TABLE OF CONTENTS


Want to know how many days are left until Christmas or your Birthday, or do you just want to know how many days it has been since you opened your Business or since the New Year? Then the Countdown/Count Up Timer block, available on your Custom Screen (Paid Subscriptions only), is the way to go.



With this block you can keep track of your special days all in one block, and here is how to do it.


Add a Countdown/Count-Up Timer Block:

First, open the Custom Screen you want to add the block to then click Add a Block. From there you can either search for the block or find it under the tools section as seen below:



Once you have the block in place you can simply add a date and the timer will begin. If the Date is in the past it will Count Up from it and if it is in the Future it will Countdown to it. In the Image below, you can see that we have a Count Up timer counting the days since January 1st, 2023, and a Countdown timer, ticking off the Days until February 24th, 2024.



There are several formats you can use when entering the Day and Time you want your timer to run from or to. Examples are listed below:

  1. January 1, 2023 this will run to or from the date only
  2. January 1, 2023 5:00 pm This will run to or from the specified date and time
  3. tomorrow This will run until tomorrow at midnight
  4. tomorrow 5:00 pm This will run until tomorrow at 5:00 pm
  5. Friday 5:00 pm This will run until this coming Friday at 5:00 pm


These examples can be found on the edit page by clicking the Show Formatting Help dropdown seen below:

We have several other options you can use as well. You have the option to show the Days, Hours, Minutes, and Seconds by adding a Check next to each value you want to display. You can check the Click to Reset option on your Timer which will Zero out your timer to the exact second you clicked it on a Touchscreen or with an attached mouse. The option Show As Negative allows the timer to count past the end of the scheduled time and displays the value of time as a negative number.


Rules:

In the Rules tab of your Block Edit page, you can set the timer to have special effects based on how long since the timer began or how long before the timer ends. These rules will apply to all Timers running in the same block. If you need different effects for each timer, create an additional Timer block. The Rules can be a bit complex because they follow the IF/THEN boolean logic method. The rule system works as follows:


Timer Expired {is greater than} XX: 



What we label as Greater Than refers to "all-time after" the value XX in minutes in relation to the Expiration Point of the timer. For a Count Up this would mean that if you set XX to be 15, anything after 15 minutes from the Start point would display the added effects. 


With a Countdown timer, however, the Value would be anything after the Timer expires so when you get to 15 Minutes past the end of the timer, the effects will be added. You can use this by making the XX value a negative value. For Example, if you want the added effects to show up 15 minutes before the countdown completes, set the value to -15


Timer Expired {is less than} XX:



The Less Than statement refers to "all-time before" the value XX in minutes in relation to the Expiration Point of the timer. For a Count Up timer, this does nothing, but for a Count Down timer, this will apply the added effects to the Timer until you reach the time before the end of the Countdown. For example, if you set the XX to be 15 your added effects will be on the timer until 15 minutes before its end.


Once the IF statement is reached, the THEN statement applies the effects you choose. In the THEN primary option, you have the following options:

  • Hide Counter: This will disable the counter and hide all of its attributes. NOTE: No other options will work if this is selected
  • Set Background Color: This will change the background around the counter attributes, and not the entire block.
  • Set Text Color: This will change the color of the Text on the counter.


You can add extra options by clicking AND under the THEN statement. These options are as follows:

  • Stop Counting: This option shows that the countdown has come to an end because of the conditions of the IF statement
  • Hide Counter: This will disable the counter and hide all of its attributes. NOTE: No other options will work if this is selected
  • Set Background Color: This will change the background around the counter attributes, and not the entire block.
  • Set Text Color: This will change the color of the Text on the counter.