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Thread: Countdown timer for a single question

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
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    3,328

    Countdown timer for a single question

    [edited from support email]
    I'm wondering if there is a way to have the on-screen countdown timer for just one item within a questionnaire, rather than for the entire questionnaire... I realize you can set the duration time for a single item, but I would really like to have a visible countdown as well.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
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    3,328
    No, but you can make a questionnaire with just one item in it--would that do it for you?

    [edited follow up]

    Thanks for the quick response. No, that wouldn't really do it, unless there is some way it could automatically queue a second questionnaire so that the experiment could continue without interruption... I don't suppose there is any way to do that, is there?
    Yes, you could use an experiment (.exp) file--have you used one of those before? You can just list your questionnaires for a given condition in there. And then they'll all be presented back to back when you run that condition.

    Yes, that would definitely work. I had been under the impression that only one file could be specified per condition in the experiment file, but given that this is not the case, my problem is solved. Thanks again for your help!
    Did this all work out ok for you?

    Yes, it all worked out perfectly... it's doing exactly what I wanted it to. Thanks for the help, and for making such an amazing research tool!

    Last edited by jarvis24; 10-02-2006 at 07:49 PM.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2005
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    3,328
    [edited from support email]

    Quick question... I am having some troubles with the countdown clock. In the parameters box, I put in (d-60) for a essay question. However, when I try the questionnaire out, the clock is not present (also the question does not cut off after the 60 sec limit either). I am not sure why this is occurring. Also, is it possible in the above scenario to get the clock to popup with only 10 sec left, instead of for the whole 60 secs (I feel that is probably not possible, right)? Thanks
    Re: countdown for a single item, see discussion above.

    Re: a partial countdown: Currently, the timer will be on display the whole time. However, as an alternative, you could embed some simple HTML as a background to the essay question. Do a quick google search on "html countdown timer" and I sure you find some code. Display a blank html area as a background (see BackGround in the guide for details). Have it automatically advance to a second HTML page after 50 seconds which could be your 10 second countdown timer. If anybody dares to try this, please post the the html here--it would be a nice sample for others!

    -Blair

    thanks for the quick responses. Your solution was a good idea but I do not know anything about html. What i did was to embed a background track that told participant how much time was left. Also another suggestion from a collegue was to show a video clip of a clock counting down.
    Last edited by jarvis24; 10-02-2006 at 07:49 PM.

  4. #4

    having an onscreen countdown timer

    From the posting above, it looks like Jarvis is saying that you can have a visable countdown timer for a questionnaire (with either 1 or several items in the questionnaire). This sounds great - and exactly what I am looking for. But I can't figure out how the program the onscreen countdown timer. I've looked in the 2008 manual - but don't see any relevant info in there.

    Any help would be appreciated. THanks!

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Sep 2010
    Posts
    4
    If it's sufficient to have the coundown timer on a HTML-Page inside a custom-Item you could use a little Javascript inside the page.
    Code:
    <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd">
    <html>
    <head>
    <title></title>
    <meta name="author" content="stef">

    <script type="text/javascript">
    sec=60;
    min=2;
    function count()
    {

    sec--;
    document.test.tmp.value=min;
    document.test.tmp1.value=sec;

    if(sec>0)
    {
    setTimeout('count()',1000);
    }
    else
    {
    if(min>0)
    {
    min--;
    sec=60;
    setTimeout('count()',1000);
    }
    else
    {
    alert('finish');
    }
    }

    }

    </script>
    </head>
    <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#FF0000" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#FF0000">
    <form method="post" name="test">
    <input type="text" name="tmp" readonly /> minutes and <input type="text" name="tmp1" readonly/> seconds to go<br />
    <input type="button" name="varname" value="Continue" onclick="count()">
    </form>
    </body>
    </html>
    This will start the countdown after clicking the Continue-Button.
    If you wish to start the countdown automatically just replace

    <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#FF0000" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#FF0000">
    with

    <body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#FF0000" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#FF0000" onload="count()">
    And if you wish to proceed to the next item right after the countdown finished
    replace

    alert('finish');
    with

    document.test.submit();
    To set the time just edit the line
    min=2;
    Don't change
    sec=60;
    unless you want less then a minute.
    of course you can implement this code in every HTML-Site you want and place the Counters everywhere.

    That's it

    Regards
    stef

  6. #6
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