countdown timer woes

[wheeler]

hello

im trying to compare two times and initiate a countdown.

I can handle the php aspect fine, and can format the date into whatever format it needs to be - the problem comes about when I try and plug my date into javascript.

<script language="JavaScript">
TargetDate = "12/31/2020 5:00 AM";
BackColor = "palegreen";
ForeColor = "navy";
CountActive = true;
CountStepper = -1;
LeadingZero = true;
DisplayFormat = "%%D%% Days, %%H%% Hours, %%M%% Minutes, %%S%% Seconds.";
FinishMessage = "It is finally here!";
</script>

function calcage(secs, num1, num2) {
  s = ((Math.floor(secs/num1))%num2).toString();
  if (LeadingZero && s.length < 2)
    s = "0" + s;
  return "<b>" + s + "</b>";
}

function CountBack(secs) {
  if (secs < 0) {
    document.getElementById("cntdwn").innerHTML = FinishMessage;
    return;
  }
  DisplayStr = DisplayFormat.replace(/%%D%%/g, calcage(secs,86400,100000));
  DisplayStr = DisplayStr.replace(/%%H%%/g, calcage(secs,3600,24));
  DisplayStr = DisplayStr.replace(/%%M%%/g, calcage(secs,60,60));
  DisplayStr = DisplayStr.replace(/%%S%%/g, calcage(secs,1,60));

  document.getElementById("cntdwn").innerHTML = DisplayStr;
  if (CountActive)
    setTimeout("CountBack(" + (secs+CountStepper) + ")", SetTimeOutPeriod);
}

function putspan(backcolor, forecolor) {
 document.write("<span id='cntdwn' style='background-color:" + backcolor + 
                "; color:" + forecolor + "'></span>");
}

CountStepper = Math.ceil(CountStepper);
if (CountStepper == 0)
  CountActive = false;
var SetTimeOutPeriod = (Math.abs(CountStepper)-1)*1000 + 990;
putspan(BackColor, ForeColor);

// THIS IS THE RELEVANT PART ( I THINK)
var dthen = new Date(TargetDate);
var dnow = new Date();
//var dnow = new Date(<?php echo $start_date; ?>);
// END RELEVANT PART

if(CountStepper>0)
  ddiff = new Date(dnow-dthen);
else
  ddiff = new Date(dthen-dnow);
gsecs = Math.floor(ddiff.valueOf()/1000);
CountBack(gsecs);

so it seems that var dnow = new Date(); reads the users system time and sets the countdown based on that - I however need to use my server time which I grab with php.
How can I substitute the new Date(); with the php (as tried in the sample), but make it work? at present it is way, way, way off in the calculaton presumably because of the start date format.

I have tried:

var dnow = '11 27 2006 21:25:33';

and also

var dnow = '11/27/2006 9:20 PM';

[Dan Grossman]

Based on the code you've presented, I would assume this to work:

var dnow = new Date('11/27/2006 9:20 PM')

So make your PHP generated date string the argument for the javascript Date() constructor. Don't forget the quotes as you did in your commented out attempt.

[wheeler]

thankyou that did the trick, I spent alot of time stuffing around to realise that my php variable was not reaching the included JS file.