Pole Display Setup

If you want to use a pole display with your P.O.S. system, so the customer sees the merchandise prices and descriptions, total due, etc., then you have to configure it through this dialog (Maintenance / Pole Display Setup).

When a pole display is properly set up, it will show items as they are entered or scanned, payments made, total amount due, etc.  This will work in both the Point of Sale dialog and the normal Transactions dialog for reservations, etc.

Campground Master will work with nearly any pole display that can be connected to a serial or parallel port, presuming it's a 2-line, 20-characters-per-line display.  It will also work with USB pole displays, provided a "serial emulation" driver is used -- contact technical support for details.  Every brand of pole display is controlled with a different set of commands, but you simply need to enter those commands here so Campground Master knows how to communicate with it.  The seven commands required are described below.

Settings

Important -- All of these settings are local to each workstation.  If you have more than one workstation on a network, each one must be set up individually (so they can have different displays or use different ports on each workstation as needed).  Also note that the settings are saved according to the workstation's ID (see Network Setup), so if that is changed for any reason then the pole display settings may need to be changed also.

Since many commands contain non-printable characters like ESC, CR, LF, etc., they must be entered in a special code.  This code is a backslash, followed by an 'x', followed by 2 hexadecimal digits representing the character (byte) to be sent.  For instance a linefeed (LF), which has the value 10 (0A in hexadecimal), should be entered as \x0a.

Note: Use the backslash ( \ ), not the forward slash ( / ), for the special codes.  The forward slash is usually on the key with the question mark (?).  The backslash, which you need to use, is sometimes above the Enter key, and sometimes located other places.

Pole display is present -- this must be checked in order for Campground Master to send data to a pole display.  All other settings are disabled unless this is checked.  Note that if a pole display is removed, or the database is moved to a computer without a pole display, it's a good idea to uncheck this so it won't send pole display commands to the port. Otherwise it may lock up the program or affect other devices that are connected to the same port number.

Interface port -- select the port that the display is connected to.  If it's a USB pole display, and assuming you have installed the serial emulation driver (required), select the com port assigned to the emulation driver.

Baud, Parity, Data bits, Stop bits -- These only apply if the interface port is a serial port (com1 through com8).  Enter the appropriate values according to your pole display manual.  (Most are set up for 9600 baud, no parity, 8 data bits, 1 stop bit.)

Reset Command -- Enter the command sequence you want to send to the display to clear it and get it ready for other commands.  This often includes commands to turn off the cursor, put it in a non-scrolling mode, and clear the screen.  This command will actually be sent every time something new needs to be displayed.  To make sure it's correct, you can press the Test button next to it to see what happens.

Note -- Some displays have multiple modes of operation, like scrolling vs non-scrolling, auto-scrolling, horizontal scrolling, etc., so perhaps no commands at all would be needed in some circumstances.  However, since this behavior is unpredictable (by the software), it's best to make sure the display is put in a non-scrolling mode, and use whatever commands are necessary to force the text to show on line 1 and line 2.

Line 1 command, before and after -- Enter the command sequence required (if any) that needs to be sent before and after any text that you want to display on line 1 of the display.

Line 2 command, before and after -- Enter the command sequence required, after the first line is displayed, to display text on the second line.  Some displays simply need a CR character (\x0d) to get to the second line.  Others require that both the first and second line are surrounded by certain command characters.

Test Line 1 & Line 2 -- after entering all of the necessary commands above, click this button to reset the display and send sample text "Line 1" and "Line 2" to the display.

Automatically wraps to 2nd line -- In some cases, the text written to Line 1 will be the full 20 characters. On some displays, it will wrap to the 2nd line automatically so the Line 2 command can be skipped before the 2nd line is displayed.  If this is the case, check this option.

Idle message / Command -- After a sale is complete, you may want a special message to show on the display all the time. If the display supports automatic scrolling, you could even have a message scrolling constantly across the display.  Enter whatever message text you want displayed during this idle time, along with any command characters necessary to get it displayed.  You should also include the commands to reset the display (it doesn't sent a Reset command before the idle command, so if you just want to leave up the last total or balance due on the display, you can just leave this blank.).  You can also use the Test button to make sure it's right.  

Tip: for a scrolling message, don't forget to include some extra spaces at the end to separate the end from the beginning of the repeated message.

Pole Display Example Commands

Here are examples of the recommended command settings, for 4 different brands of pole displays.

Logic Controls PD-3000:

  After text:

  After text:

EMAX:

IEE:

  After text:

  After text:

DynaPOS: