Nearly a year after I had my idea I was approached by a pizza delivery, asking me to set up a site or 2 for them
The oscommerce part is no problem, I know another delivery I can just copy from and would only need to change products etc etc
Now a pizza delivery is a fast moving thing, rarely no time to pick the phone and far more less time to deal with a pc and print orders... also a PC and printer is far more expensive than need be.
So the ideal thing would be:
a unit with a printer that scans for new orders...
I have a webpage that does just that, when you call the page you will either get a blank page back or and order number with order status after it... ie 1256 1 meaning order no 1256 having the status 1 meaning pending...
now I have thought of an UNO with a thermal printer connected... and 2x16 lcd and 3 buttons and buzzer.. hardware is no issue, I can do that... its the programming side... have googled and got lost
so what i had in mind for a program is:
call the first page... if blank return scan again after X no of seconds
if it gets a number back read from start until it sees a space...
starts the buzzer to call attention... maybe flash the backlight of the LCD and at same time write new order no in display
when button is pressed call another url that will get order info (have that page done also)... print them.... display goes back to listing active orders... should be able to hold at least 5 numbers... 10 tops.... if no active orders display nothing and turn off backlight... if there are orders active have backlight dimmed down if no buttons pressed for say 10 secs
call another page after that... this page will trigger update to processing and send the customer the usual update e-mail
store order no
now the staff will go and do the order..... when they come back they will use up/down buttons to find the order no and then press select key... this will ask if done... press again and UNO should now call the former page again to change status to done and trigger e-mail update
delete the order no from memory so it also disappears from list on LCD
how long would it take to write such a sketch? and where would cost land?
I plan to call the delivery back within a week and tell them if i want to set up the sites or not and when to do it
for the time table i plan to do it just after news year... need to get an arduino and printer and the bits first.... and collect enough to pay for dev of the code....