Setting Value of Specific Keyframe of a Slider

Hi Kevin:

Thanks for writing back. Luckily the project wasn't tied to a deadline so I could apply the "let it sit a bit and go back to it later" since banging my head against the desk and trying to make sense of a lot of posts weren't sinking in. 

After combining a few tips across several posts with similar but not quite the same issue, I think I managed to get what I wanted done.

Basically, I had to create an adjustment layer with one slider control to display the counter and another slider control for the value the counter would stop at.  Then I set three key frames on the slider control (which I called Number) that displayed the number where I wanted it to increase and decrease.  So in my case, the first keyframe was set at 0, the second keyframe was at some high number, and the third keyframe I just defaulted it to 0 for now.  Then in the expression for that same slider, I inserted the following expression:

lastval = thisComp.layer("Controls").effect("MaxValue")("Slider")

t2 = key(2).time;

t3 = key(3).time;

if (numKeys == 3) {

    if (time < key(1).time) {

        value;

    } else if (time < t3-t2) {

        linear(time,key(1).time,t3-t2,key(1).value,key(2).value);

    } else {

        linear(time,t3-t2,key(3).time,key(2).value,lastval);

    }

} else

    value;

Where MaxValue is the ultimate value I wanted the slider control to stop at, and Controls is my adjustment layer.  The Number control was then linked to a text layer that actually displayed the number counting up (and down) as appropriate.

This way I use the MaxValue slider value as the one that can be dynamically linked in Premiere, or via Essential Graphics.  Prior to this I was trying to assign it to the Number control (without the above expression) and was wondering why it was ignoring all my keyframed values (but now I realize why it was doing that... )

Again thanks for checking on this!

DJD