How to ..Kiosk Application

[Sarah Reichelt]

First off - there is basically very little difference between a kiosk 
app and any other. The main thing to keep in mind is that the buttons 
and list fields must be large enough to be operated with a finger 
instead of the more precise mouse. After that, you need to make sure 
the app takes up the full screen, doesn't show any menus and always 
stays at the front.

The second issue deals with your actual program design. I am guessing 
we are talking about a networked system that transfers the orders 
automatically to the kitchen and to a billing system. You can use an 
SQL database for sure, but given the relatively low amount of data 
contained in a restaurant menu, I would think you could just use a 
stack as your data storage. The structure of the data needs to be 
considered before you do much about the interface.

Once you have your data structure, then you need to write several 
different applications to use it: the kiosk module for customers to 
place orders, the editing module for the owner to change the menu and 
presumably some sort of display module for the kitchen staff as well as 
a billing module for when they actually need to pay for their meal. 
Each of these will need to connect to the menu data and each order will 
need to be stored, at least until it has been filled & paid for.

This sounds like quite a complex exercise, but nothing in it is beyond 
the scope of Revolution, so work out what data you need and how to 
store it, then take one module at a time and make it work. After that 
start bringing them together and debugging the communications.

Cheers,
Sarah


On 10 May 2004, at 5:05 am, hershrev wrote:

> Hello every body ,
> I'd need some elaboration on how to build a Kiosk solution. (for a 
> touch screen. There was a discussion perviously on this topic but just 
> the start.)
> The solution I'm targeting for is a take out (restaurant). A bit of 
> detail , the owner must be able to add categories and  menu items or 
> delete.
> The screen should have 3 columns, 1, categories  i.e. main dish, side 
> dish , beverages, deserts and so on.
> The 2nd column should display all detail menus of the selected 
> category of column 1, meaning , while category main dish is selected 
> it should display chicken, beef, duck and so on in column 2 and while 
> touching lets say the side dish it should display  all side dishes. In 
> column 3 in a list field it should display the item and  the price of 
> the selected item line by line as a list.
> Now the question how do I build the screen to change the view as above 
> create new items etc.? How do structure the layouts the buttons
> how do I build them and how do I save them and how do I attach the SQL 
> to them in a way it should  be possible for a owner to do it without 
> help?
> Thanks very much , every bit info helps.
> hershrev