New Plugin: TimeWise-Countdown, an inline deadline countdown

Plugins
1

Dear all,
I wrote a new plugin, mainly for my own use, called TimeWise Countdown. The code is here: Felix Hollederer / TimeWise Countdown · GitLab

As I did not find a form to officially submit my plugin for adding it to Joplin Plugins I will post it here.

And I welcome everyone to share their opinion and valuable feedback.
(As a new member I cannot share multiple links and images, so I will post the readme in a later post)

4 Likes
2

TimeWise Countdown

TimeWise Countdown is a plugin that continually calculates and displays the time remaining until a specified deadline.

Demo

TimeWise Countdown is a plugin that continually calculates and displays the time remaining until a specified deadline. It allows easy customization and formatting.

([Back to top](#top))

Usage

TimeWise Countdown identifies special deadline markers in your text and replaces them with a live countdown. The markers follow this format:

[output](d[DEADLINE]{TEMPLATE})
  • output: The parsed template output
  • DEADLINE: The target time; if this date/time has passed, the plugin shows zeros.
    • Supported deadline formats:
      1. year-month-day:hour-minute (e.g., 2025-12-31:13-45)
      2. year-month-day (e.g., 2025-12-31)
      3. hour-minute (e.g., 13-45)
      4. Short years (less than 100) are interpreted as 20xx. For example, 25-12-31 -> 2025-12-31.
  • TEMPLATE: Specifies how the remaining time should be displayed. Separate tokens with underscores ( _ becomes a space).

Template Tokens

Each letter indicates how to count down:

  • y = Years
  • m = Months
  • w = Weeks
  • d = Days
  • H = Hours
  • M = Minutes

All non-token text (e.g., years, days, minutes) remains literal. For example:

y_years_d_days_M_minutes

could output something like 1 years 9 days 30 minutes.

Examples

  1. Full Date-Time

    [](d[2025-01-10:14-00]{y_years_d_days_H_hours})
    • Suppose today is 2024-01-01 00:00.
    • This might display: [1 years 9 days 14 hours](d[2025-01-10:14-00]{y_years_d_days_H_hours})

  2. Date Only

    [](d[2025-01-10]{m_months_d_days})
    • With a current date of 2024-01-01, you might see: [12 months 9 days](d[2025-01-10]{m_months_d_days}).

  3. Time Only

    [](d[15-30]{H_hours_M_minutes})
    • If it's currently 09:00, it could show: [6 hours 30 minutes](d[15-30]{H_hours_M_minutes}).

  4. Short Year

    [](d[25-01-01]{y_years_m_months})
    • Interpreted as 2025-01-01, so if we're in 2024-01-01, that might be: [1 years 0 months](d[25-01-01]{y_years_m_months}).

  5. Week Calculation

    [](d[2024-02-15]{w_weeks_d_days})
    • If only a few weeks remain until Feb 15, 2024, this might read: [2 weeks 3 days](...).

  6. Past Deadlines

    • If the deadline is in the past, all tokens become zero, e.g.:
    [](d[2023-12-31]{y_years_d_days_H_hours})

    becomes:

    [0 years 0 days 0 hours](d[2023-12-31]{y_years_d_days_H_hours})
([Back to top](#top))

Build

Prerequisites

Make sure you have Node.js (and npm) installed.

npm install npm@latest -g

Installation

  1. Clone the repo

    git clone https://gitlab.com/flxholle/timewise-countdown.git

  2. Install NPM packages

    npm install

  3. Build the plugin: The plugin is built using Webpack, which creates the compiled code in /dist

    npm run dist

  4. (Optional) Change git remote url to avoid accidental pushes to the base project

    git remote set-url origin https://gitlab.com/flxholle/timewise-countdown.git
git remote -v # confirm the changes
([Back to top](#top))

Contributing

Contributions make open source amazing. If you have an idea or fix, please:

  1. Fork the Project
  2. Create a new branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
  3. Commit changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
  4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
  5. Open a Pull Request
([Back to top](#top))

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.txt for details.

5 Likes
3

I also published the plugin in npm: joplin-plugin-timewise-countdown - npm
If there is anything more I can do to get this added to Joplin Plugins please let me know

1 Like
4

Great job @flxholle, really loved this plugin.

I think @personalizedrefriger can help you with that.

5

The plugin is now available in Joplin: Joplin Plugins - TimeWise Countdown :tada:

5 Likes
6

Thanks a lot for this convenient and clever plugin.

I thought it didn't work, but you have to leave and come back to the note to have the result.
Nice job.

7

Yes, unfortunately if it would update immediately, it wouldn't let you finish typing the date, but immediately overwrite it with the first text matching the format

1 Like
8

Hey all, I added a count-up feature, that was suggested via a direct message.
In this mode the days are counted up, since a specific date has passed, e.g. good for tracking birthdays.
It works by using the letter u (for up) instead: [output](u[STARTDATE]{TEMPLATE}).
A longer explanation is in the README

9

FYI. If, while within Joplin, I go to Tools > Options > Plugins and search for timewise and then click on the link for the plugin, it does not go to a project page showing how it is used. Instead it leads to your more "these are the projects I am working on" page and I couldn't find TimeWise in that list of projects very readily. Plus, I had to translate it. (Heh. But that is not a big deal anymore.)

Anyway. The link on the plugin installation section of the application should lead to somewhere more sensible.

10

Thanks. I didnt know that, I thought that homepage is for the homepage of the developer (me), because there is also a repository_url (see here)
I will change it in the next update

1 Like