What is new since 5.0

Connection Wizard Server

Three tabs cover the three ways a station arrives: found on the network and connected with one click, joined by code, or reachable but not connecting.

Six-digit pairing codes

A station joins by typing a short code shown on the server. The code now also works through the cloud, so the two no longer have to sit on the same network.

Setup Guide Server

A guided checklist walks a new cafe through first setup and offers a suggestion on each settings page, which can be taken where it is offered.

Unreachable station notice

A station that answers on the network but never completes its connection raises a notice at the bottom right instead of sitting silent in the list.

Card, Icon and List views

Three ways to see the floor, each keeping its own column order, sort and per-cashier filter memory. Consoles get all three as well.

Icon styles and free placement

Four icon styles, icons that grow when you point at them, and stations placed anywhere on the plan rather than snapped to a grid.

Zones and lasso selection

Stations group into named zones instead of floors, and a lasso picks up a run of them in one drag. Skipped stations are reported by name.

Right-click actions

Start, stop, transfer, run a command or update the client straight from a station tile, with single and bulk actions separated in the menu.

Bulk start and close

Open sessions on every selected station from one dialog, or close their bills together. Actions that do not apply are hidden rather than greyed out.

Drag a session to another station

A live session moves between stations by dragging its card, carrying its time, tab and equipment charges with it.

Open a session by amount

Enter money instead of minutes and the time is calculated from the active price list. Works for card, console and prepaid flows.

Session clock on the receipt Printer

Printed receipts carry the start and end time of the session, and prepaid sessions can print one at the moment they start.

Equipment charges

Extra controllers became general equipment billing, priced per console category and added to the running tab rather than settled separately.

Member minimum charge

A member session bills at least the configured minimum, and the pricing schedule can now price member sessions on its own terms.

Business day starts at 05:00

The default day boundary moved so a night shift closes against the date it started, and cash taken outside a shift is reported separately.

Guest bills Server

A guest runs a bill that is not tied to one station: it collects orders, records the devices used, is renamed as the table fills up and stays on the Bills page until it is paid.

Partial payment

Take part of the money and leave the bill open. The session keeps running, the payment is logged against the bill, and what is left stays visible to the next cashier.

Move an order onto a bill

An order placed at one station attaches to the guest bill it belongs to, rather than being settled where it happened to be ordered.

Cancelling and clearing an unpaid rest need a reason

Cancelling asks why, and a note is required when the reason is Other. A bill that already took a payment cannot be cancelled, only closed, and clearing the rest as unpaid is a separate permission.

Permission per action

Open, rename, attach an order, collect, take a partial payment, cancel and read closed bills are seven separate rights in the role matrix.

Closed bill history

Settled bills stay readable with their payments, devices and cancellation reasons, and flagged ones filter to the top.

Orders screen Server

A screen of its own, cut down to a single confirmation step. A new order notification opens that confirmation directly.

Relative order times

An order shows how long ago it was placed instead of a number you have to read against the clock.

Cafe Menu and Stock split

What is for sale and what is on hand live in separate tabs, with a stock movement list behind them and products picked from stock.

Sold out

A cafe can stop counting a product and mark it sold out, keeping it on the menu without a stock figure behind it.

Editable purchase receipts

A purchase receipt and its lines can be corrected after they are entered, instead of being deleted and typed again.

Call the cashier QR menu

A guest reading the table QR menu can call the cashier over, and the request lands as a notification on the server rather than as a raised hand nobody sees.

Public address, visible and editable

The handy.cafe address is shown on the business profile instead of being set once and hidden. It can be changed once every 30 days, with a reminder that the table QR codes have to be reprinted.

Clearer artwork failures

When the image provider locks the account, product artwork generation reports its own error code and emails the operator instead of failing quietly in the background.

Membership subscriptions

Recurring plans with a plan editor on the server, a subscription panel on the member record, and periods granted automatically as they fall due.

Balance benefits

A plan can carry a money benefit that lands in the member wallet, and plan screens read live balances rather than a cached figure.

Postpaid on an empty account

Members can be allowed to open a session with no balance and settle later, granted per member rather than for everyone at once.

Permission matrix Server

Cashier roles are set action by action in a matrix, enforced in the backend rather than by hiding buttons. Built-in roles can be edited too.

Log visibility per role

Which tabs of the Logs page a role opens comes from the same matrix, so a shift lead can review sessions without reading system logs.

Staff cards

Staff sign in by card, and any card can be looked up from the card screen to see who holds it and what it is assigned to.

Masked card numbers

Card numbers are masked in the interface, and a scanned card belonging to the other side names its holder instead of failing quietly.

Cloud games catalog Server

Search the HandyCafe catalog and add a game with its cover art, description and genres in one step. Browse by new releases, trending or most played right now, filtered to your country or global.

Add a game folder

Point the server at a folder and it reads the games out of it. Which executable actually starts a game is learned from what customers launch, not guessed from the folder name.

Fill every cover in one click

Select the games with missing artwork and Match artwork searches the online database for all of them at once, filling in posters, genres and release year without opening each game.

Match a single game by hand

A game added manually can be linked to an online entry, and an existing match can be replaced when the wrong one was picked.

Vertical posters and horizontal covers

Both artwork shapes are kept per game, drawn from the online catalog or from a local file, and either can be swapped without touching the other.

Install list

Games gather in an install list and go out together, and the menu pushes to connected stations as soon as it is saved. If a station is offline it is told what it missed.

New startup sequence Client

A ring progress opener on a plain ground replaces the old loading screen, and starting an app shows a launching overlay so the customer sees it working.

WebGL wallpaper

The idle hero draws a real wallpaper in WebGL with a shader blur and a darkened plate behind the text, instead of a stretched poster.

Pause locks the machine

Pausing a session locks the station, and only the server can release it. Remote admin sign-in and time reduction work from the same panel.

Tray and game mode

The window can be sent to the system tray, a session can start from the tray menu, and game mode can keep or hide the taskbar.

Session tasks

Actions that run at start and end of a session, including opening a web page, moved into a task list that is configured from the server.

Network power

PlayStation consoles are discovered on the local network, woken when a session starts and returned to standby when it ends.

Pairing you can watch

Console pairing shows its progress step by step, and a standby that does not take can be retried without starting over.

Double-click to start or stop

A console session opens or closes on a double click in Icon and List views, the same gesture stations use.

Equipment per category

Extra controllers and other equipment are priced by console category, so a PS5 pad and a racing wheel do not share one rate.

Remote file explorer

Browse, move and remove files on a station from the server without interrupting the session running on it.

Run a command

Send a command to a station, run it with Enter, and copy the output back with one button.

Screenshot from the top bar

Capture what a station is showing without opening the full remote view.

Faster first frame

The remote view decodes the first keyframe the moment it arrives, so the screen appears instead of staying black while the stream starts.

Hardware inventory

Each client reports its hardware and the server keeps the record, so a station can be identified without walking to it.

Diagnostic logs

Log files can be sent daily or pulled on request, which is what support asks for first when something goes wrong.

Summary, a screen of its own Server

The day-end summary left Statistics and took its own place in the sidebar, sitting on the divider so it reads as a destination rather than a report buried in a tab.

Cashier shift flow

The summary closes the day against shifts, separating cash taken inside a shift from cash taken outside one, and it can be filtered down to a single cashier.

Most visited sites

A panel with daily totals showing where customers spent their time, next to the existing app usage figures.

Daily insights

Short daily notifications and a comparison tab that puts today next to a period you choose.

Notification center

Notifications group instead of stacking, toasts are capped, and each category gets its own delivery mode so routine confirmations stay out of the center.

Recovery code from the license Server

A locked out station shows a challenge. Type it with the station MAC address on the server and the license produces a response code that unlocks it. No network between the two is needed, which is the point: this is the path that works when nothing else does.

Reset requests come to the server

A station can ask for a reset instead of being visited. The request waits for approval, and the screen says plainly that client admin credentials are shared, so approving changes the password on every station.

Stations that never connected

Recovery over the local network reaches a disconnected station, including one that has never paired with this server, and a station with no PIN can be recovered more than once.

Both addresses in the reconnect dialog

The dialog shows the address the request came from next to the address on record, so a station that moved is recognised rather than refused.

Import from other software

NetCafe Master, Akinsoft CafePlus 12 and Pancafe databases import members and wallets, products, cash income and expenses.

Settings in the cloud

Settings back up as they are changed, and a fresh install restores them rather than starting from defaults.

Labeled layout Server

The cashier screen, the money entry window and the insight card moved to a labeled layout, and settings advice came out of the yellow boxes it used to sit in.

Cash screen

The cash box moved to the left column, with money in and money out as separate buttons instead of one button that changes meaning.

Advice in place of info buttons

Information buttons became descriptions under the setting they explain, so the text is read without a click. Console panels gained borders to match.

Appearance settings

The page came down to two panels, per-page items returned to the visibility panel, and the cafe default is written out rather than left unsaid.

Sidebar keeps its width

The stored sidebar width survives cashier login instead of snapping back on every sign-in.

Member profile editing

A dialog for name, email, phone, identity number and gender, replacing the fields that were scattered across the member record.

Three new themes

Amethyst Flow, Magma and Blueprint join the theme list on the server, alongside the existing client themes.

Azerbaijani

Added to the interface, bringing it to 25 languages on both the server and the client.

Every published build of HandyCafe Server and HandyCafe Client, newest first.