Some Days before the Diablo III Beta-Patch 15 the Game wasn't available, so I and many other People hang out in the Battle.net Forums! And there was one Question asked very frequently: "How long does it take until Diablo III will be released?". Well thats the Point where the Idea of a Countdown was born. But it should be a special Countdown, not like Countdown you can make in 3 Seconds on some Websites, and it should be reachable whenever its needed! So I decided to make a Windows-Gadget.

(Static image, see Countdown in action on Home page, top left.)

.. the Problem was: I never made a Windows-Gadget before. As I had no Idea how to make such a Gadget I looked for a Tutorial - and what I found made me really happy, because it can be written in simple HTML, JavaScript and CSS. Things I know well. Also making the Application is not difficult at all: All you need is a file gadget.xml and the other Stuff you made, pack them into a ZIP-Folder. Rename ot to *.gadget  - done!

So I got started and made the first Version:  It should be 210px x 168px, have a nice Diablo-III-Background and show the Time left for the Individual Machine-Time to 15.05.2012 00:00 a.m. !

First I published the direct download-link to the Gadget in the Battle.net Forums. But as it had more then 200 Downloads after one hour I decided to write a Blog on my Website, so the People following the link could always download the latest Version of the App - Because I already had some new Ideas on how to improve the Gadget, witch I couldn't afford to make in so few time.

After making the Blog I had to repost the Link in the Forums so People know about it and stop downloading the File with the direct-file-link. There was already really good Feedback, wich pushed me to make Version 1.1 of the App. I figured out how to use the Settings-Window witch is aviable in the Gadgets and added Options to hide Seconds and/or Milliseconds. I also added a cool Feature witch checks on the pi7.eu Server for new Updates and would notify the User, or even automatically apply some little changes.

At the Moment I published Version 1.1 there were already > 1000 Download on Version 1.0!!! The only ad Thing about this many Downloads was: people witch downloaded it wont be alerted for the new update, however Version 1.1 was also downloaded > 1000 times when Version 1.2 was ready.

Version 1.2 was basically a fix on the exact Time left until the Release. Blizzard confirmed me that the Release-Time is 15.05.2012 00:01 a.m. PDT for all Timezones and Regions! According to this I also added Information in the Settings when the exact Release-Time is for the User in his Timezone. For me in Germany its 09:01 a.m. CEST :/ But how ever, I'm gonna be able to get enough sleep, while in Los Angeles its Midnight 

Well however, I also wanted other People to be able to implement the Countdown on their Websites. The first Person asking for it was actually this Websites Admin! And btw. most of the other Diablo-III-Countdown-Copys are wrong, because of these Timezone-troubles!

Please Visit the Blog: http://pi7.eu/blog/128/Diablo-III-Countdown to Download! It would also motivate me if you share the Link via Forums and Social-Networks

Enjoy the Countdown - Happy Gaming!