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Building your Custom Menu

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Gene Mosher edited this page May 31, 2026 · 7 revisions

🎨 Building Custom Pages and Buttons

🏠 Getting Started

When you have the binary running, the first page you see is 'Page One', a logon page. Page One is one of many non-editable 'System Pages' common to all users. Most System Pages cannot be edited at all, but parts of many System Pages CAN be edited by user 'Editor'.

The uniqueness of point of sale software is that is shipped to or downloaded by you with an incomplete interface ! You must logon as an Editor to complete the Menu portion of the interface to use it ! An essential task you must perform, therefore, is to complete the interface by building a unique, customized restaurant/hospitality pages and buttons - the Menu.

🔐 Logging In

  • Log on with the numerical ID of the user Editor
  • The default Editor IDs are 42 or 123456789. The Editor ID can be changed to any numerical value by selecting Edit Mode Documents on Page One where the Editor's Password can be seen and changed.

📋 Navigation After Login

Upon login, select "Start" to navigate to the 'Table Page'.

  • At bottom center of every Table Page is 'Manager's Gateway' button which accesses the ViewTouch backend System Pages.
  • Select any Table to enter your unique interface of Custom menu pages
  • You may Edit the area of the Table Page so that the layout of the Table Buttons faithfully represents the layout of the tables in your hospitality site.
  • Several Table Pages can be created, and there are two types: One shows tables only, while the other shows order entry detail for the currently selected table and a list of all currently open checks.

✏️ Login as Editor to enable Edit Mode

  • Press 'F1' to Enter Edit Mode
  • Press 'F1' again to exit Edit Mode and Save your work !
  • Press 'F11' to erase mistakes and revert to your last save point.

💡 Pro Tip: Frequently save your work with two presses of F1 to avoid losing progress! Save often so you don't lose anything more than your most recent editing efforts. Two quick, successive presses of 'F1' is all you need to do to undo some of your work, throw it away, and continue.

📄 Required Pages

Every Menu must have one or more of each of these four page types and typically, many Menu Pages and Modifier Pages:

  1. 🏷️ Table Page - Entry point to the menu when using tables or tabs (More than one is OK)
  2. 📑 Index Page - Navigation hub and entry point to the menu when NOT using tables or tabs
  3. 🍽️ Menu Page - Main menu items (typically multiple pages)
  4. 🔧 Modifier/Scripted Page - Modifiers and scripted options (typically multiple pages). Scripted Pages also known as Modifier Pages.

🔘 Required Buttons

Every Page must have buttons matching the type of Page the buttons are found on. The following are the necessary and common Button Types:

🪑 Tables

  • Tabled are identified by names or numbers: 1, 2, 3, A, B, C, Private 1, Patio 1

📑 Index Tabs

  • Placed only on Index Pages Multiple Index Pages allow 'time of day' availability of various Menu Pages
  • Are named to represent Food and Beverage categories, also called Families

🍔 Menu Items

  • Placed on Menu Item Pages and optionally, but infrequently on Modifier/Scripted Pages, or even on Index Pages
  • Names of the restaurant's core Menu offerings and their prices.

🔧 Modifiers

  • Placed on Modifier/Scripted Pages and optionally on Menu Item Pages
  • Attached to Menu Items when necessary for details needed by Menu Item fulfillment staff. Prices are optional.

⚡ Qualifiers

  • Attached to Modifiers to simulate how people talk . Qualifiers fortify Modifiers by refining them: No, Sub (substitute), On Side, Lite, Only, Extra, Double, Dry, Plain, Toast, UnToast, Crisp, Soft, Hard, Grill, Easy, Add, Senior Split, < Left, Right >, Whole, Cut/2, Cut/3, Cut/4

  • The value of the Double Qualifier is adjustable. Arithmetic operations are used to define the meaning of the Double Qualifier. A Double Scotch Neat can have a price which is defined as multiplied by two, then decreased by one.

  • The On Side qualifier is a very special Qualifier. If used as a prefix, can be attached to Menu Items, Modifiers and even to other qualifiers/

*** 📊 Pro Tip: When Editing, frequently save your work with two presses of F1 to avoid losing progress! The second press returns you to Edit Mode.

🎯 More less common, but also very useful Button Types

🔄 Menu Item + Substitute

Items that can serve as Normal or as Modifier substitutions, depending on context:

  • English Muffin, Polish Sausage
  • Premium/Top Shelf alcohol brands (enables surcharges for substitution of premium brand alcohol in cocktails)

🚫 Non-Tracking Modifier

Enhancement of Menu Items with no relevance to Inventory: Salt, Pepper, Water, Napkin

⚖️ Priced By Weight

Weight-priced items: Deli Meat, Deli Salad

🎫 Event Admission

Fixed-price limited items: Theater seats, Pool table time

💡 Image

Yes, buttons that are images !

🎨 Simple

Buttons containing only text to guide or assist users

📝 Terminology & Concepts

  • Menu Items = Nouns (Normal Item Type Buttons)
  • Modifiers = Adjectives (Modifier Item Type Buttons)
  • Qualifiers = Adverbs (Qualifier Buttons)

⚙️ Qualifier Details

Qualifiers can be placed on both Menu Item Pages and Scripted Pages.

📋 All 24 Qualifiers:

  • No, On Side, Lite, Only, Extra, Double, 'Add', 'Easy', 'Senior Split'
  • Dry, Plain, Toast, Untoast, Crisp
  • Soft, Hard, Grill, < Left, Right >
  • Whole, Cut/2, Cut/3, Cut/4

🎨 Usage Examples

Qualifiers with Menu Items:

  • Double Scotch, Soft Poached Egg, Crisp Bacon
  • Plain Hamburger, Cut/2 Breakfast Special

Qualifiers with Modifiers:

  • Extra Onion, No Onion, Lite Pickles
  • Pickles On Side, Double Cheese
  • Sub Grey Goose (vodka), < Pepperoni, > Mushrooms

🔑 Special Qualifier Features

  1. Double - Can affect the price of menu items when attached
  2. Sub - Allows premium liquor substitution with surcharge, can jump to other pages, can combine with other qualifiers

Examples of combined qualifiers:

  • Extra Pickles On The Side
  • Soft Poached Egg On The Side

🔀 Flow Control & Page Navigation

🎮 Built-in Control

ViewTouch has procedural (flow) control built into both pages and buttons:

  • Page flow control is hard coded (with one exception)
  • Button flow control can enhance or bypass hard coded page control

⚠️ Critical Design Rule

Menu Items belong on Menu Pages and Modifier Buttons belong on Scripted Pages.

Exception: Modifiers can be placed on Menu Pages only if they have 'Jump Option' set to 'No Jump'.

🎯 Menu Quality Factors

The key to a great custom menu is:

  1. Button layout on pages
  2. Effective use of flow control (Jump Options) assigned to Modifiers

🚨 Stability Warning

If ViewTouch is unstable, it's almost certainly because the custom menu has buttons that violate building rules. This is the inevitable effect of ViewTouch's vast freedom in menu design.

Other POS systems avoid this because they allow far less customization freedom.

📞 Support

Anyone building a menu should know that help is always available!

I will greatly expand on this in the coming weeks.

August 18, 2020

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