[SOLVED] accepting multiple times design

[rempires]

Okay, so here is pretty much what I'm trying to figure out how to design. I have a website that will allow restaurants, shopping, and other buildings to insert the times they are open. My problem is i can't figure out a good design for doing this, here's the problem.  Most places are not open the same hours all 7 days of the week so i just can't ask for a static open-close time, most vary on Saturday and Sunday and some even on Monday and Friday or whatever.  So i need to think of a way of doing this that looks nice. I don't want 14 drop down boxes (one for opening time, one for lcosing time for each day [7X2=14=not very nice looking]). so i'm trying to figure out a way that will allow users to enter that information in a way that looks nice and works.

 

If anyone has an suggestions it would be very much appreciated. Sorry if this in in the wrong forums, it seemed to be about the best fit to me : :-\

 

thaks,

john

 

p.s. i was thinking a textarea that would allow the users to enter the day and time, then with php edit and pull out all that info and format it, but the user could format it so many different ways i could never think of them all.... ex: monday, MONDAY, Monday Mon, mon, mon. Mon., ... and that's just for 1 day of the week, plus it doesn't seem like it would be very "user-friendly"

 

[trq]

I seriously think the lots of text fileds idea is going to be the most reliable. Having users enter data manually will meen they'll need to stick to a certain formet so you can process the data. Users generally have a hard time doing so.

[roopurt18]

I would give the user a series of rows that are formatted like this:

 

{sel_days_s} to {sel_days_e} from {sel_hour_o} : {sel_min_o} {sel_ampm_o} to {sel_hour_c} : {sel_min_c} {sel_ampm_c}

 

Each of the {...} represents a drop down field.  You place the days of the week Mon. through Sun. in the sel_days_[s|e], the hours of the day in sel_hour_[o|c], and fifteen minute increments in the sel_min_[o|c] fields.

 

When the user fills out the form, if they select a start day but no end day, then they are defining the hours for a single day.  If they select a start and an end day then they are defining the hours for a range of days.  You could just pre-load the page with 5 or 6 rows of inputs or this would also be a good place for some DOM-manipulating Javascript to allow the user to add and delete rows as necessary.

[rempires]

thanks guys for the help, i'm gonna try a few different way to see what fits with the design, roopurt18 thanks for that that is probably what I'll end up using with a few minor mods to fit the current design the best. i can't believe that javascript never crossed my mind for that, specially because i use it in ways like that for other areas....