Question

What I’d like to accomplish is a countdown that updates live… like this:

6 Days (just the days)

12 Hours (just hours within 1 day)

59 Minutes (just minutes within 1 hour)

59 Seconds (just seconds within 1 minute)

Best way to accomplish this?

Answer 1

You can find a working example at http://jsfiddle.net/gaby/QH6X8/79/

var end = new Date('15 Dec 2010');

var _second = 1000;
var _minute = _second * 60;
var _hour = _minute * 60;
var _day = _hour *24

var timer;

function showRemaining()
{
    var now = new Date();
    var distance = end - now;
    if (distance < 0 ) {
       // handle expiry here..
       clearInterval( timer ); // stop the timer from continuing ..
       alert('Expired'); // alert a message that the timer has expired..
    }
    var days = Math.floor(distance / _day);
    var hours = Math.floor( (distance % _day ) / _hour );
    var minutes = Math.floor( (distance % _hour) / _minute );
    var seconds = Math.floor( (distance % _minute) / _second );

    var countdownElement = document.getElementById('countdown');
    countdownElement.innerHTML = 'Days: ' + days + '<br />';
    countdownElement.innerHTML += 'Hours: ' + hours+ '<br />';
    countdownElement.innerHTML += 'Minutes: ' + minutes+ '<br />';
    countdownElement.innerHTML += 'Seconds: ' + seconds+ '<br />';
}

timer = setInterval(showRemaining, 1000);