Create a countdown page

A countdown page holds one countdown at an address that does not change. Send that address in a message, drop it into an email or a calendar invite, and everyone who opens it watches the same numbers fall toward the same instant. Nothing has to be installed at their end and nothing has to be explained.

The embed covers the other half of the job: putting the same countdown inside a page you already run. Two snippets are offered because sites differ. The script snippet inserts a frame and keeps its height in step with the content, so the countdown fits whatever column you drop it into. The plain iframe snippet is there for sites that will not run third-party scripts; it takes a fixed height and needs no JavaScript of its own. Both carry the title and the countdown, with your first text block and link button; photos, headings and the rest of the page stay on the page itself, one click away.

A countdown runs to an instant, not to a wall clock. You pick the time zone you mean — the field starts on the one your browser reports — and the page counts to that instant for every visitor. A reader in another country sees a different local time and exactly the same remaining time, which is the behavior you want the moment a page is shared past the room it was made in.

When the moment arrives the page does not break or empty itself. It carries on counting, upward, labeled as time since. Half the reason people share a countdown is to look back at it afterward, and a page that goes blank at zero loses that.

There is nothing to sign up for and no email address is asked for at any point. When you create a page, your browser keeps the key that lets you edit or delete it, and the pages you made are listed under the form.

That key lives in that browser only. Clear its storage and the page stays online exactly as it is, but you will no longer be able to change it. The address is a random identifier rather than the next number in a sequence, the page is marked noindex, and it is not in the sitemap or linked from anywhere on the site, so the only route in is the link you hand out. Deleting a page removes it for everyone at once, with no waiting period and no confirmation email.

Making a page, its permanent link, both embed snippets, editing it and deleting it are free, with no limit on how many you make. A free page carries a small "Made with Tauvio" line at the bottom, and its embed carries the same credit as a link under the countdown on your site; that credit is the whole of the difference.

Tauvio Pass changes three things: the mark comes off, the accent color is yours to set, and the page can show your own logo from an https image address you already host. Templates, photos, blocks and every other part of the look stay free, and a page made while you held the Pass keeps working if the Pass ever lapses. If you only need to watch a date approach in your own browser and have no one to send it to, the countdown timer does that from the address bar without creating anything.

The page is built from blocks, and the countdown is one of them. Around it you can add a heading, short paragraphs of text, a photo with a caption at one of three sizes, a gallery of two to four photos, a link button, a divider and some space, and move each one up or down until the order reads right. Three layouts rearrange what you have in one step: the countdown first, a photo first, or a centered story with the countdown in the middle. Each occasion template starts with a few empty blocks that suit it, and any block you leave empty is simply left out.

A page holds up to 12 blocks and 6 photos, counting the background photo if you use one. Every photo must have a short description, which is read aloud to visitors who cannot see it. Each one is decoded and saved again as a new file with its metadata removed, including any location a phone stored in it, and deleting the page deletes every photo on it. Text is plain text: line breaks are kept, nothing is turned into a link, and the only link on the page is the button you add.