Openbravo POS 2.30 beta released

Finally Openbravo POS 2.30 beta has been released. It has been a long way to achieve this moment but it is worth the effort. You can download it from Sourceforge.net, and read the release notes in our wiki.

There are a lot of new functionalities and bugs fixed I want to summarize here:

• PDA Restaurant Module: This feature will allow users to take orders, browse products and manage tables using a mobile device. In this version Opera Mobile and iPod touch / iPhone are supported, but with simple modifications any mobile device with web browsing capabilities and wifi connectivity will work. This feature is oriented for restaurants and other hospitality business.
• Product Attributes: This feature has been created using the same concepts for product attributes in Openbravo ERP. With this new feature products can have attributes like size, color, serial number, etc. All these attributes are registered in all the operations like sales and inventory movements. New master data panels, reports and dialogs have been added to Openbravo POS to manage properly product attributes. This feature will be very useful for lots of sectors.
• ERP - POS Improvement of Synchronization: The whole architecture for synchronization between Openbravo ERP and Openbravo POS has changed and more data is synchronized. In the ERP side a new module has been added to provide REST web services for the integration. The tool selected to run synchronization jobs is Pentaho data integration. Pentaho data integration is an open source, powerful, metadata-driven ETL, with a graphical interface to design synchronization jobs. With this new architecture the synchronization logic is decoupled from the data, it will be easier to schedule synchronization jobs, design and create new synchronization jobs between Openbravo ERP and Openbravo POS and other applications.
• Payment Gateways: The payment gateways functionality has been improved and extended. Now we support natively the following payment gateways: PayPoint / SecPay, Authorize.net, Cyberauthorize, First Data / LinkPoint / YourPay and PaymentsGateway.net, and more payment gateways can be added easily. With these improvements Openbravo POS is able to manage card present transactions and is prepared to support EMV standards, PCI standards, and Chip/PIN requirements.
• Bitrock Installers: Install Openbravo POS is now easier than ever. Now we provide installers for the following platforms: Windows, Linux x86, Linux x64, Linux ia64, OSX and Solaris Intel. The classical binary and sources packages are still distributed.
• Support for the Apache Derby database engine: Apache Derby is an open source relational database implemented entirely in Java. Apache Derby improves the performance and reliability of Openbravo POS when running in embedded mode. And also Apache Derby in embedded mode replaces HSQLDB as the default database engine in the binary distribution of Openbravo POS 2.30. HSQLDB continues to be supported in Openbravo POS but it is no longer the default database engine.
• Upgrade license to GPL version 3: With GNU GPL version 3 we are up to date with the latest version of the license and we close several gaps of the previous license like granting patent licenses to every user, extending compatibility with other free software licenses and dealing with the new threats to free software that have emerged since version 2 of the GNU GPL. You can read the announcement in my previous blog post.
• Upgrade third party libraries up to the latest stable release: The following libraries has been updated: SwingX 0.9.5, Substance 5.1.
• Improve receipt printer support: In this version Openbravo POS supports a larger set of receipt printers. It adds support for receipt printers with system drivers. Almost every receipt printer with system drivers is supported in Openbravo POS. It includes native support for Star Micronics receipt printers, and for text only receipt printers. It also has been improved the support for javapos fiscal printers.
• Usability Improvements
  • Panel to edit auxiliary products relation: Openbravo POS supports auxiliary products since older versions but this relation had to be configured manually editing the database. Now there is an Openbravo POS panel that helps editing auxiliary products relations.
  • Add a dialog to find receipts in the edit sales panel. A new dialog has been added to find receipts without knowing the receipt number. Users will be able to search receipts by date, by type (sale or refund), by user, and by total.
  • Add a keypad in the cash movements panel: With this addition the cash movement panel can be operated using only the touch screen. This is a good improvement for environments that need to manage the cash amounts directly from the Openbravo POS touch screen terminal.
  • Add the possibility to print a partial report in the Close cash panel: Now it is possible to print the close cash report with the partial results without restarting the counters and totals. However you will be able to differentiate if the report is for the partial results or for the final results.

The PDA module has not been included in this beta because it was not ready. But we will try to release it as soon as possible.

The stable release will be available in some weeks, and there are still too many things to be done for this final version: Fix all planed bugs, write documentation, finish as many localizations as possible...

If you want to collaborate, please download the version and help us testing and giving us feedback in our forums.