This is the follow-up on my previous freeware application “Talking Clock.” Just as the previous release, it requires the Speech Manager (MacinTalk II or Macintalk Pro) to be installed to work. A lot of other things have changed, however, including support for AppleScript™.
To de-install Talking Clock, remove it from the Startup Items folder of your hard disk (or wherever you store it) and throw away the Talking Clock Preferences file found in the Preferences folder in your System Folder.
Talking Clock Pro™ comes in two parts; a system extension (faceless background task, for you techies) that speaks the time every hour on the hour, and an ordinary (though small) application that you use to configure the extension, much like a control panel. The small application can also optionally show one or more clocks in a window.
To install Talking Clock Pro™, drag the Talking Clock Pro™ extension to your Extensions folder in your system folder, and drag the Talking Clock Pro™ Controller application to your control panels folder. Reboot. Now, every hour on the hour, your Mac will speak to you in the default system voice, and at midnight, it will speak the date as well. (Talking Clock did not work with the “Gala Tea” or MacinTalk Pro voices; Talking Clock Pro™ does if you set one of them to be the default voice.)
When you open the Controller, you can set some options, such as wether the clock should talk when you hold down option, shift, control, command or Caps Lock for about two seconds, and wether the clock should talk every five minutes as well. Closing the settings window sends the changes to the extension. The Controller will remain running, unless you manually choose "Quit" from the File menu.
Everytime you bring the Controller to the front using the Process Menu or by double-clicking on the Controller icon, the Extensions settings window will re-appear.
If you create one or more clock windows using "New Clock" they will run and show time wherever you place them. You can choose the font and size to use for display, as well as turn on or off seconds. You can also, at a slight performance and memory expense, choose to turn on "Smooth Updates" which will make the clock flicker less when it changes. Once that is done, you may (on color machines) turn on anti-alias to show the time using smoother numbers. This will make updates very slow if you have a large (>50 points) clock.
Holding down the option key while choosing "Larger" or "Smaller" will double or half the current font size.
The Talking Clock Pro™ Controller saves the open clock windows when it quits, so if you open a clock window and then quit the Controller without first closing the window, that window will re-appear once you start the Controller again. If you for compatibility or other reasons don't want to use an extension like SuperClock, you can instead put an alias to the Talking Clock Pro™ Controller in your Startup Items folder, and leave a clock window open where you want it. When you re-start your Mac, your clock will be there.
Did I say AppleScript? Yes, I did. The Controller is not scriptable (more that the "run" and "quit" standard commands) but the Talking Clock Pro™ extension supports getting and setting options as booleans or text, as well as saying the time or date. Using AppleScript is also the only way to turn the extension off, short of removing it from the extensions folder and re-booting.
While in the AppleScript editor, choose "Open Dictionary" and select the Talking Clock Pro™ extension, and you will see what properties are supported for AppleScript. There are also some sample scripts in the distribution.
As I said: this is Public Domain software. Do what you want with it, although if you base your own product on Talking Clock (or the source to it) or put it in a compilation of stuff, I'd love to hear about it. If you change the program or source in any way, you have to remove my name from it unless you talk to me first. If Think C 6.0 source code was not included with the files you received, it should be available from the same place you received Talking Clock Pro™, as I put the source code for it in the Public Domain as well.
What’s the catch? Not much. I want you to enjoy my Macintosh, and I wrote Talking Clock for my own enjoyment and use, so I don’t lose anything by giving it away. However, as I charge nothing for this software, and also cannot control how it is distributed, I expressly cannot be held responsible for any damages that might occur from your use of or inability to use this software. I also cannot promise to do anything about any bug reports that you may send to me, but if I get the time and energy for it I may fix some reported bugs in the future. Use at your own risk, and enjoy!
