Create a countdown page

A countdown page holds one countdown at an address that never changes. Send that address in a message, drop it into an email, or put it on an invite, and everyone who opens it watches the same numbers fall toward the same instant. There is nothing for them to install and nothing you need to explain.

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 are built differently. The script snippet drops in a frame and keeps its height in step with the content, so the countdown fits whatever column you place it in. The plain iframe snippet is for a site 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, wherever they are logging in from. A reader on the other side of the world sees a different local clock time and the exact same remaining time, which is the behavior you want the moment a page gets shared past the room it was made in.

When the moment arrives, the page does not go blank or reset itself. It keeps counting, upward this time, labeled as time since. Half the reason people share a countdown is to look back at it afterward, and a page that empties out at zero loses that.

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

That key lives in that one browser only. Clear its storage and the page stays online exactly as it is, but you will no longer be able to change it from there. The address itself 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 — the only way in is the link you hand out. Deleting a page takes it down for everyone at once, with no waiting period and no confirmation email to click through.

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

Tauvio Pass changes three things: the mark comes off, you choose the accent color, 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 you made while holding the Pass keeps working even if the Pass later lapses. If you only need to watch a date approach in your own browser with no one to send it to, the countdown timer already does that straight from the address bar, no page to create.

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 can't 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.