Openbravo POS 2.20 released

A new version of Openbravo POS has just been released and it is available for download in the project's page. Openbravo POS is quickly improving and now that two new full time developers have joined the Openbravo POS team we expect to improve even faster.

The improvements included in Openbravo POS 2.20 are summarized here. To read in detail the changes read the Openbravo POS 2.20 Release Notes.

• Improved tax system. The taxes functionality of Openbravo POS have been changed to make it equal to the taxes system of Openbravo ERP. New windows has been created and the taxes reports have been modified. With this new system long demanded features like the possibility to have two different taxes by receipt line and support of Canadian, German, and other countries taxes system can be implemented now with Openbravo POS.
• Customer module improvements. More fields has been added to the customers table: contact fields and localization fields. All these fields are also available when printing receipts allowing Openbravo POS to print invoices.
• Update all external libraries to latest version. Third party libraries like Jasper Reports, Barcode4J, HSQLDB, JavaPOS, Substance and SwingX, has been updated to the latest stable releases. This guaranties that the functionality of Openbravo POS that relies on third party libraries contains the latest improvements and bugs fixed up to the latest releases.
  
• New installer packages. To make it easier to install and deploy Openbravo POS. There are new installer packages for major OS: Windows, Ubuntu and Suse.
• A large list of enhancements like the ability of merging receipts in restaurant mode. Fine grained security editing receipts. Sequence number for closed cash reports. Animations for customer displays. New customers diary report. New button to hide / show the menu instead the split bar to improve usability. Improved events and scripting capabilities in the sales panel. And much more...
• 19 bugs fixed.

If you have any question regarding Openbravo POS, please do not hesitate to use Openbravo POS forums were our community of users and developers will try to assist you.

Language packages for Openbravo POS 2.10 released

Today has been released ten new language packages for Openbravo POS 2.10. These new languages packages has been developed by committed community members and I want to say thank you to all of them:

• Sebastian Muszytowski for the German translation.
• Anton Delaruelle and Paul Heffels for the Dutch translation.
• Andrej Svininykh for the Russian translation.
• Sergio Carbonete for the Brazilian Portuguese translation.
• Manuel Rubio for the Galician translation.
• Antonio Cichello for the Italian translation.
• Akarawuth Tamrareang for the Thai translation.
• Henri Azar for the French (France) translation.
• Mohammad Jaffar Fahmi for the Arabic translation.
• Jaroslaw Wozniak (Openbravo) for the Polish translation.
  

The new language packages are available for download in the Openbravo POS project download page and the Localization wiki guide explains how to install them.

Openbravo POS Localization

One of the most important Openbravo POS user's demand is to localize Openbravo POS to different countries and cultures worldwide. One part of the localization is the translation of Openbravo POS.

Openbravo POS relies on the Java platform internationalization features for providing the translation of literals and locale parameters like the currency used and date and numbering formatting patterns.

With this technology, to add support for another language to Openbravo POS, is very easy. The new language files are just a set of plain text files that follows the properties syntax, and to install the new language files in Openbravo POS you only need to copy these files in to the Openbravo POS program folder. You do not need neither to compile the source code nor execute a complex process.

Openbravo is focusing on increasing the number of languages supported by Openbravo POS by developing tools and supporting all people that want to collaborate localizing Openbravo POS into new languages.

As a first step we have created a Subversion repository to hold all the language files in development for Openbravo POS, to support all the collaborators to translate the Openbravo POS literals and where everybody can see the progress of the development.

We are going to use this repository to package the language files for Openbravo POS and make them available for download in the Openbravo POS Sourceforge project page.

You can browse this repository going to https://dev.openbravo.com/websvn/localization-pos/translations/ or you can checkout a working copy executing svn co https://dev.openbravo.com/svn/localization-pos/translations/ translations. In the Openbravo POS Localization wiki document you can read about how to localize Openbravo POS, the status of the localization files , the languages that are being developed, the people involved, and how you can collaborate to translate Openbravo POS.

Right now we are trying to align the roadmap of Openbravo POS with the development of the localizations to assure that every future release of Openbravo POS we release also an up-to-date language package for as much languages as possible.

The first milestone we want to achieve is to release the language packages for the current version Openbravo POS 2.10 MP2 on July, 31th. We expect our collaborators and community do to their best to be able to release by that date a collection of language packages that the whole Openbravo POS community around the world enjoy.

Openbravo POS 2.20 Roadmap published

We have just published our development plans for Openbravo POS 2.20. It follows the spirit of the previous releases: frequent releases, improvements in functionality, localization and stability of the application to make Openbravo POS a top Point of Sale solution in the global market, growing in the number of supported countries and translations in every release. Openbravo POS 2.2 follows the principles of all the versions of Openbravo POS: simplicity, easy to use, visually attractive, robust and scalable.

We request the collaboration of the community to help us to define and identify the most important features that need to be included in the product and things that need to be fixed. Your collaboration is important because you are the best people that are able to identify what is missing in Openbravo POS for each country and for different market segments. You are invited to the Open Discussion forum of Openbravo POS to discuss what do you want to have in the next releases of Openbravo POS.

