FooodPosWiki

Menu Designer: categories and buttons

Lay out a designed menu by hand in the Menu Designer, adding a category tab, setting its grid, tab colour and tab picture, placing buttons for dishes, other categories or nothing, with every box of Add button explained, then saving or deleting a category.

Who uses it:OwnerManagerWhere:Back officeWindows POSAndroid POS
On this page

On a Designed menu, each category is a tab on the POS, and each category is a grid of cells, 5 by 5 unless you choose otherwise. You put a button in a cell: a dish, a button that opens another category, or an empty space. A button can be bigger than one cell.

A menu's categories are its tabs, laid out as you like. They are not your item categories (Menu, Categories), although a category can fill itself from an item category; see Menu Designer: fill a category automatically.

Everything you change in a category waits until you press Save category. Then the POS takes it at its next contact with the cloud.

Before you start

  • The menu must be Designed. An Auto menu has no category of its own to lay out; see Menu Designer: Designed or Auto.
  • You need the right to edit menus.
  • Add the dishes on Items first: a button can only hold a dish that exists.

Add a category

  1. Open Menu, Menu Designer, and choose the menu in the menu list.
  2. Click + Category. The window New category opens.
  3. Type a Code, such as DRINKS, and a Name, such as Drinks. The name is the tab's words on the POS.
  4. Set Rows and Columns, and the Tab colour.
  5. Click Save. The new tab appears, and its grid opens, empty.

To change a category later, open its tab and click Category settings: the same window, titled Category settings.

Category settings: the tab's name, its grid, its colour and picture, and whether it fills itself.
  1. Code: a short code for the category. No two categories of one menu may share one.
  2. Name: the words on the tab.
  3. Rows and Columns: the size of the grid, 1 to 20 each. A new category starts at 5 by 5. More cells means smaller buttons on the POS.
  4. Tab colour: the tab's colour on the POS. Across the top, and in the text-only list, each tab is a raised key in its colour and the chosen one turns white. Down the left, a tab is white until it is chosen, then turns this colour.
  5. Display order: the tab's place, lowest first. Dragging the tabs sets it too; see Menu Designer: drag buttons and tabs.
  6. Tab picture: a picture that covers the whole tab on the POS, with the name in front of it. A new category must be saved first; until then the box asks you to save it and open Category settings again. Click Choose a picture…, then Change the picture or Remove. A picture is saved the moment it is chosen, without the window's Save. The text-only tab list down the left shows no pictures.
  7. Fill automatically: lets the category show an item category's dishes by itself in every cell without a button. See Menu Designer: fill a category automatically.
  8. The item category: Off: only the buttons placed by hand, or the item category it fills from.
  9. Show dish pictures: dish buttons show the picture uploaded on Items above their name. A dish without one shows its name.
  10. Save: saves the category's settings, together with its buttons as they stand on screen.

Put a button in a category

  1. Click an empty cell, marked +. The window Add button opens, already set to that cell.
  2. In Button does, choose what it is: Item, Go to category, Function or Blank.
  3. For an Item, choose the dish in Item. For Go to category, choose the category.
  4. Change the other boxes if you wish (below).
  5. Click Apply. The button is in the grid, and the line under the grid says unsaved changes.
  6. Place the other buttons the same way, then click Save category. The big green SAVED says how many buttons the category now holds.

To change a button, click it: the window Edit button opens, with Remove at its bottom left.

Edit button: what the button does, its words, its place and size, its look.
  1. Button does: Item (a dish), Go to category (opens another category of this menu), Function or Blank (an empty block, to space the grid out). Changing it clears the choice below.
  2. Item: the dish, listed by code, name and price (Choose an item… until one is chosen). For Go to category this box is Go to category; for Function, Function (Choose…).
  3. Label: the button's words. Empty, it shows the dish's name, which the grey words in the box show.
  4. Second line: the button's second-language words. Empty, a dish button shows the dish's own second-language name. How the two show is the menu's Names on the POS (see Menu settings).
  5. Row and Column: where the button's top-left corner sits, counted from 1. Dragging it does the same; see Menu Designer: drag buttons and tabs.
  6. Row span and Column span: how many cells the button covers down and across. A Column span of 2 makes a wide button.
  7. Background: the button's colour. It starts as the dish's own colour, from Items.
  8. Text colour: the colour of its words.
  9. Font size: how big its words are on the POS, 8 to 48. It starts at 14.
  10. Quantity per tap: a number kept with the button. Today both POS apps add one of the dish per tap.
  11. Show price on the button: shows the dish's price under its name. A dish with an open price shows none.
  12. Visible: untick it to keep the button but leave it off the POS. It is drawn faded here, and in a category that fills itself its cells are free again: the line POS shows: on it names the dish the POS puts there instead.
  13. Remove: takes the button out of the category (on Edit button only).
  14. Apply: puts the button in the grid on screen. Nothing is saved until Save category.

Buttons that are not dishes

  • A Go to category button opens that category on the POS, as if its tab were tapped. It shows GO TO CATEGORY here, and is blue on the POS unless you give it a colour.
  • A Function button holds one of the codes in its list: DISCOUNT, VOID, HOLD, SEND, PAY, SPLIT, MERGE, TRANSFER, REPRINT, OPENDRAWER, NOTE, GUESTCOUNT, PRICELEVEL or SEAT. The POS draws it grey with its code, but today neither POS app does anything when it is tapped. Use the POS's own buttons for those jobs.
  • A Blank button is an empty block that takes up its cells, to space the grid out.

Save a category

Save category saves the category on screen: its buttons, its settings and any tab order you dragged. The button reads:

  • Save category when the category has changes, Save tab order when only the tabs were dragged, Saving… while it saves, and Saved, grey, when there is nothing to save.
  • The line under the grid says unsaved changes, or tab order not saved.

Choosing another tab or another menu with changes not saved asks Discard unsaved changes? first.

Delete a category

  1. Open the category's tab.
  2. Click Delete category, beside the tabs.
  3. The back office asks: Delete category "Drinks" and its 12 button(s)? Click OK.
  4. The message says Category deleted.

Buttons in other categories that went to the deleted one become Blank buttons. Deleting a menu's category never touches your item categories.

A button beyond the edge

When a grid is made smaller, a button saved further out stays where it was. The Menu Designer marks the last cell it reaches in amber: Teh Tarik: beyond the edge, drawn here on the POS. The POS pulls it onto the last row or column. Remove it, drag it into the grid, or make the grid bigger.

What if…