I am new here. I am working on setting up a UI where a user enters a start time and end time each time a new seizure is logged for their pet. It seems Glide does not have the functionality for the date/time component to only display the time functionality for the user to enter this information. They would not need to see the date in the Seizure Start Time and Seizure End Time components. I already have a separate Seizure Date component (Date) set up to display date only. Does anyone have any tips to build the columns necessary, and display ONLY TIME in a component for the user to enter and write to the table every time? I am surprised this is not something that can easily be done…
Only way to do this is to use the custom component.
Here’s one I pre-built for you.
I would advise against trying to store the date and time separately. As Glide has no “time only” column type, the only way to do that is to store the time as either a number or string, and then you have all sorts of hoops to jump through if you want to use the date and time in any calculations.
It is much better to store both the date and time as a single value.
In terms of a “time only” picker, as already mentioned you could do that with a custom component. Another way is to use a helper table as the source of a choice component. The below template demonstrates this concept:
Note that with the above the form asks for a date, a start time and an end time. But when the form is submitted, the date is discarded and only the start and end times are saved (with the date embedded).
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At the bottom of the Date column, you can set what is to be displayed in the layout editor: date only, time only, both data and time (with or without seconds). You could use that to determined what the user sees 
Darren already explained this, but there is no such thing in Glide as a date only or a time only. When you select or write a piece of data in a “Date” column (it’s called “Date” but this is misleading), you are working with a piece of data that includes a date and a time. That column could be called the Date-Time column: it houses a piece of data that includes year, month, day, hour, minute, second and we cannot see what’s trailing but it’s probably there.
Keep that in mind when you build and don’t move astray from this. This is how it works in Glide. There is no such as thing as working with a date only irrespective of the time, and there is no such thing as working with a time only irrespective of the date. Date and time go together at all times (pun intended).
Here’s a guide on dates and time. Personally I find the whole topic complicated, but that’s how dates and time are it seems. Your build will benefit from you keeping things simple.
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Nathanael, thank you for this guidance. It is confusing to me, too. My follow up to this (and Darren_Murphy mentioned this) is what is the best practice for date/time for clean calculations later. I guess I want to make sure the UI makes sense to the user, with no need to duplicate data input (like always entering date/time for start time and end time when it’s not necessary), BUT keeping in mind data structure behind the scenes to do more with it later. As much as I have to set up my Start Time and End Time columns as Date/Time to only show Time, this is not what displays in the UI; the date and time continue to appear in the Start and End Time components (which are Date/Time components currently). I am getting ahead of myself experience wise, but I do want to be able to set up calculations at some point, and not have to restructure my data if I make a big mistake now. Any input would be appreciated. Thank you.
Did you look at my template?
The setup may look a little complex and daunting if you are new to Glide, but the end result is exactly the above.
- Date is entered once
- Both Start Time and End Time are selected from pick lists (choice components)
- Only the Start Time and End time are saved, as first class date/time values
- If the Date is needed, use a Math column to extract it from the Start Time column
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Hi Darren!
Yes, I saw your template you made. Thank you. It had everything I need except for the following:
- When a seizure occurs (which is the data I am collecting a start and end time for), it doesn’t happen in perfect incremental time. I need the exact start time (i.e. 8:34 AM) and end times (ie. 8:40AM) to allow any and all possible time to be selected by the user.
- Due to my above need, I am not sure if a drop down is appropriate or a realistic component to be used for the start and end times.
I did play around with your template a little, and I was able to adjust the interval to every minute, but the dropdown selections in the start and end time fields only showed the current hour I was in, not all hours which are needed. Yes, your template is definitely overwhelming to my eyes as a very very beginner, but if it works, it works! I struggle with a desire to always understand the logic and want to build things myself, but I appreciate this community already for your willingness to help.
Questions about Template
- Is there another way to collect what I need with the above adjustments?
- Your template is set up with workflows, correct? I like that better than actions build into the form/app.
My Current Columns (which may break potential clean calculations now and later)
I don’t know how to share a table in a post, but I provided this screenshot above. Not sure how useful it is to you without clicking into column set ups. This allows users to type into a start and end time text components and hopefully input any type of formatted time, but the table is set up to standardized time input on the back end based on my current set up. FYI- I did try a custom component, and it somewhat worked, but the times were cancelling (disappearing) each other out when the start time and end time was being entered. This could have possibly been due to my set up at the time - not sure. For my screenshot and current table, I used AI significantly to help me build this and spent at least 16 plus hours attempting this. I did test it, and it DID work exactly how I needed it, but it sounds like it may not be best practice. I am self-teaching and low end beginner. Please go easy on me (lol).
Some possible Future Considerations in my app where table date/time data may be impacted if parsed out:
-graph or analyze seizure durations visually to show a potential increase in severity over time (i.e. length of time of seizures getting longer, etc.)
- patterns of seizures on what time of day they occur most frequently during (i.e. 1-3am, 4-7am, etc.
- patterns of seizures on what time of year their frequency increases or decreases etc.
- flags for long seizure, very long seizure, cluster type seizures, etc.
This is a big ask of this community, but any guidance is appreciated. I don’t want to look back and have a headache if my columns and tables set up prevent my app from being scalable in the future.
Thanks.
Yes, a select list of 1440 items isn’t going to work in this scenario, especially as Glide has a scroll limit of 100 items in a choice component.
My immediate thought here is to have separate pick lists for hours and minutes, and then add those to the selected date before saving. I think it wouldn’t be too difficult to modify the logic in my template to do that.
I don’t have time right now (as I’m about to head out for the weekend), but if this is something you’d like to pursue, let me know and I can cobble together a modified template early next week.