Invisible Clock is a small System 7-only Apple Macintosh application which audibly announces the time between the hours you choose every hour, half-hour, or quarter-hour as you prefer.
INSTALLING…
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Leave the Invisible Clock Sounds file in the same folder as Invisible Clock, or place it in your Preferences folder. (Double-click the sounds file to hear an audible explanation of its purpose.)
Start Invisible Clock by double-clicking on it. To exit, choose Quit from the File menu.
DO NOT DRAG THE INVISIBLE CLOCK SOUNDS FILE ONTO YOUR SYSTEM FOLDER ICON. If you do so, your Mac will ask if you want to store the sounds in your System file; click CANCEL.
You may want to put Invisible Clock (or an alias of it) into the Startup Items folder of your System Folder to automatically start the clock every time you turn on your Macintosh.
To temporarily keep Invisible Clock from automatically starting, restart your Mac with the Shift key held down until you see the message, "Welcome to Macintosh! Extensions off." (Turning off extensions also turns off Startup Items.)
To permanently keep it from starting, remove Invisible Clock from your Startup Items folder.
If Invisible Clock fails to announce the time, it may be that your Macintosh was busy or another application had too much control.
Invisible Clock will only complain that it can't find the Invisible Clock Sounds file when it starts. If you move the sounds file after starting Invisible Clock, the clock will remain silent until the file is returned to the Preferences folder or to the same folder as Invisible Clock.
CONFIGURING…
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To configure the time announcements, choose Preferences from Invisible Clock's Edit menu. Use the From and Until fields and radio buttons to specify the hours between which you'd like to hear the time. Use the 60, 30, and 15 minute radio buttons to choose how frequently you'd like to hear the time.
If you set the From and Until hours to the same hour, then Invisible Clock will announce the time around the clock.
To hear the time when Invisible Clock is started, check the Announce on Start checkbox. The time announcement will be accurate to within fifteen minutes.
To hear what day it is when you're told the time, check the Announce Day with Time checkbox. Since it's easy to miss the short time announcement, the day announcement can warn you that you're about to be told the time. The less important "It's Thursday," even if you don't hear what's said, prepares you to listen closely for the more important "Three-fifteen."
To hear what day it is only when Invisible Clock first starts, check the But Only on Start checkbox beneath the Announce Day with Time checkbox. This checkbox is only available if both the Announce Day with Time and the Announce on Start checkboxes are checked.
You can manually hear the time by choosing Announce Time from the File menu. Again, the time announcement will be accurate to within fifteen minutes.
Your preferences are stored in the Invisible Clock Prefs file, created in the Preferences folder of your System Folder.
CUSTOMIZING THE SOUNDS FILE…
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The Invisible Clock Sounds file contains digitized voice in 'snd ' resources. Using a sound editing program such as SoundEdit Pro, you can record your own voice for announcing the time. Just replace any 'snd ' resource with another of the same name.
OTHER DETAILS…
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I purposefully broke the interface guidelines by adding the Invisible Clock menu, which does nothing but let you know that Invisible Clock is in the foreground. For simple applications with few menus, such as TeachText, I prefer a more obvious visual clue than the small icon that appears on the System 7 Application menu.
The time is actually announced three seconds after the minute. This way, more important alert sounds from other programs aren't interfered with.
CHANGES SINCE v1.0
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Fixed a bug which caused the Mac to freeze if you entered an invalid hour twice without quitting the program in between.
Fixed a bug which caused unexpected time announcements if the From hour was greater than the Until hour.
Added the option to hear the day announcement only when Invisible Clock is started.
May be freely distributed provided this file and the file Invisible Clock Sounds accompany the application. May not be distributed commercially. May be distributed by user groups and on-line services for a reasonable service fee.
