Creating a Countdown

Sometimes you want to present a simple countdown on screen. 10, 9, 8, 7... and so on. Screen Monkey allows you to do this in a few simple steps with the text clip.

1. Begin by adding a new Text clip.
2. Next, click the Edit pencil icon in the Template area to open the display style editor.
3. At this point it is good idea to create a new template. Click the New icon in the top right of the window and the New Template dialog will appear.
4. Type the name you wish to use to identify the template and click OK.
5. If all you want is a simple countdown, you may wish to remove the Main Text captoin object as this will help avoid confusion. Click the item labeled Main Text to select it, then click the Delete icon. You will be prompted if you are sure. Click OK to confirm.
6. Click the New Text Caption Objects drop-down and choose Countdown.
7. The New Caption dialog pops up prompting for a name.
8. Type a Name to identify your Countdown object and click ok.
9. The object will appear with a preview of the countdown. Don't worry if it says 'Invalid Time'.
10. Use the toolbar Font, Colour, Fill, Align buttons to make the countdown look as you would like. You can also set a background colour or image.
11. Click OK to dismiss the Display Style dialog.
12. Type a countdown value into to Cue dialog, eg '10:00' for 10 minutes.
13. Click OK to dismiss the Edit Cue dialog.
14. Open the Live Monitor Preview if it is not already visible.
15. Play the clip to see the countdown!
16. If you need to pause, reset, increase or decrease the value you can do this directly from the Live Monitor.
17. The default is to countdown in seconds, however this can be changed to minutes and seconds or any other time format in the format section of the display style editor.