Time Entry with Input Mask

[Jxsmith]

I'm setting up an input form, and a couple of the fields are times. I want to set up the form so that a user can just type "453" to get 4:53, but no matter what I think of, Access always populates the field as 45:3_. I'm using a mask: 90:00, and I've tried including every variation of "!" that I can come up with.

I'm new to Access, having previously used Excel & VBA for this sort of stuff, so nothing is intuitive.



Thanks

[CJ_London]

You haven't said what you have tried but I believe input masks require a predetermined number of characters. See this link https://support.office.com/en-us/art...2-4a47832de8da

You will need to train your users to input 0453

if you are planning to use this value in a calculation of some sort note that time is stored as a decimal value - the number of seconds for the time divided by the number of seconds in the day (86400) so 4:53 will be

((4*60*60)+(53*60))/86400=0.203

[isladogs]

Input masks are often more of a nuisance than a help.

If, as you should be, you are using a form to enter the time, I suggest you use the method found on most phones these days.
Have two combos -hours with all values from 0 to 23 and minutes with 0 to 59.
Then use code to combine and display as 04:53 etc

[Jxsmith]

Sorry, I think my original point was missed. I want Access to do what I want it to do, not change our functioning method of doing things to suit the program. If the solution to ‘train my users’ was acceptable then I could just do this in Excel.

Am I really asking for something so unusual? Surely someone has needed to input numbers like this before: the user enters three or four digits, which results in a short time format.

[isladogs]

I don't think your point was missed.
Sometimes there are better ways of doing things than using input masks.
Times are one such example

[Missinglinq]

...I want Access to do what I want it to do, not change our functioning method of doing things to suit the program...

As any experienced programmer will tell you, regardless of the language being used, you have to work within the rules and native abilities of that language, unless you're willing to do custom programming, if the language allows! Fortunately, Access does allow for custom programming, and I think the only practical way of doing this is to do your formatting using the Control's AfterUpdate event.

Something like this:

Private Sub TimeField_AfterUpdate()
 
 Select Case Len(Me.TimeField)
 
 Case 2
   
   Me.TimeField = ":" & Right(Me.TimeField, 2)
  
  Case 3
   
   Me.TimeField = Left(Me.TimeField, 1) & ":" & Right(Me.TimeField, 2)
 
  Case 4
   
   Me.TimeField = Left(Me.TimeField, 2) & ":" & Right(Me.TimeField, 2)

 End Select
 
End Sub

Note a couple of things about this approach:

The Field will need to be redefined as Text...you cannot enter a series of digits into a Field defined as Date/Time...Access won't allow it.

Because of this...in order to use the Field for calculations involving Time, you'll have to use Type Conversion, using CDate(Me.TimeField).

...Surely someone has needed to input numbers like this before...

Actually, I've been answering questions on this, and half a dozen other Access forums, for a dozen years, now, and have never seen anyone presenting with this need! But to each their own!

Linq ;0)>

[CJ_London]

If the solution to ‘train my users’ was acceptable

just to be clear - what if the time is 4 hours dead - do you train users to enter 400 or are you expecting access to interpret this as 4 hours and not 4 minutes?

you could create four controls, each one to accept a single character and in the onchange event automatically move to the next control

I could just do this in Excel.

As I'm sure you know, excel does not have input masks, but it does have custom formats - and you can use those to display an entry of 453 as 4:53 - just the same as Access. And as with excel, you will need code to convert that to date/time if you are going to use the value in a calculation. And you still need to train your users to enter 400 for 4 hours dead.