6 ms·

Show HN: Real time updating gif countdown with automatic time zone detection.

38 points by mape 13y ago

relix 13y ago
That's genius. Nicely done!
namenotrequired 13y ago
This will help us a lot at deviantART in the Community Relations team, we organise many chat events etc. for a global community and if we can embed this in our announcements that would be extremely helpful. I'll share it with the rest of the team, thank you! Small question about your UI, why is the image link so tiny? Isn't it the main point of the page to get that link? It might also be easier for many people to get direct image HTML instead of the URL that they'll have to figure out to use.
sturmeh 13y ago
The only issue is that the gif is streaming, which means the page is never 'ready'. Also I didn't look into it, but wouldn't bandwidth be an issue if people left these running in backgrounded tabs?
- jaseemabid 13y ago
  Yup! bandwidth is a major issue.
- jaseemabid 13y ago
  Yup! bandwidth is a major issue.
- mtarnovan 13y ago
  It's completely unusable given the size. In 30 seconds it streamed 120kb and it probably never stops streaming (until the countdown ends)
- leviathan 13y ago
  That will also never work in mobile safari since it doesn't play gifs until they finish downloading.
  - pronoiac 13y ago
    The maker replied to me in a comment below - it won't work in Mobile Safari, but now it only sends the first frame, so the page will finish loading and it won't eat up bandwidth.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- mape 13y ago
  The gif is set to only update for 2 minutes. That ends up being around 470KB. If the size or "page never loading" is an issue you have the option to turn of animations when creating the countdown.
Drakim 13y ago
I am confused, what is the actual advantage of having the countdown be a gif compared to HTML+JavaScript? For video and remote desktop there might be use for the kinds of gifs, but for a numeral countdown?
- speeq 13y ago
  I would use such a gif in a blog post as an announcement for something. "Site will be up again at 8pm. (gif)", "Get 25% off in 1 hour (gif)"
- mape 13y ago
  The use case for it is things like forums, where you are limited in what you can embed.
bmmayer1 13y ago
So if I wanted to count down to the release of Arrested Development I could...wait nvm.
pronoiac 13y ago
Bummer - iOS 6 wants to load the whole file before switching to the second frame, so this won't work there.
- mape 13y ago
  I added a check so now it only sends the first frame to iOS devices.
gasda 13y ago
It shows my timezone as Australia in the preview? I'm in US/Pacific time zone $ date Sun May 26 12:10:52 PDT 2013
- UberMouse 13y ago
  Pretty sure it just defaults to Australia, since I also had Australia.

38 points by mape 13y ago

relix 13y ago

That's genius. Nicely done!

This will help us a lot at deviantART in the Community Relations team, we organise many chat events etc. for a global community and if we can embed this in our announcements that would be extremely helpful. I'll share it with the rest of the team, thank you! Small question about your UI, why is the image link so tiny? Isn't it the main point of the page to get that link? It might also be easier for many people to get direct image HTML instead of the URL that they'll have to figure out to use.

sturmeh 13y ago

The only issue is that the gif is streaming, which means the page is never 'ready'. Also I didn't look into it, but wouldn't bandwidth be an issue if people left these running in backgrounded tabs?

jaseemabid 13y ago
Yup! bandwidth is a major issue.
jaseemabid 13y ago
Yup! bandwidth is a major issue.
mtarnovan 13y ago
It's completely unusable given the size. In 30 seconds it streamed 120kb and it probably never stops streaming (until the countdown ends)
leviathan 13y ago
That will also never work in mobile safari since it doesn't play gifs until they finish downloading.
- pronoiac 13y ago
  The maker replied to me in a comment below - it won't work in Mobile Safari, but now it only sends the first frame, so the page will finish loading and it won't eat up bandwidth.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
mape 13y ago
The gif is set to only update for 2 minutes. That ends up being around 470KB. If the size or "page never loading" is an issue you have the option to turn of animations when creating the countdown.

Drakim 13y ago

I am confused, what is the actual advantage of having the countdown be a gif compared to HTML+JavaScript? For video and remote desktop there might be use for the kinds of gifs, but for a numeral countdown?

speeq 13y ago
I would use such a gif in a blog post as an announcement for something. "Site will be up again at 8pm. (gif)", "Get 25% off in 1 hour (gif)"
mape 13y ago
The use case for it is things like forums, where you are limited in what you can embed.

bmmayer1 13y ago

So if I wanted to count down to the release of Arrested Development I could...wait nvm.

pronoiac 13y ago

Bummer - iOS 6 wants to load the whole file before switching to the second frame, so this won't work there.

mape 13y ago
I added a check so now it only sends the first frame to iOS devices.

gasda 13y ago

It shows my timezone as Australia in the preview? I'm in US/Pacific time zone $ date Sun May 26 12:10:52 PDT 2013

UberMouse 13y ago
Pretty sure it just defaults to Australia, since I also had Australia.