Copyright: Copyright ® 1993 Aristosoft, Inc.


Talking Clock

Talking Clock displays the time of day. It can also announce the time of day and/or the date,
at user-specified intervals, as well as announce appointments set with Talking PIM. Additionally, Talking Clock can also play a chime or media element at a user-specified interval.

Setting Chimes

Saying the Time

Saying the Date

Saying Your Schedule

Changing Preferences

Changing Other Preferences

Setting Appointment Alarms


Setting Chimes

Talking Clock can announce the time and/or date. It can also play a chime or media element
at a user-specified interval.

The chime settings specify which sound to play for the chime and how frequently to play the chime.

Option	Function

Chime	The chime settings determine which sound to play.  "The time is…,"
"Big Ben," and "Cuckoo clock" have built-in sounds, while "Custom chime" requires specifying a media element to be played, using the Sound... button.

Say Time	If checked, Talking Clock announces the time after the chime plays.

Say Date	If checked, Talking Clock announces the date after the chime (but
before the time, if this item is checked) plays.

No Chime	If checked, Talking Clock does not play a chime.  This setting disables the Chime function.

Chime Every (interval)	The interval setting determines how often, in minutes, to play the chime.  For example, for an interval of 12, the chime plays at 12, 24, 36, and 48 minutes past the hour, each hour.

Sound	Lets you choose which media element to play for the Custom chime setting.

Test Chime	Lets you hear.

Note: If you want the time (or date) played, but don't want any other sound to play, choose "Custom chime" and select (none) as the media element to play.


Saying the Time

The Say Time button lets you make Talking Clock announce the time whenever you want.  If you want the time announced on a regular basis, specify a Chime and choose the "Say Time" option.


Saying the Date

The Say Date button lets you make Talking Clock announce the date whenever you want.  If you want the date announced on a regular basis, specify a Chime and choose the "Say Date" option.


Saying Your Schedule

The Say Schedule button lets you make Talking Clock announce today's schedule from appointments youve set from within Talking PIM.


Changing Perferences
Changing Preferences

The Preferences dialog lets you customize certain aspects of Talking Clock for your uses.

Option	Effect

Put off alarms…	Specifies how many minutes, by default, to put off alarms.  You can override this setting when Talking Clock announces the alarm.

Sound alarms…	Specifies how many minutes before an alarm's time to announce the alarm.  This is useful if you want "advance warning" for appointments set from within Talking PIM.

Repeat alarms…	If checked, all the alarms set to go off on the current day are announced each time Talking Clock loads.  Normally, they are announced only the first time Talking Clock loads on a given day.

Check old alarms	If checked, Talking Clock reminds you of alarms set to go off before
the morning of the current day.  Normally, Talking Clock reminds you of alarms for the current day only.  This setting's effect will be noticed most if you don't run Talking Clock for several days, then load it.

Hot key...	Specifies which key (or mouse action) causes Talking Clock to say
the time.  The hot key works no matter which Windows application
you are currently using.  Any key or mouse button, modified by holding down SHIFT, CTRL, or ALT, can be used as the hot key except TAB, SHIFT- TAB, ENTER, ESC, and BACKSPACE.

To specify the hot key, activate the hot key control using TAB or the mouse, then press the key or mouse button you want the hot key to be.  To disable the hot key, press BACKSPACE.

Voice setup	Lets you choose which voice Talking Clock uses to announce alarms.

Face setup	Lets you choose which animated face Talking Clock uses to announce alarms. Choose No face if you dont want an animated face to announce your alarms.

Autoload/Don't autoload	Turns autoloading on and off.  If on, Talking Clock loads whenever you start Windows.

Display Format	Lets you specify how to display the time when Talking Clock is an icon and when it is displayed normally.  Select a format from the lists, or type in your own.  See Time Display Formats for information on the format "pictures."

Normal icon	If this option is selected, Talking Clock's icon will have a caption beneath it, like most Windows icons.  Normally, Talking Clock doesn't display this caption.

Fonts and Effects…	Lets you change the font, size, style, and color for the currently-shown window state.  The example shows what the selected font and format will look like.  The normal and minimized options are entirely separate.


Time Display Formats

You can specify a custom date and time format for use in Talking Clock by entering a format string.  To specify these formats, you create time and date "pictures," similar to formatting strings in Microsoft Excel.  An example of a formatted time will appear.  See Time Format Examples for examples of different time formats.

The following are characters that can appear in time and date pictures:

Characters	Effect

h	Hour (12-hour format)

hh	Hour (12-hour format) with a preceding zero

H	Hour (24-hour format)

HH	Hour (24-hour format) with a preceding zero

m	Minutes, if after an hour, without a preceding zero.  Otherwise, the month in numerical form without a preceding zero (4, 11, etc.)

mm	Month (04,11, etc.)

mmm	Month (Jan., Feb., etc.)

mmmm	Month (January, February, etc.)

d	Day (03, 14, etc.)

dd	Day (3, 14, etc.)

ddd	Weekday (Mon., Tue., etc.)

dddd	Weekday (Monday, Tuesday, etc.)

y or yy	Year (94)

yyyy	Year (1994)

a	a or p

aa	am or pm

_	Line break.  This can be used to put different parts of the time or date on different lines.

Note that as, m's, and d's can be capitalized to captialize the resulting string.

Other characters in the format string, such as : or -, can be used between these special date
and time strings.  If you'd like to have a special character appear, precede it with a backslash (\).  To include a backslash, include two backslashes (\\).


Time Format Examples

All these examples show how various time and date format strings show September 9, 1994 at 3:09 pm:

Format String	Resulting Display

h:mm aa	3:09 pm

HHmm	1509

m/d/yy	9/9/94

mm/dd/y	09/09/94

mmm d, yyyy	Sept. 9, 1994

dd MMMM yy	09 SEPTEMBER 94

mmmm d, yyyy h:mm a

September 9, 1994 3:09 p

\D\a\y: d/m/y	Day: 9/9/94

\Hour: h:mm	Hour: 3:09

mmmm d, yyyy_h:mm a

September 9, 1994 3:09 p


Changing Other Preferences

In addition to the options available through the Preferences… dialog, additional options can be selected from Talking Clocks Control menu.

Option	Effect

Always on top	Lets you always display Talking Clock's window above other windows.  This is useful to keep the time always visible.

Hide Controls	Hides the five buttons in Talking Clock's main window, as well as Talking Clock's caption (title) bar.  When they are hidden, you can still access their functionality by using their keyboard equivalents.

Once the controls are hidden, you can restore them by double-clicking Talking Clocks window.  When the controls are hidden, you can move Talking Clock by clicking anywhere on it and dragging it around.

Note: You can click the time area of Talking Clock with the SECONDARY MOUSE button or double-click with the PRIMARY MOUSE button to toggle Hide Controls on and off.


Setting Alarms
Setting Appointment Alarms

Talking Clock plays alarms for appointments set through Talking PIMs graphical interface. Please refer to the online Help for Talking PIM for information about setting appointment alarms.


Media Element

A media element is any multimedia file, such as a sound file (waveform or MIDI), a video clip (such as AVI), or a Windows bitmap.  If you have the speech synthesis module, text files are also treated as media elements--they will be read by the synthesis engine when played.  Generally, Talking Clock lets you specify and play any type of media element for a chime when you choose the Custom chime setting. Talking Clock also plays any type of media element when it plays alarms set for appointments (set from within Talking PIM).