Optimise time tracking for Mac and iPad version

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to improve a time tracking table for our photography community projects to be used on Macs and iPads. It should show the name, day and time. Something like this:
Name  |  Day/Date  |  start time  |  finisch time
In Numbers 09 I formatted start and finis as durations like 10:30 to 14:30 and calculated the duration. Numbers 3 doesn't  handle this format for input, only 0h 0m which isn't common in our region to display time.
When I use the "time" format (which can be input as 00:00), the iPad version will still ask for the date (in all three columns). The date can be ignored at input (automaticlly set to today) when using only the hours and minutes for further calculation, but then I'll have to explain why it doesn't matter to have a different dates in the "day" and "time" columns.
Any ideas for a better way to handle this?
p.

Answer 1

Hi papalapapp,
I don't know whether you have noticed that Numbers 3 is smart (sometimes too smart) about recognizing strings (text) as dates and times.  This may be an instance where its smartness can work to your advantage.
So in this table, for example, the Date column is formatted as Date & Time, StartTime and FinishTime columns as Text, and Time Elapsed as Duration. As you can see from the formula, Numbers happily calculates the duration between the strings in FinishTime and StartTime.
This enables you to enter the times in your preferred format (as I understand it).  On the iPad the date picker won't activate in those columns (because they're formatted as Text) but the times are quite easily typed in the preferred format and you don't need to worry about different dates appearing in those columns.
SG