Feature of the Month

JULY 2002

Customizing Retail Pro

One of the great features about Retail Pro is the customizability.  You’ve probably had your reports, receipts and barcode tags set up the way you want them so they reflect your business, but how about the look of Retail Pro itself?

Here are some suggestions to change the ‘look & feel’ of your Retail Pro to reflect your business image or personal style.  Please note that all these customizations are on a workstation-by-workstation basis, so any changes to one must be individually applied to all workstations.

6 & 7-series

1.        Normally, your Retail Pro screens are a lovely shade of blue with white text.  You can however, make these colors whatever you choose, to match a logo or company color scheme.  This is done in Workstation Preferences -> Customize Monitor for 7-series, or Setup -> Workstation -> Monitor -> Customize for 6-series.  When in this module, the controls are as follows:  PageUp & PageDown change the area.  GENERAL is the main screen of RetailPro. WINDOWS are the popup windows that are used for selecting items, such as discount types.  MESSAGES are warning notices.  HELPS are your help menusChange the foreground (text) color with the left & right arrow keys.  Change the background color with the up & down arrow keys.  These will change the colors for the selected area (listed as  ‘Selecting’).  Press [ENTER] to record the change(s) for that area and press [END] to record changes to all areas and return you to the previous menu.

2.     In 7-series Retail Pro, you can change the colors for your main menu to match the ‘working’ screen of Retail Pro.To get to the area to change colors, choose Preferences -> Options -> Display Properties.  Select ‘custom mode’ on the left and you can change the colors for the four elements on the RetailPro main menu.

        Screen Text is the wording on the screen. 

Screen Background is self-explanitory. 

Button Background is the color of the 12 buttons.

Button Caption is the text on the buttons.  You can also add text at the bottom of the menu such as a slogan, motivational phrase or just the company name.

8-series Since version 8 of Retail Pro is all Windows-based, the colors are determined by Windows itself.  You can change Windows (and RetailPro) to look just about any color you like.  Keep in mind that all of your windows programs will take on the colors & settings you change here.  You can also make your windows unreadable if you change all the elements to the same color.  To get to this window, click on Start -> Settings -> Control Panel, then double-click on the icon labeled Display.  Click on the Appearance tab.  You should have a window similar to the one at right.  Below is a description of what each element on this window does. The top half of the screen is a preview of your color choices.  It will show you what your changes are before you commit to them.

- Scheme lists some color schemes that Microsoft created and included with Windows. You can choose one of these or customize Windows yourself.  When you have the colors the way you like, you can save the scheme with Save As….  Delete, in turn allows you to delete schemes from the list as well.

- Item lists the various areas of the Windows screen, such as Desktop, Window, Active Title Bar, etc.  To the right, there are drop-down lists to choose a color (two colors for the Title Bars in Windows98 & 2000) as well as font, size & color information for items that have text on them (title bars, tooltips, icons, etc.).

Customizing the windows elements is as easy as selecting the element under Item then changing the color(s) to what you would like them to be.  You’ll see your changes in the preview area at the top of the screen.  Note that some elements (icons, tooltips) aren’t displayed in the preview window.  Once you have your colors the way you like, click on either OK or Apply and the changes will be applied to Windows.  Then go into Retail Pro and see how you like your new look.

These changes are easy enough that you could color-coordinate your Retail Pro screens to coincide with the season.  How about a spooky black & orange in october and a jolly red & green at Christmastime?  Perhaps a patriotic red white & blue theme for Independence Day?  Or, if you like, you can leave Retail Pro and/or Windows at its default colors and just be a nice, functional blue & white and that’s fine too.  None of these changes are going to have any effect on the functionality of Windows or RetailPro, but can make it easier on the eyes as well as more decorative.  Have fun!