You can customize the Sales interface by using the visual tools in Sales > Tools > Actions > Appearance. The operator needs to have the security right called Sales - Allow operator to customize the appearance of Sales. This works even when you are not using the newer interface – e.g., you do not have the following setting or it is set to FALSE in Sales32c.INI:

[Interface]
NewButtons=TRUE

The Appearance button can be set as a main action button or as an F-key by using the function code APP.

[Preferences]
F1=APP

[Interface]
MainButton1=APP

The Appearance dialog allows users to change the background and font appearance for Sales buttons. To make changes, click on the type of button or select the type of button from the Item dropdown (which includes Action Button, Hold Button, Global Button, Set Global Button, Header Button, Item Page Button, Item Button, Background, ChangeDue and Totals) to bring it up in the Item dropdown text box.

Pressing the upper Color button brings up the Color chart where basic colors and custom colors are displayed. Select a color to change the button background color. Pressing the lower Color button brings up the Color chart where basic colors and custom colors are displayed. Select a color to change the font color of the button label. Pressing the Font button underneath the Item dropdown text box brings up the Font dialog where a new font and font appearance can be set. The +/- button next to the font button allows instant set and preview of font size changes.

If any appearance settings are made, the operator is prompted to save the changes to the appearance (or cancel) upon exiting the Appearance dialog. If the changes are saved, then the current color/font settings are written to the local Sales32c.INI file in the [Interface] and [Fonts] sections. These can then be copied into a global or group .INI file in SysManager (Preferences > Miscellaneous > Global Salespoint INI tab). For more information on the local, group or default .INI files, see the Salesware .INI Settings Reference document.

There are also two important functions that allow the operator to load pre-set appearance settings to the current salespoint or write the current set of appearance settings to a file for later use (such as loading the same settings to other salespoints in the same group or to certain salespoints that serve the same certain purposes such as “July4th Sale” or some special event with a theme).

When pressing the Load From File button, the file browser window is brought up for the operator to open an existing file with [Interface] and [Fonts] sections to set the desired appearance on the current salespoint. When pressing the Write To File button, the file browser window is brought up that allows the operator to specify a new filename to write to, or to over-write an existing file. The default filename for both Load From File and Write To File is Sales32c.INI.

It is also possible to set the salespoint to load a specified set of appearance settings by adding the following setting to Sales32c.INI:

[Interfaces]
CustomInterface=myfile.INI

If this is set and myfile.INI (any filename can be used that has an .INI extension) exists in the Sales directory, the color and font settings from this file are used instead of those from the local, group or default .INI file.