Specials Board Widget
Put your daily specials, happy hours and deals of the day on your website as a chalkboard or a clean card. Show the whole week with today highlighted, or switch to today-only mode so visitors see just what is on now - worked out in your shop's own time zone.
Live preview
Under the widget on your page: Powered by A2Z Tools
Embed code
<iframe src="https://a2z.tools/embed/w/specials-board" title="Specials Board by A2Z Tools" width="100%" height="1002" style="border:0;width:100%" loading="lazy" allow="clipboard-write"></iframe>
A plain iframe. Works everywhere, including site builders that strip scripts. Adjust height if your content needs more room.
<div data-a2z-widget="specials-board" data-height="1002"></div> <script async src="https://a2z.tools/embed.js"></script>
Adds a small script (what it does) that sizes the widget to fit its content, loads it lazily and keeps it isolated from your page's CSS.
Works with
How it works
Write a heading for each day - ## Monday, ## Tue, ## Thursdays - and the offers under it as item | price | note lines. A heading named Every day, Everyday, Daily or All week belongs to every day; any other heading, such as ## Drinks, is an ordinary section. In the default week mode every section shows and today's carries a Today tag. In today mode the board keeps only today's section and the every-day one, choosing today with the Intl weekday of the current instant in your IANA zone, so a cafe in Auckland flips to Friday at its own midnight even for a visitor in Los Angeles who is still on Thursday afternoon. The weekday is re-read every minute (paused while the tab is hidden). On a day with nothing listed, a live board folds the frame to zero height and returns the next day that has specials. Plain-number prices pass through your currency and locale - 6.50 becomes £6.50 for GBP - while words such as Half price stay as written.
Method
- Heading -> day: Sunday..Saturday, sun..sat, tue/tues, wed/weds, thu/thur/thurs, plural -s allowed; every day / everyday / daily / all week -> every day
- Today = Intl.DateTimeFormat('en-US', { weekday: 'short', timeZone: zone }) at Date.now(), checked each minute
- Today mode = sections whose day is today + every-day sections; none -> frame collapses to 0 px (not in the builder preview)
- Price: strip currency symbol/code; 1,250 -> 1250; 4,50 -> 4.50; a number -> currency format (0 decimals when every price is whole), otherwise the text as typed
Worked examples
Time zone decides the day
Inputs: zone Pacific/Auckland; now 2026-10-01 12:00 UTC; mode today
Result: Friday section + Every day section
Auckland is UTC+13 after 27 September 2026, so it is 01:00 on Friday there.
Heading recognition
Inputs: ## Tues. / ## Thursdays / ## Everyday / ## Drinks
Result: Tuesday / Thursday / every day / plain section
Trailing dots and a plural s are ignored; Drinks is not a day.
Price formatting
Inputs: 6.50 and Half price, currency GBP, locale en-GB
Result: £6.50 and Half price
Only plain numbers are formatted as money.
Limitations
- Day names must be English; Lundi or Montag headings are treated as ordinary sections.
- It knows weekdays only - no dates, so a one-off special has to be added and removed by hand.
- Collapsing to zero height needs the A2Z loader script; a fixed-height iframe keeps its space on empty days.
Where publishers use it
- A cafe posting a dish of the day and an all-week breakfast deal
- A pub or bar with a different happy hour or quiz-night offer each weekday
- A bakery or deli listing which bread or pie is baked on which day
- A takeaway or food truck showing tonight's special in today-only mode on its home page
- A shop running Tuesday senior discounts and Friday flash deals
Questions
Which headings count as days?
English weekday names in full or short form, in any capital letters, with an optional plural s and trailing dot or colon: Monday, Mon, Mondays, Tue, Tues, Wed, Weds, Thu, Thur, Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun. Every day, Everyday, Daily and All week apply to every day. Text after a vertical bar is a note under the heading, for example ## Friday | Live music from 20:00.
Why set the business time zone?
So the board changes day at your own midnight. Without it the visitor's zone is used. At 12:00 UTC on Thursday 1 October 2026 it is already 01:00 on Friday in Auckland (New Zealand daylight time, UTC+13) and only 05:00 on Thursday in Los Angeles; with the zone set to Pacific/Auckland every visitor sees the Friday specials.
What happens on a day with no specials in today mode?
On your live site the widget tells the loader script that it has nothing to show and the frame folds to zero height, so no empty box sits on the page; it reappears the next day that has offers. In the builder preview it stays visible with a note so you can see what happened. With a plain fixed-height iframe the space stays, so use the loader script for this mode.
How are prices formatted?
A price that is just a number, optionally with a currency sign, is written in the currency and locale you pick in the builder: 6.50 becomes £6.50 for GBP or 6,50 € for EUR with a French locale, and prices lose their decimals when every price on the board is a whole number. Anything else - 2 for 1, Half price, From 5 - is shown exactly as typed.
Will the chalkboard style suit a dark website?
Yes. The chalkboard is a dark slate panel with a wooden edge in both themes, so it reads the same on light and dark pages; the clean style follows the theme instead, with the today card outlined in your accent colour. Headings on the chalkboard use a handwriting font already installed on the device (Segoe Print on Windows, Chalkboard SE on Apple devices), never a downloaded web font.
Sources
- Time Zone Database - IANA . Zone names and daylight-saving rules the browser uses to find the weekday in the business's zone. Checked 2026-10-01.
Cite or recommend this tool
If you reference this tool in an article, course or documentation, these formats are ready to copy. They are optional - nothing is added to your site unless you paste it.
A2Z Tools Specials Board https://a2z.tools/embed/specials-board
<a href="https://a2z.tools/embed/specials-board">A2Z Tools Specials Board</a>
[A2Z Tools Specials Board](https://a2z.tools/embed/specials-board)
Specials Board by A2Z Tools - https://a2z.tools/embed/specials-board
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