Storage Boxx is an open-source PHP Inventory Management System. With a built-in webcam QR scanner, NFC scanner, passwordless login, and an optional experimental AI assistant.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
First, here are the download links and a quick “setup guide” for the impatient folks who don’t want to read through everything.
LICENSE & DOWNLOAD
GitHub | GitHub – AI Assistant | SourceForge
Storage Boxx is released under the MIT License. You are free to use it for personal and commercial projects, and modify it as you see fit. On the condition that the software is provided “as-is”. There are no warranties provided and “no strings attached”. Code Boxx and the authors are not liable for any claims, damages, or liabilities.
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SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
- LAMP/WAMP/MAMP/XAMPP
- Apache Mod Rewrite
- PHP MYSQL PDO Extension
- PHP OpenSSL Extension
- At least PHP 8.0
INSTALLATION
Just copy/unzip into your HTTP folder. Access http://your-site.com
in the browser and walk through the installer.
FAQ
AJAX Error? Bad Server Response? Change the domain? Change the timezone? Check out the FAQ here.
HOW TO USE
So far so good? Let us now go through a quick crash course on how to use Storage Boxx.
EQUIPMENT RECOMMENDATIONS
- Webcam – If you are using a desktop without a webcam, a simple one only costs about $20~30.
- USB QR Code scanner – Alternatively, a “dedicated barcode scanner” will cost about $30~40 bucks.
- NFC tags – 10 pieces of Ntag213 only cost 2-3 bucks. Buy them in bulk, and one piece will only cost a few cents.
- Fingerprint sensors – These are kind of expensive… But I got lucky with a $25 “Made in China” that works just fine.
- Label printer – Print your QR codes. There are Bluetooth ones that can pair with smartphones.
PART 1) REGISTER ITEMS
First step, register all your items. You can do it one by one, or the smarter way is to upload a CSV file if you have a lot of products.
PART 2) REGISTER BATCHES
Now that the items are in place, create the batches for every item.
- Batches are particularly good for managing items with expiry dates, or if you want to track how slow/fast a batch moves.
- For the people who don’t care about “batches” – Just create a dummy batch and use it for a lifetime.
- Print the QR code for the batches, and/or create the NFC tags.
PART 3) ITEM MOVEMENT
Record the item/batch movement accordingly over time. Pretty self-explanatory.
- Set the direction (in, out, discard, stock take).
- Set the quantity.
- Add notes, if any.
- Enter the SKU and batch – Or just scan.
PART 4) CHECK
You can access the “check” section at any time, check the stock movement history.
EXTRA) PASSWORDLESS SIGN IN
The days of stinky passwords are over.
- You can create NFC login tags (staff card) for users. So long as they have a compatible device/browser, they can use it to login without entering the user/password.
- Alternatively, open the user menu after you have signed in (top-right corner) – Passwordless Login. Register to sign in with your fingerprint, face recognition, or pin number.
FOR THE DEVELOPERS
This section is for the developers, with a couple of development notes for customization.
BUILT ON CORE BOXX
- At least go through the very short tutorial.
- Thereafter, go into the deeper concepts:
- Storage Boxx has also adopted the following modules:
EXPIRING ITEMS NOTIFICATION
Tricky.
- Create a
expire-notify.php
script, set it to run every 24 hours in Windows Task Scheduler orCRON
. - Add a
EXPIRE_WARN_DAYS
setting. - Modify
$_CORE->Report->getExpiry()
to get expiring items withEXPIRE DAYS > 0 && EXPIRE DAYS <= EXPIRE_WARN_DAYS
. - If there are expiring items, send the notification.
- It will be wise to add another
EXPIRE_NOTIFIED
table to keep theitem_id
andbatch_name
… Or the system will nag every 24 hours until the item expires.
AI ASSISTANT
So, you may have noticed that the AI Assistant is “missing” or “not working” out of the box. It’s a long story.
REQUIREMENTS
- Python – Yes, Python. Not PHP. Version 3.9 to 3.10 seems to work fine at the time of writing.
- Microsoft C++ Build Tools
- CMake
- Nvidia CUDA Toolkit – If you have an Nvidia graphics card.
- An Nvidia graphics card with at least 8GB VRAM is highly recommended. You can TRY to run on CPU, but it is painfully slow and practically useless.
INSTALLATION
- Copy/unzip this module into your existing Storage Boxx folder.
- I have tried multiple AI models, codellama-7b-instruct.Q5_K_M.gguf is the only one that produced decent(ish) results – Download that into
chatbot/models
or choose a better/larger/smarter model on your own. - Edit
chatbot/a_settings.py
, change themodel_name
to your own. - BE WARNED, GIGABYTES WORTH OF DOWNLOAD! –
0-setup.bat
(Windows)0-setup.sh
(Linux).
LAUNCH
- Run
1-bot.bat
(Windows)1-bot.sh
(Linux/Mac), this will deploy the bot athttp://your-site.com:8008
. - Just access
http://your-site.com/ai
(must be signed in).
i have cpanel and i success instalation, but still bad server response
AJAX ERROR
Bad server response
See https://code-boxx.com/core-boxx-php-framework/#sec-faq “AJAX Error And Bad Server Response”