Timers in depth

Your first show sets one timer’s length. This page covers the rest of the timer dialog, in the order it is laid out: how a timer starts, how its time is counted, what the screens do on the way to zero, and how you change a timer while it runs. Open the dialog by choosing the pencil beside a timer in the rundown and then More options, or Add timer in the heading for a new one. The pencil edits the title and, where the timer has a length, that length in place, and the last row of the rundown adds a title and length without the dialog. It has four sections. The dialog’s submit button, Save when you edit a timer and Add timer when you create one, sends the fields; Apply to all under Appearance and the three apply items in the Actions menu send their own settings at once, as described below.

Title, speaker, and notes

A timer has a title, a speaker, and notes. The title and the speaker show on the screens. The notes are for you: they stay on the controller and never reach a screen. A timer can also have labels, short tags such as “keynote”, which the dialog offers again from the ones already used in the room.

How a timer starts

Under Start, choose one of three triggers.

• Manual. The timer starts when you press Start. This is the default, and the right one for most sessions: it starts when the stage is ready, and a session that runs over shows its overtime instead of being cut off by the next timer.
• Linked. The timer starts by itself at the instant the timer before it reaches zero, with no gap and no drift. You can still start it earlier with the button.
• Scheduled. The timer starts by itself at a time you choose, in the room’s time zone. You can give a date as well. A time with no date means its next occurrence. You can still start it earlier with the button.

Linked and scheduled starts happen on CueStride’s server, so they need no controller open anywhere. A start that falls due while another timer is running is skipped, and that scheduled occurrence is used up, so it stays skipped when the stage is free: start the next session yourself. A paused timer is not running, so a scheduled start that falls due then starts and takes its place. A linked start is different: it is the handoff when the timer before reaches zero.

Below the trigger, a sentence says what will happen, such as “Starts at 9:00:00 PM today” or “Triggered when the previous timer reaches 0:00.”

Day. A timer can belong to a day. It then sits in that day’s section of the rundown and of the room’s agenda. A scheduled timer’s day is the date of its start, and the field follows it. For the other triggers you can choose the day freely. A new timer lands at the end of the day you added it from.

How its time is counted

Under Duration, choose a mode.

• Duration. The timer counts a length you set, in hours, minutes, and seconds. A new timer is ten minutes.
• Target time. The timer ends at a clock time you choose, and an optional date. CueStride works out the length when the timer is cued, and again when it is reset. Use it for “the doors open at nine” rather than “forty minutes from when I press Start”.
• Time warp. The timer runs for its real length, while the screens show a different one: the length the speaker sees. A twenty-minute slot shown as five minutes counts the speaker’s clock at a quarter of real speed, and the dialog’s speed line says “Sped up × 0.25”; a slot shown as longer than it is runs the speaker’s clock faster, at twice real speed for ten minutes shown as twenty, and the speed line then says “Slowed down × 2.00”. The wrap-up colours and times follow the speaker’s clock, the one on the screen. A warp is the speaker’s: the preview and the timeline show the speaker’s clock, and the backstage board shows the real time left.

Below the mode, choose the appearance of the clock on the screens.

• Countdown and Count up, the time left or the time passed.
• Time of day, which shows the clock in the room’s time zone instead of the digits.
• Countdown + time of day and Count up + time of day, the digits with the time of day beneath.
• Hidden, which shows the time of day as the large line in the digits’ place, with the title above it and the speaker under it, and no progress bar.

Apply to all sends the appearance to every timer in the room at once; the dialog’s submit button, Save when you edit a timer and Add timer when you create one, sends the rest. A sentence under it says how the timer will run, for example when it ends and what it counts down from.

Wrap-up times, chimes, and flashes

A timer warns the speaker as the time runs out. The digits and the progress bar are green while there is plenty of time, turn yellow at the yellow time, and turn red at the red time. Past zero the clock keeps counting, in red, with a minus sign, so an overrun is plain to everyone in the room.

In the dialog, a bar shows the green, yellow, and red stretches in proportion. Under it, set the yellow and red times, in whole seconds. Yellow’s time is at or above red’s, so yellow comes first or at the same moment. A time that is not below the timer’s length is ignored for that timer, so a short timer needs shorter times.

Each moment of a timer has its own row: Start, Yellow, Red, and 0:00. For each you choose a chime, None, Soft, Bell, or Alarm, with a preview button, and a flash, from ×0 to ×5 blinks of the digits. Each screen performs the moment once, when it happens. A screen that connects mid-phase does not replay the moments it missed.

Browsers only allow sound after a tap, so a screen that has never been touched shows a small control to enable sound, once. The choice is remembered on that device.

The Actions menu has four shortcuts. Set wrap-up times to 0:00 fills the fields, and the dialog’s submit button, Save or Add timer, sends them. Apply wrap-up times to all timers, Apply chime settings to all timers, and Apply flash settings to all timers send at once, to every timer in the room.

The progress bar

The bar on a screen spans the timer’s whole length in its wrap-up colours: green, then yellow from the yellow time, then red from the red time. Time runs from left to right. The part that has passed is dimmed, and a small white marker stands at the current moment. In overtime the whole bar is dimmed with the marker at the right end. Timers that show only the time of day, or are hidden, have no bar.

The time always fits the screen: a long line, such as an hour in overtime, shrinks to the width instead of running off the edge.

Change a timer while it runs

You never need to stop a show to change it.

• Add or take away time. In Adjust time, the -1m and +1m buttons move the finish by a real minute; on a warped timer the speaker’s digits move by that minute times the warp, and the same holds for the amount beside them and the custom field. A second pair of buttons moves it by the amount in the menu beside them: a second, ten seconds, thirty seconds, a minute, five minutes, or ten minutes. To use your own, type it in the custom field, such as 2:30. It works while the timer runs, while it is paused, and while it is idle. Taking away more than remains puts the timer straight into overtime.
• Drag the timeline. The timeline under the preview moves the playhead to any moment without changing the timer’s length.
• Edit the settings. Changing the length, mode, or target of a timer that is idle updates its clock at once. Changing them while it runs or is paused leaves the clock as it is until you reset the timer.
• Reset. Brings the clock back to the full length, stopped at the start, and the rundown marks the timer Ready.

The keys do the same from the keyboard: Space starts and stops, R resets, N or the right arrow steps to the next timer, P or the left arrow resets the running timer and steps to the previous one once it is stopped, the plus and minus keys add and take away a minute, B blacks out every screen, and F flashes the digits. They are off while you type in a field.

The rundown

A room holds 3 timers on Starter, and the plans set more. Drag a timer by its handle to reorder it, within its day; the Day field moves it to another day, to the end of that day. Duplicate copies a timer with its settings. Delete removes it: deleting the timer that is cued cues the next, or the previous when it was last, and clears the clock when it was the only one. Next while a timer runs stops it and cues the next, across days as well; Previous resets a running timer, and once it is stopped steps back one.