How to Display Real-time Opening Status Automatically - Using MB Views

After a project of building a website for booking tables with several restaurants for a client, we realized that having a real-time-opening-status is a brilliant feature on this kind of site. So, I’d like to share a way to display the real-time opening status dynamically and automatically right now on this post. I did it easily with the help of MB Views from Meta Box. Let’s see how now!

For the demonstration purposes, I’ll put the status with the opening hours like this:

We already had tutorials on how to have the fields for saving the opening hour, and how to display them on the page. So, in this practice, we will pay heed to learn how to make the status real-time only.

Video Version

Before Getting Started

Each restaurant is a separate post of a custom post type and has its own opening time slots.

To let visitors know it’s open or closed right at the time when they see the board, the status must be real-time based on comparing the current time and the opening hours set as in the board. All the information related to the opening time of the restaurant, store, or office, will be saved in custom fields created with Meta Box.

So, we need to have the Meta Box plugin to have a framework to create the custom post type and custom fields. You can install it directly from wordpress.org.

Besides, we should have some Meta Box extensions for the advanced features:

• MB Custom Post Type: to create a custom post type for the restaurants;
• MB Views: to create a template to display the opening time and the restaurant status;
• Meta Box Builder: to have a UI on the backend to create the custom fields visually.

Furthermore, there are some other extensions you may want to use to have the appropriate structure of the custom fields such as group, conditional logic. We mentioned them in detail in other tutorials on showing opening hours.

You can install them individually, or use Meta Box AIO to have them all.

Now, let’s embark on step by step.

Create Custom Fields for Opening Time

As I said before, we need to have custom fields to save the time slots.

Go to Meta Box > Custom Fields, and create a new field group for the opening time.

We have had another tutorial on how to have them and display the timing information in detail as I mentioned, so you should refer to them for more details of this step and concept.

I’m going to create typical and quite simple groups of fields for this practice following this structure.

No matter what the structure of the fields, the concept of having real-time status still is the same.

After creating all the fields, don’t forget to set the location to apply the field group. Then, go to the post editor to input opening hours.

Display the Real-time Status

You need to have a single page to display detailed information about each restaurant, including the section on their opening hours. You can refer to this tutorial on how to display this timing information. In this practice, I made the page already in order to focus on how to have the real-time status based on those timing slots.

Someone uses static text for it and then changes it manually. But it is not optimal. The purpose of this tutorial is to display the real-time opening status dynamically. It means that the status will turn between Open and Close automatically. For that, we will use Javascript to compare the current time with the time slots saved in custom fields. Let’s do it now!

Step 1: Get the Time Slots

First, we should have a new view to get all the time slots.

Go to Meta Box > Views, and create a new view.

In the Template tab, click on the Insert Field button and look for the fields where we save the timing information since they are saved in custom fields.

The start time and end time are in cloneable groups so there will be a loop added into the template.

When we insert the field of time slot, Meta Box will offer some options for the output.

We should choose Custom in this case, and set the format of timing data as the below image. It is the format that will be used in JavaScript later.

We will save the Type of this view as Shortcode. The generated shortcode will be used for the page template.

Right on the place where we put the status, add a Shortcode element.

Insert the shortcode into the box.

Then on the page, we will see a list of time slots displayed.

Step 2: Convert Time Slots Data to a JavaScript Object

Back to the view to create some arrays to include all the time slots along with their date.

{% set timeArray = [] %}
{% for clone in post.custom_time %}
    {% set timeSlotsArray= [] %}
    {% for clone in clone.choose_time_slots %}
        {% set timeSlotsArray = timeSlotsArray|merge([ {'start_time':clone.start_time | date( 'H.i' ),'end_time':clone.end_time | date( 'H.i' )} ] ) %}
    {% endfor %}
    {% set timeArray = timeArray|merge([ { 'day':clone.day.value, 'timeSlots':timeSlotsArray} ]) %}
{% endfor %}

In there:

• {% set timeArray = [] %}: is the array to include all the day along with their time slots.
• {% set timeSlotsArray = timeSlotsArray|merge([ {'start_time':clone.start_time | date( 'H.i' ),'end_time':clone.end_time | date( 'H.i' )} ] ) %}: is the array to join the start time and end time of a time slot.
• {% set timeSlotsArray= [] %}: is the array to include all the set of time slots of a day.
• {% set timeArray = timeArray|merge([ { 'day':clone.day.value, 'timeSlots':timeSlotsArray} ]) %}: is the array to include all those sets of time of a day, with the name of the day they are.

Then, add these lines of code:

<div id="time" data-time='{{timeArray|json_encode()}}'>
    <div id="restaurant-status"></div>
</div>

Explanation:

• time: is an HTML ID we set.
• data-time: is the attribute which is transferred from the timeArray array. It and the time ID will be used for using JavaScript later.
• restaurant-status: is the ID we create to display the status.

