Why are times so difficult to handle in Adalo?

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1

I’m banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what intuitively is a simple question but cannot seem to wrap my head around how to make it work in adalo:

If it is between 12:00am PST and 6:00am PST make button NOT visible.
If it is outside of 12am PST and 6amPST make button VISIBLE.

Why do all time functions have to be relative like 2 hours from now or 4 hours ago? My understanding is that Adalo uses UTC+0 and then converts “current time” to the USER’s time zone.

My user case is as follows: I have a live chat with an agent button that is staffed from 6am - 11pm PST. if the current time is within that window i want the option to use chat to be available. If the current time is between 11:01p and 5:59a, i don’t want that option shown. How do I accomplish this with all of the relative time variables in Adalo?

This would be SOOOOO simple if i could simply set my chat button to be “sometimes visible” > “between” > “6a - 11p” but putting an absolute time in the “between” filter does not seem to work. Any thoughts?

2

Hello. I’ve been there. There is a paid component out there, but it didn’t work for me and the support wasn’t there. The trick is to make the button a list as it gives you more options on what can appear as to changing the visibility. This could be different if the chat button is in a list of chat operators. If it’s just a general chat button follow the instructions below.

First, create a database. Call it Chat Button for example. It needs two records. Both number fields. One is the start time and one is the end time.

For the start time enter .25 (this is 6:00 AM)
For the end time enter 1 (this is 12:00 AM)

Make the button a list of “Chat Buttons.” Set a filter to “Current Time” > “Is Between” > Start Time & End Time

That should be it!

3

If you want to change the end time to test it out, this is how you do it.

To end at 3:00 PM (there’s no reason to wait till midnight for testing!), divide 15/24. 15 is from 12+3. Think military time. 15/24 = .625

Enter .625 in the end time.