The objectives of this roadmap is to continue to add value to partners and users of Openbravo POS to help them to develop a business around Openbravo POS, attract interest of current partners and potential partners of Openbravo. In Openbravo 2.10 we did a lot of efforts in this area with the new reports model and the improvements in scripting support and we want to continue in this area.

We have already published a draft of the roadmap for the release 2.20 in the wiki of Openbravo POS with the features what we think are the most important for the next released of Openbravo based on the time schedule and the resources that we have. This roadmap is not closed and we were are willing to align it with the needs and priorities of the Openbravo community.

Openbravo POS is and open source product and developed in a collaborative maner. During the last three months, we have started successful collaborations with individuals and companies that are working on extending the Openbravo POS functionality. For Openbravo POS 2.2, we plan to add in the core product new functionaries developed by third parties. You can guarantee that a particular feature is developed sooner rather than later by leading the development. We are willing to coordinate with people that is planing to invest on Openbravo POS product development to make sure that the results are going to be shared by all the community.

Openbravo POS 2.10 released

Openbravo has just announced the release the latest version of Openbravo POS. This has been a hard work that continues with the plan of Openbravo to make frequent releases. As usual you can download the binaries and sources of Openbravo POS from the Sourceforge project files page.

There is a large list of new features and improvements. This is a summary of the changes included in the version 2.10:

• New customers module. With this module Openbravo POS users will be able to assign customers to receipts using the customer's loyalty card, create invoices, track the customer account, make customers payments, execute customers reports, and more.

• New localization features. To achieve the support of the taxes laws of different countries and cultures Openbravo POS now includes a new event system that allows to execute developer scripting code and adapt the receipts generation to the rules required. In this point there also has been included a new dialog that allows to split a receipt between two or more customers and a useful cash change calculator based on the country coins and banknotes. More information: Openbravo POS Scripting Tutorial.

• New reports structure. With the new reports structure developers of Openbravo POS will be able to add and modify easily new reports and charts without having deal with the source code. Reports are now defined using plain text files that developers can edit using his preferred text editor or a graphical designer. To install newly created reports is as simple as copy the report definition files to the reports folder and create a menu option for the report. All reports and charts of Openbravo POS has been ported to the new structure and new reports has been created. More information: Openbravo POS Reports and Charts Tutorial.

• Improved integration with Openbravo ERP. There has been included in the previous integration more data like customers synchronization and warehouse information synchronization. More information: Openbravo POS Integration.

• Sample database. A sample restaurant database has been created for evaluation purposes with a list of products, images, users, and operational data. Available only from the SVN repository.

• Included support for the IBM SurePOS 500 Series.

• Many other other minor features and bugs fixes. For example:
  • Users can log on using his employee card with his / her token stored in the magnetic band or printer in the bar code.
  • Customer information can be assigned to the current receipt reading his / her loyalty card.
  • Split a receipt payment between customers.
  • The size of the selector and product buttons is configurable by the administrator.

We feel proud of this release but there is a long road ahead. The community around Openbravo POS is growing every day, is willing to collaborate and is very active proposing new functionalities and customizations for different countries, industries, ... Now we are working on the project plan for the next release 2.20. With the help of the community we trust that Openbravo POS will succeed.

Openbravo POS 2.10 Acceptance Test

Following our plan to make frequent releases, Openbravo is going to launch Openbravo POS 2.10 in few days. In this release we put a lot of effort in creating new and exciting functionalities for users and developers, and in localization to help to adapt Openbravo POS to more countries and cultures. If you are interested in participating in this acceptance test, please notify us by sending an email to collaborate to openbravo dot com.

The goal of this acceptance test is:

1. Test regression. We want to be sure that we did not break things that worked in older releases.
2. The new functionalities included in this release are stable and complete. We want to focus on the new customer module, new reports engine, integration with Openbravo ERP, and the new localization functionalities, like events in the sales panel and split receipt.
3. The installation and upgrade database processes work perfectly in all the databases supported: HSQLDB, MySQL, PostgreSQL and Oracle.
4. Starts properly in Windows XP, Vista and major distributions of Linux.
5. There are not major bugs.

The process is going to be very similar to what we do for the the last release of Openbravo POS and to what we do for Openbravo ERP. Specifically, here is what we are asking:

1. We will give volunteers early access to the installer through a private FTP server. You will essentially receive the release at the same time as our QA team.
2. We will give you access to our test plans so that you can see what to test (but you can test any flow you like as well).
3. We will ask you to give us frequent updates on your progress.
4. If you have problems or doubts during the process, we will respond to your messages using the discussion forums
5. We will publish a daily status update on the forums.

Acceptance testing should start on the middle of this week, and ideally should last 3 or 4 days.

We look forward to your continued support to our project and your participation in this important test.