The context of the status and its style will be stipulated in the next step.

Step 3: Add JavaScript to Compare Current Time with Time Slots

Move on to the JavaScript tab of the view, and add the following code:

var getTimeElement = document.getElementById("time");
var TimeObject = JSON.parse(getTimeElement.getAttribute("data-time"));
// Short day
var date = new Date();
Date.shortDays = ['Sun', 'Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat'];
function short_Days(date) {
    return Date.shortDays[date.getDay()];
}
// Get time now
var now = date.getHours() + "." + date.getMinutes();

// Loop TimeObject
TimeObject.forEach(function (elm) {

    if (elm.day == short_Days(date)) {

        var timeSlots = elm.timeSlots

        var statusArray = [];
        timeSlots.forEach(function (elm) {
            if (parseFloat(now) > parseFloat(elm.start_time) && parseFloat(now) < parseFloat(elm.end_time)) {
                statusArray.push('open')
            } else {
                statusArray.push('close')
            }
        })

        if (statusArray.includes('open')) {
            document.getElementById("restaurant-status").innerHTML = `OPEN`;
        } else {
            document.getElementById("restaurant-status").innerHTML = `CLOSE`;
        }

    }
})

Let’s dig into each part for details.

Get Data of Time Slots

var getTimeElement = document.getElementById("time");
var TimeObject = JSON.parse(getTimeElement.getAttribute("data-time"));

These lines are to get all the data that we save in the arrays through the time ID and data-time attribute which was set in the previous step.

Get Current Time

// Short day
var date = new Date();
Date.shortDays = ['Sun', 'Mon', 'Tue', 'Wed', 'Thu', 'Fri', 'Sat'];
function short_Days(date) {
    return Date.shortDays[date.getDay()];
}

This part is to create a function to get the current day.

• date = new Date() (line4): is the variation we created for the current day.
• getDay() (line 7): is to get the current day.
• return Date.shortDays[date.getDay()]: is to convert the current day into the short form as we indicated in the 5th line.

var now = date.getHours() + "." + date.getMinutes();

This part is to get the current time.

The current time with the hour and minute, and is transferred to the now attribute. This data will be used for the condition in the next part.

Compare Current Time with Time Slots

if (elm.day == short_Days(date)) {

    var timeSlots = elm.timeSlots

    var statusArray = [];
    timeSlots.forEach(function (elm) {
        if (parseFloat(now) > parseFloat(elm.start_time) && parseFloat(now) < parseFloat(elm.end_time)) {
            statusArray.push('open')
        } else {
            statusArray.push('close')
        }
    })

    if (statusArray.includes('open')) {
        document.getElementById("restaurant-status").innerHTML = `OPEN`;
    } else {
        document.getElementById("restaurant-status").innerHTML = `CLOSE`;
    }

}

• if (elm.day == short_Days(date)) {: is to check which day we set in the custom field is the current day. Then, the time slots of that day will be checked, then compared with the current time.
• var statusArray = []: is to create the attribute for the status and set it as empty by default.
• if (parseFloat(now) > parseFloat(elm.start_time) && parseFloat(now) < parseFloat(elm.end_time)) {: is to compare the start time and end time with the current time through the now attribute.

If the current time meets the condition, the open value will be pushed into the array of status. Otherwise, if the current time doesn’t meet the condition, the close value will be pushed into the array.

Push the Status

if (statusArray.includes('open')) {
    document.getElementById("restaurant-status").innerHTML = `OPEN`;
} else {
    document.getElementById("restaurant-status").innerHTML = `CLOSE`;
}

This part is to regulate the context added to the restaurant-status HTML ID based on the value transferred to the array. We created this ID in the template before. This context is the text we display on the page for the status.

To style the text, you can use some CSS.

That’s done. All the code is updated on GitHub for your reference.

Now, let’s check how it works.

Assuming that it’s 11:30 on Friday. Then the status will be Close. Because on Friday, the restaurant is open from 7 to 11 o’clock.

If you change the time slots saved in the custom field. Then, the status turned to Open automatically.

So, the status works well.

Last Words

We hope that this tutorial is helpful for you.

You can combine this tutorial with the series on displaying opening hours to create a section that provides comprehensive information about the opening times for your customers. It will make it more convenient for them to check and make reservations or contact your restaurant/office/store.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to share them in the comments. Thanks for reading.

• How to Display Opening Hours for Restaurants - P1 - Using Meta Box + Gutenberg
• How to Display Opening Hours for Restaurants - P2 - Using Meta Box and Oxygen
• How to Display Opening Hours for Restaurants - P3 - Using Meta Box and Bricks
• How to Display Real-time Opening Status Automatically - Using MB Views