Annotating
Countdown
A shrinking ring that visualises a running clock — the quiz format's timer, usable anywhere.
A ring that empties as a number counts down. Press d and click.
It exists because a quiz needs one, but it is an ordinary annotation like any other — anchored to a candle, selectable, draggable, deletable.
It carries its own clock
The countdown's duration is its own field, not a reading of whatever pause happens to sit on the same column.
Why it is not bound to the pause
A ring bound to a pause would silently draw nothing the moment you dragged it to a column
that has no pause — an invalid state with no error and no visible cause. Its own seconds
means it is always a valid object; keeping it in step with a pause is then your decision and
a visible one.
In practice you usually do want them to match: place a pause of n seconds and a countdown of n seconds on the same candle, so the chart is frozen for exactly as long as the ring runs.
Size
One handle, which sets the radius. Unlike text — where a scale factor makes sense — a radius already is a distance, so the handle maps straight onto it.
The radius is measured in the same units as type, so it stays proportional when you switch aspect ratio.
Colours
Three, and they are separate for a reason:
- Track — the full ring, the part still to come.
- Arc — the part consumed so far.
- Number — the digits in the middle.
A dim track with a bright arc reads as time running out. The reverse reads as a progress bar filling up, which is the opposite feeling.
Timing
The usual three fields. The clock starts at the countdown's own effective appear time, and it is computed from the scene clock — so preview and export tick identically, and scrubbing back and forth does not desynchronise it.