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I need an input in a website where users can input something in a cron expression style, eg.
Every friday at 3pm
What would be the best ui system to implement this? Are there any conventions for this sort of thing?
I originally thought of a series of dropdown boxes, but I'm not sure how versatile that would be
You might need to be a bit more specific about the scenario you're building for - but calendars with recurring appointments are probably a good fit.
Outlook 2013
Google Calendar
Since you specified best UI, unless you meant UX, I will try to give an example that not only works well but looks good too. A natural language form would be an good example of this.
Demo Here: http://tympanus.net/Tutorials/NaturalLanguageForm/
For this you can turn the expression into a natural sounding sentence so it is more easily understood and looks good. The underlined elements are dropdown choices that allow you to easily set up your expression. Yours could read something like:
Set me a reminder for every Friday at 7:00pm.
every being a dropdown of: this/every
Friday being a dropdown of: Monday/Tuesday/.../Friday
7:00pm being a dropdown of: 12:00pm/.../12:00am
