The Service Countdown feature can manually or automatically display the time till a service begins on all slides. Use the "Show Countdown" button to immediately place a message on the screen on top of anything already being displayed. You can also specify an Auto-Start time that will cause Projector to automatically display the countdown at the selected number of hours & minutes before the service begins.
The service countdown will remain on the screen until the countdown expires, at which point it will automatically disappear. You can also manually hide the countdown with the "Hide Countdown" button (or the Edit -> Hide Countdown menu item on the Mac).
Countdown Settings
The Service Countdown can be adjusted in Projector Settings.
- Service Countdown is disabled by default, so you must first enable it if you want to use the feature.
- Tap Settings to adjust when and how your countdown is presented:
- By default, the Countdown Text is set to Service starts in. You can change this default if desired.
The Countdown Auto-Start controls when a service countdown will automatically appear for the currently displayed plan in Projector
- The default is to auto-start the countdown 15 minutes prior to the service starting.
- You can adjust this up to 23 hours and 59 minutes
- If you set to 0 hour and 0 minutes, the service countdown will not be displayed automatically.
The Countdown Position defaults to the lower left of the screen (same default as Alert feature). In this example I have selected the lower right of the screen so that both Alert and Countdown can be shown without conflict.
| Note: You can always manually display and hide the service countdown, even if Auto-Start is disabled. |
(scroll down to fully see the Countdown Background setting)
The default is white text with no background (like the Alert) but you can also choose to show a black background around the alert or a white background with black text. In this example I have chosen white background with black text.
Manual Use: Tap the Show Countdown button
| Note: On the iPhone, you tap the "C" button at the upper right of the "Now Playing" window, and on the Mac you can also select the Edit -> Show Countdown menu item. |
The service countdown is shown
In this example, the countdown shows "00:00:00" because the service has already started.
In the next example, the countdown shows a correct time till service starts, because the service is yet to begin:
On the iPad, the countdown button now says, "Hide Countdown", and is highlighted in orange when a countdown is shown on the screen. Tap the button again to turn the countdown off.
On the iPhone, the "C" button is highlighted in green when a countdown is shown on the screen. Tap the button again to turn the countdown off.
- (On the Mac, you can also use the Edit -> Hide Countdown menu item)
Feature Limitations
| Note: Only one plan start time (the latest start time) is used by the Countdown feature of Projector. If you have multiple start times configured for a plan, then the countdown feature will not work properly for the earlier start times. To mitigate this limitation, you can create separate plans, each with their own start time if you want to use the Countdown feature for multiple start times. |