As a product of StorePoint Retail, the next generation of in-store/in-business printroom system now has been fully specified and marketed with a brand-new name - StorePoint for Web (SP4W). Indeed, SP4W is going to be a web-based printroom that provides both local and remote printing services.

Coding in PHP instead of FileMaker is probably the bravest move ever to the company StorePoint International. On one hand, SP2.7 and other earlier versions has been brought up with the development and evolution of FileMaker, which really pushed this small database solution to the limit with respect to text resizing and tickets ganging. On the other hand, with the rapid boost of PointandGo! Localise (PAGL) recently, the company strategy has been revised and PHP is arguably voted as the best product integration tool in the short term. What is also worthy of being mentioned is that from my point of view, Microsoft ASP.NET is not and will never be the most popular web development tool. Since the software giant realised this fact, they have decided to live with PHP and develop it as part of the whole package. The tendency of PHP is undeniable and irresistible.

Come back to SP4, there will be a few interesting updates and handy new features, such as headquarter controlled live update, template based directory management, XML to PDF, XML to GD library, regular expression supported error-proofing, advanced ticket editing, multi-objects support, real-time live preview with ajax and so many more to offer a whole new range of online printroom experience.

Directory tree with XML based templates makes choices clearer and easier to view and manage. XML based templates with regular expression aid avoids a lot of the common users input errors and mistakes, enahncing the system accessibility and usability.

SP4W is just kicked off and now still under the very initial development stage. For more information and updates, please follow my upcoming blogs or just visit http://www.sp-int.com/.