PostalMate Sidebar and Twinview - PC Synergy

[Pages:7]PostalMate Sidebar and Twinview

TechNote #212. Rev. 07.31.2014

The PostalMate Sidebar is a dockable window that contains one or more useful "gadgets" that you can choose from. The Sidebar is designed to occupy the extra space available on widescreen monitors, and/ or appear on separate customer-facing monitors.

PostalMate and Sidebar scaled up 50% , on a widescreen monitor set to a 1600 x 900 resolution.

A glance at how the Sidebar works...

There are six pre-defined gadgets, plus you can customize your own for displaying graphics and/or web content.

Gadgets can be resized and repositioned on the Sidebar as desired. Gadgets can be undocked from the Sidebar and dragged to any place on

the screen--or even to a second customer-facing monitor. The Sidebar itself can be docked or undocked with PostalMate. For customer-facing monitors you can enable the "Twinview" feature on custom gadgets, This displays marketing or other graphics normally, then PostalMate/POS screens during transactions. You can show or hide the sidebar on the fly (pressing Ctrl + S is one way). The Sidebar automatically scales up or down with PostalMate.

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Launching and setting up the Sidebar 1. Select Tools > Show Sidebar from either PostalMate or the POS Register main menu, or in

PostalMate press Ctrl + S on your keyboard. 2. Set up custom gadgets (Optional): From the Sidebar menu, choose Tools > Settings.

Place a checkmark here and the Sidebar will automatically launch when opening PostalMate.

To add a gadget for web content, click Add. Type in a short name for the gadget and enter the web address (URL) for the content to be displayed. Click the "Twinview" box if desired . Click OK.

To edit the Slideshow graphics, highlight Slideshow and choose Edit. Browse to the folder containing the images you wish to display. This can be any folder on your system.

Predefined Gadgets:

Calculator: A simple on-screen calculator for any purpose.

Converter: A full-featured conversion tool that converts world currencies, weight, length, volume and more, from one unit of measure to another.

PC Synergy Twitter and Facebook feeds: Keeps you abreast of the latest tweets and posts from us.

Custom Gadgets:

Slideshow: Displays one or more images from the specified folder on your system. If you have a customer-facing monitor, this is a great way to display graphics-based marketing messages (provided by you).

Web content: You can add one or more gadgets of your own that display the web content of your choosing. These gadgets can also use Twinview.

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See page 4 for information on Twinview.

Click here to access a library of free downloadable marketing graphics.

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3. Select which gadgets to display. At the top of the Sidebar, click on the corresponding buttons to show or hide gadgets. You can make your selections from the "View" menu.

4. Position the Sidebar and gadgets.

Drag the Sidebar into whatever position you like. It can "snap" to either side of PostalMate's main screen, or to an edge on the monitor. You can also adjust the size of the Sidebar by dragging its edges.

To position a gadget, click on its title bar and drag it. If you have two or more gadgets in the Sidebar you can change their relative sizes by putting your cursor between them and dragging.

You can undock gadgets from the Sidebar, and drag them anywhere, even to a second monitor. This is especially useful when using Twinview (See "Twinview" on the next page).

5. Once you have the Sidebar set up to your liking, from the Sidebar menu choose Tools > Save current layout.

Choose File > Save to save your changes.

Use these buttons to open a gadget.

You can choose which gadgets are in the Sidebar, and their relative sizes and positions.

You can drag a gadget out of the sidebar as desired.

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Twinview

If you have a separate customer-facing monitor, the custom gadgets can be set to display PostalMate and/or POS screens during transactions. This is called "Twinview." You can decide which transaction screens will show. Simply turn on Twinview and drag a gadget from the Sidebar onto the second monitor and size it accordingly.

Note: Using Twinview requires a dual-monitor video card or dual video outputs. A video "splitter" cable will not work for this feature.

Twinview Setup using a slideshow in-between transactions. From the Sidebar, choose Tools > Settings. Select a custom gadget, such as Slideshow. Choose Edit. Browse to the folder path you wish to display. Check the box for Twinview: Show PostalMate/POS during transactions. Click OK to save.

In Sidebar Settings, choose the Twinview button.

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Un-check any screens you wish to not display on the customer monitor. For example: You may not wish to display your customer "address book" on your customer display monitor.

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Twinview continued..

Marketing graphics for PostalMate Sidebar

We've put together a library of free downloadable marketing graphics. Some examples are shown on the following page.

To download some or all of the graphics:

1. From the workstation that will have the display, open the PostalMate Sidebar (from PostalMate's main screen, press Ctrl+S, or from the menu choose Tools > Show Sidebar).

2. From the Sidebar menu choose Tools > Settings. 3. Select the "Slideshow" gadget, and click Edit. 4. Click on the "Download Slideshow graphics" link, which opens a special page

on the PC Synergy website. (Leave the Sidebar Gadgets settings screen open.) 5. Select which format corresponds with your second monitor--widescreen or

non-widescreen. 6. Download whichever images you'd like to use (or if you want to download all

of them you can). 7. Put the images in any folder on the computer--we suggest creating a folder

under "Pictures." 8. From the Sidebar Gadgets setting screen, browse to the folder where you put

the downloaded images, and click OK. Then click OK to close the Sidebar Settings screen. 9. Make sure the Slideshow gadget is enabled in the Sidebar. If it isn't already, just click on the Slideshow icon at the top of the Sidebar. 10. Drag the Slideshow gadget from the sidebar onto the second monitor.

Samples from the graphics library are shown on the next page.

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PostalMate Sidebar and Twinview

Sample graphics

These are some of the free downloadable graphics that you can display to your customers as a slideshow on a second monitor, using the PostalMate Sidebar.

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Twinview continued.. Below is an example of what could display using Twinview with a customer facing monitor.

Here the Slideshow gadget has been dragged onto a customer-facing

monitor. The gadget displays one or more graphics (that the store has put

into a Windows folder)...

...until a PostalMate transaction is initiated--then it displays PostalMate screens for the customer. When the transaction is completed it will once

again display the slideshow.

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