Openbravo POS 2.10 update

The release of the new version of Openbravo POS becomes closer every day. Progress in the development is going well and we expect to release on time. The schedule for the version 2.10 of Openbravo POS is:

• Code freeze: May 19th
  
• Installer ready and beginning of Acceptance Testing: May 20th
• Acceptance Testing complete and public availability: May 23th

There are many features already implemented and available in the subversion repository but also there are still a lot of work to do. You can follow the development in the trunk branch of the subversion repository for Openbravo POS https://sourceforge.net/svn/?group_id=127939 and in the release status wiki document http://wiki.openbravo.com/wiki/Openbravo_POS_R2.10_Release_status

New reports and charts model for Openbravo POS

To create new reports or to modify existing ones has been a painful task for Openbravo POS developers. Although the engine used is JasperReports and there are great tools to create new reports like iReport. To include a new report in Openbravo POS you needed to create a new java file to define the title, SQL sentence, parameters, and all the report parameters, to modify the menus, to compile the application and pray...

The next release of Openbravo POS, the version 2.10, includes a new model to develop reports and charts, and as a proof of concept all the reports bundled with Openbravo POS has been ported to the new model. With the new model you do not need neither to touch any single line of source code nor to compile the application. With this new model you will decrease the time and money you need to implement Openbravo POS and to adapt it to your business needs and legal requirements.

New reports and charts can be included just adding plain text files to the Openbravo POS folder /reports. A report consist in three files: The configuration file, the report file and the translations file. The configuration file is the most important one, there you define the title, the SQL sentence to get the report data, parameters, fields, what is the report file and what is the translations file. The report file is the JasperReports file and you can edit this file with iReport. And the translations file is used to define literals that need to be translated.

The bundled Openbravo POS reports are great to have a look if you want to include your own reports in the application, there you will find examples of all the possibilities to create new reports for Openbravo POS.

Openbravo POS 2.00 released

Last week Openbravo released the first version of Openbravo POS under its new name. You can read all the details of the new version in the press release published.

We are very happy with this release and we achieved all the objectives expected. We included nice features like having the localization files in an external folder to allow to add new localizations as a plug-in without having to recompile, new Substance look and feel themes, etc. We also fixed most of the bugs reported in the Sourceforge project pages. You can read the full release notes in the Openbravo wiki. We are also very grateful for the response of the community to this new release. Today Openbravo POS is one of the top 25th projects in Sourceforge and we expect to stay there for a long time. This is something that gives us a lot of energy to continue working hard.

Now we are working in the roadmap for the next release. This roadmap will be published in the wiki pages as soon as it is finished. In the next release we plan to continue with the same objectives and focus in the localization issues of Openbravo POS, to complement Openbravo ERP and to include new features and stability to Openbravo POS. In one sentence, to give to our partners and our community a competitive product in the Point of Sale software arena and, in association with Openbravo ERP, the best open source software suite for SME.

Call for participation in Openbravo POS 2.00 acceptance testing

Openbravo is going to launch Openbravo POS 2.00 in few days. This is the first version of Openbravo POS under its new name and we are asking the community to help us validate its quality before release.

If you are willing and able this opportunity is for you! Notify us of your interest by sending an email to collaborate at openbravo dot com.

The process is going to be very similar to what we do for Openbravo ERP and the process we will follow is the same we used for Openbravo ERP R2.35. Specifically, here is what we are asking:

1. We will give you early access to the installer through a private FTP server. You will essentially receive the release at the same time as our QA team.
2. We will give you access to our QA portal, where you can see our test cases for the acceptance test. Please note this will be the first acceptance test for Openbravo POS.
   
3. We will assign you a set of test cases and we expect that you will install the application on your machine, run the test cases and report the outcome in the QA portal
   
4. We will not assign you any bug to verify as we will execute that task internally. Obviously you are free to verify specific bugs that you care about.
5. If you have any questions or doubts during the process, please contact at pablo dot sarobe at openbravo dot com (QA Team).
   

Acceptance testing should start on February, 18th and ideally should last 3 or 4 days.

Please remember that this is going to be an Acceptance Testing, not a full blown QA cycle. The purpose of Acceptance Testing is to validate that an already QA'ed release is good to go and that the last build didn't introduce any major regression (essentially: test the product as it is going to be shipped before your users do to avoid to be embarrassed later).

Because of that, we will stop the release only if one of the test cases fails with a significant bug. Nonetheless, we do expect you to log all issues you find, including small bugs, as we will fix those in future releases.

Openbravo POS 2.00 is the starting point of a product that we are investing a lot of effort to offer this great portfolio of open source applications for SME. There are important features included and a large list of bugs fixed. We look forward to your participation!

Openbravo POS product launched!

Last week, Openbravo POS has been officially launched as a new member of the Openbravo products family. It has its own product page at http://www.openbravo.com/product/pos/ and the name migration from Librepos is complete. That comes with a new project page in Sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/openbravopos/ and a redirection from the older project pages. I expect that the old members of the Librepos community will not get lost and start working in the new project pages as soon as possible.

Also, I want to remind to the Openbravo community that we have great plans for Openbravo POS and we are working to execute them. The first step is to release the first version under its new name in mid February. Check the road map at http://wiki.openbravo.com/wiki/index.php/Openbravo_POS_roadmap. And a training course will be held in Barcelona in april, in English and Spanish.