If your DB as a lots of records, you may find it usefull to visually spot at a glance what is late Vs what's not in your table views without creating built-in filters or sorting your tables.
The following enables create a colour indicator that's updated daily just playing with fields and without any code.
In the example the color indicator is set as a square, red for late and green for not late. this color square qualifies the status of a request (or todo) vs a set due date.
1. In Request object define a due date field
2. Find out a free button online generator.
in the following example http://dabuttonfactory.com/
3. Set the wished format in the bar code generator.
Enter the code value and set the type of button .
in this example, I set the type of button with no text as "rectangular" , size ; fixed width=20 length =20
I pick 1 red color in the color selector : f50025 and 1 green colour : 16c719
4. Check the URL of the button (ex: the green one)
it will display the png file url with the following structure : http://dabuttonfactory.com/b.png?t=&f=Calibri-Bold&ts=24&tc=ffffff&tshs=1&tshc=222222&it=png&c=0&bgt=unicolored&bgc=16c719&w=20&h=20
5. Create a short text field "Color indicator url 1" with default value :
6. Create a short text field "color indicator url 2" with default value : &w=20&h=20
7. Create a short text field "color code" with default value
16c719 (here we assume that the date a request is due is after the date it is placed. let's be reasonnable!)
8. Create a text combo field "Color code url"
"color indicator url 1" "color code" "Color indicator url 2"
9. Create an image field " Status"
option "load images from an external url"
and create a conditional rule : set "to a record value" : "Color code url"
10. In the DB view create a scheduled Task (available from "Pro" plan package)
Update : Daily
Action : "update each record"
when : "due date" "is before current time"
Value : set "color code" "to a custom value" f50025
11. Result after Task update.
Using this trick, the color indicator will be created as "green" on every request submission and the color status updated daily so you can immediately spot what's behind schedule...Too bad for Paul Smith..!
I hope you find it useful.