Put a Countdown Timer In Your Signature About This Page:

[Jennifer Marx]

How to Add a Countdown Timer to Your Signature

This tutorial explains how to create a countdown timer that will appear in your signature when you post. This is a multi-page tutorial -- use the Contents box above or the page numbers at the bottom to navigate.

All registered members may create and add a countdown timer to their signature. Countdown timers are a fun way to look forward to a special event, such as a Disney vacation!

Show Printable Version of this Tutorial

Here's how to create a countdown timer:

Go to My Home Click the My Home link -- it is on the far left end of the orange bar at the top of every PassPorter Community page. Important Note: If you haven't already created a signature, do so now -- without a signature, you cannot have a countdown timer. Click here for help creating a signature.

Open Your Options Once you're in My Home, click the Edit Options link in the menu on the left side of the screen. A list of various options and settings for your message board account will appear.

Edit Your Countdown Once you're in Edit Options, scroll to the bottom of the window, and type in the necessary information for your countdown timer according to the onscreen directions. Do not use symbols like ampersand (&) or quotes (',") in your countdown text.

Here is a screen shot of Captain Jack's countdown settings:

Save Your Countdown Once you've entered your countdown information, click Save Changes. Your countdown timer should appear at the bottom of your signature (as seen in posts) immediately.

Test Your Countdown To test your countdown, go to The Driveway forum, create a new topic, and check your signature for your countdown. If it worked, you'll see something like this:

Troubleshooting Tips

Be sure you have information in your signature. Without something in your signature -- even just your name -- the countdown timer can't be put in it. You can edit your signature in My Home > Edit Signature.

Does your countdown seem off? Make sure you don't have the month and day mixed up in your options.

Do not use the ampersand (&) or quotes (" or ') anywhere in your ticker (i.e., the event or end message) -- if you do, the countdown will not display.

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How to Add an External Countdown Timer

You can also add countdown tickers from other places on the web, such as TickerFactory.com or MouseHouseMagic.com. Here's what you do:

Find and Configure a Ticker You'll need to follow the directions of the external countdown ticker for setup. When your setup is complete, you should be given code to copy and paste -- look for the bbCode option and copy all the code in the box. Here's an example of code options at TickerFactory.com:

Insert Your Ticker With your ticker code copied, return to the PassPorter message boards, click My Home, then click Edit Signature. Paste the code into your signature editor as shown below, then click Save Signature.

Your countdown ticker should now appear in your signature whenever you post -- you can test it out in The Driveway forum. This is how the sample ticker we created in this tutorial appears:



Check out more tutorials in the PassPorter Tutorial Collection.