Digital Workshop

OK, I can start a clock. But how to get it to show? I assumed it would appear in the "show" tab once created, but nooooo.

I've read the help file on clocks, but I do not see anything about how to show or hide one. I did not leave the "format" chooser blank, so that it is not it. Obviously there are many, if not most, cases where you don't want the clock to display so I can see why this is not the default.

Anyway, what is the "show" command for a clock object?

Dave

Insert the variable that you associated with the clock into any text object.

Duhhhhh....

Thanks, Duncan

Well, that worked but did not achieve my end.

I want to display the current day, date, hours, minutes, and seconds.

Thu, 28 Sept, 15:42:05

I assumed (I do too much of that) I'd simply place the variables in a text box separated by punctuation and spacing. Doesn't work. Variables get screwed up. Placing each one in a separate box works, but WHAT a chore to line up all those itty bitty boxes with a colon or apostrophe with the variables for each time unit.

Surely there is a better way?

Dave

You can insert multiple variables into one text box. See the attached example for what you are trying to achieve.

Note that there is an action on the text object to format the system time variable (which are numbers) into new versions with leading zeroes if necessary (i.e. strings). If you copy this to another publication you will have to make new variables and update the actions and text object to match.

Duncan:
Thanks. I presume spaces or returns cannot be placed between variables in a text box? I did basically the same thing but things got screwy when I added returns or spaces. Characters refused to delete, things were repeated, etc.

Dave

You can put anything you want between variables. I think there may be some cases where inserting multiple variables at once can confuse things. simply enter a variable, add a separator (space, return whatever) and then insert the next variable.