Improving timer performance?

1

I’m trying to create a task-management system that tracks the time spent on tasks. I’ve been using a button in the “task” table to create an entry in my “time tracking” table. I’m calculating the duration from the start time of each entry using Now() in order to see create a timer that shows how much time I’ve spent on a task, even before finishing it.

Turns out the performance of the system degrades quickly as I add more entries. I’ve played around with adding a separate “middleman” table to track time for ongoing tasks and get rid of the Now()-formula in the larger table of tracking entries, but the performance is still poor.

Any ideas of how I can create a time tracker that performs better? Is there any way to inactivate the formula in all rows that have an end time logged?

Here is an MVP with the basic functionality I want:
MVP doc

2

hi @Bjorn_Hansell ,

I am not the expert on performance issues. What I understood is this:

  • the Now() function is demanding, so to get rid of her is a good idea for it calculates every second on every row the ‘now’.
  • the many buttons also slow down the document, it is a rather well known issue the coda team works on.

I guess others have more concrete ideas :wink:

cheers, christiaan

3

Fair point @Christiaan_Huizer. I actually don’t need a new value each second, minute by minute would be perfectly fine. Any idea of code that could achieve that without using Now()?

[Edit] I found this post that solves my problem: PSA: Replace Now() with a lower-resolution real time clock for heavy formulas