so I'll defer on that one for now. 5) To enter the registered customers for order payments. Is having "registered customers" part of a loyalty program? Is this essentially a patron "running a tab"? I'm not sure of the use case in this scenario. 6) To do Returns. Returns? Returns don't exist as "returns" in a restaurant context AFAIK. Is this something sent back to the kitchen to be fixed? Is this a monetary credit because of a problem? If it's a monetary discount to the order, this exists today in POS. 7) The products should come dynamically from categories and catalogs, like in order manager (especially as ecommerce). I agree with this completely, and is how I'm handling item configuration. Adding this functionality could be done with a medium amount of effort. Chris Lombardi
