Ten Key parsing for time fields

[Jarvis]

We use the computer for task/time tracking but the crew still punches in and out for their pay with a manual timeclock and cardboard time sheets.

The specific start/stop times are keyed into an excel spreadsheet for calculating total hours for the week. I would like to convert this process from excel to filemaker.

I would like to know if there is a way to enter this data with just using the ten key part of the keyboard. The movie in my head makes it look like this:

0345P = 3:45 PM

1057A = 10:57 AM

What I am trying to avoid is having to hold down the shift key (while searching for the colon key) in order to separate the first two numerals from the second two. It would be much easier for a one finger typist (like myself) to enter the data if I could just hit four numbers and one suffix.

In a nutshell, what I am trying to do is: parse the first two numbers to equal hour and the second two to equal minutes (plus the suffix (A) or (P) to mean pre or post midnight.

Can anybody help me here?

Thanks,

Jarvis

[comment]

I did something similar to this once, but I used the decimal point as a separator. That way you don't have to enter leading or trailing zeros (e.g. 9:30 is entered as 9.3).

Anyway, to convert what you have now to time result, you can use:

Time (

Left ( entryField ; 2 ) + 12 * ( Right ( entryField ; 1 ) = "p" ) ;

Middle ( entryField ; 3 ; 2 ) ;

0 )

[Jarvis]

Thanks for your help Comment!

I will try that.

Jarvis