Inline math in billable time fields yields blank 'time spent' value

Hey there,

Just noticed a minor bug/inconsistency in the UI.
In every numerical field aware of, it’s possible to do inline equations and let Manager figure out the result for that field. However, if you do this in the hours or minutes fields of a billable time entry and then hit “Create” or “Update”, the entry has no “time spent” value; when you then edit that entry, the fields are blank.
I understand it’s possibly a bit of a niche use-case, but I figure it might as well behave consistently with other numerical fields, right?

Manager v21.7.28

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I assume it would be a numerical field since it’s used in calculations.

But are you looking for numeric calculations or datetime calculations?

Please share a screenshot for whatever you’re trying to achieve.

The Hours and Minutes fields are not ordinary, unrestricted number fields. Unlike those that accept formulae, these include stepper controls (notice the up and down arrows) and a step size definition. They accept only numerical characters. You will also notice they do not accept decimal values, but truncate any that are entered. Formulae would interfere with this scheme.

So, not a bug, but a deliberate design choice based on the expected form of input.

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Thanks for the explanation there, that completely makes sense as a reason for it being deliberate.
However, I would like to add that a string of additions (or subtractions*) typed into the box/es wouldn’t break the scheme you describe, given they can only yield whole values, and the minutes box accepts values greater than 59.
I understand it’s a niche, but it would save a step (using another calculator) in situations where it’s preferable to have multiple time recordings entered to manager as one.

An additional suggestion from a UI/UX perspective; if addition/subtraction cannot/will not be supported here, it would be ideal to have a UI element (static or dynamic) which warns you that inputting a string of values like this is disallowed, or even to flat out make it impossible to type any non-numerical characters hence preventing the sum (or even decimals) from being typed (I notice this is already partially the case as letters cannot be typed). Either solution would prevent the current issue where no error is thrown and you’re left with a blank entry if you don’t specifically check it after hitting “create”/“update” (which of course you shouldn’t need to when working with the perception that the software is reliable/dependable, which I’m sure all of us do with Manager).

For clarity’s/completeness’s sake, @Ealfardan, here are the specific boxes and a simplified example typed into it:
image
Of course, this isn’t a difficult sum, though entering three or more values to sum is likely quicker than solving it first for many people.

*I do appreciate that subtraction is even more of a super-niche use case here, I only reference it due to its whole-number result behaviour being comparable to addition.