Browsers and devices
Tested, then claimed. Not the other way round.
A till that mostly works is not a till. So Proper Till will not list a browser as supported because its features exist on paper. A browser earns the label by passing the whole set of checks that matter at a counter, including going offline mid-shift and coming back.
Current status: being built. The list below is what is being targeted and how each will be judged. The confirmed support table is published with the first release, filled in from real test runs on real devices.
What is being targeted
- Recent Chrome, Edge and other Chromium browsers on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and ChromeOS.
- Recent Safari on iPad and Mac, which is the browser that matters most for a tablet at the counter.
- Recent Firefox on desktop.
- Recent Chrome and Safari on phones, for the roaming Order Pad.
Old browsers that are no longer receiving security updates are not targets. A till holds your trading records; running it on an abandoned browser is a bad idea for reasons that have nothing to do with this product.
What the till needs from a browser
Only ordinary, long-established web capabilities, which is deliberate:
- A local database, for your catalogue and records.
- Reading and writing files, for imports, exports and backups.
- Printing, for receipts and summaries.
- Local cryptography, to checksum a backup so a corrupted file cannot quietly restore.
Two further capabilities improve the experience where a browser offers them, and are not required: co-ordination between two open tabs of the same till, and asking the browser to keep your data persistently. Where they are missing, the till still works correctly and says what it could not do rather than pretending.
How a browser earns the word "supported"
- Set up a till from a starter pack and from an imported spreadsheet.
- Ring, tender and complete sales, including weighed items and discounts.
- Park a sale, refresh the page, recall it and complete it exactly once.
- Print a receipt and a reprint, and read them on paper.
- Go offline, keep selling, come back, and confirm nothing was lost.
- Download a backup, restore it, and confirm the till returns to the earlier state.
- Refuse a corrupted backup without disturbing the live till.
- Open the same till in two tabs and confirm the collision is handled clearly.
- Work a large catalogue and keep search and scanning responsive.
Devices and screens
The counter experience is designed for a landscape tablet, and for the 1024 by 768 screens that a great many counter displays still use. Management screens are designed for laptops and desktops. The Order Pad is designed for a phone in the hand, with targets big enough for a gloved or wet thumb and no controls that only appear when a mouse hovers.
Keyboard-wedge barcode scanners, the common sort that type like a keyboard, are the scanning method being built for. No proprietary hardware, drivers or dongles are required.
Adding it to a home screen
Proper Till can be added to a phone, tablet or desktop like any other app. It then opens full screen with no address bar and no browser toolbar, which on a phone is worth about a row of products, and it starts straight in the till.
On an iPhone or iPad, open it in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. On Android, open it in Chrome and use Install app from the menu. On a computer, Chrome and Edge show an install icon at the end of the address bar. The till itself walks you through it under Help.
Installing does not move your data anywhere. It is the same browser storage underneath, so a backup matters exactly as much as it did before.
Private windows and shared machines
Private or incognito windows are not suitable for real trading. Their storage is designed to disappear when the window closes, which is exactly the wrong property for a till. On a shared or public machine, remember that the till is readable by anyone who can open that browser profile.