clocktalk - Command line utility to configure and enable periodic macOS time announcements

WARNING

This code as it stands is WIP and does not work. In particular it is being blocked by an issue with macOS that has a feedback submitted as described in https://github.com/kickingvegas/clocktalk/issues/1.

Summary

clocktalk is a command line utility to configure and enable periodic time announcements (usually by the hour) via macOS speech synthesis. Typically this setting is accessed via the macOS GUI Settings app which on Ventura 13.4+ is located at Control Center > Clock > Clock Options > Announce the time.

Because clocktalk is a command line utility, it can be automated using launchd so that announcing the time is scheduled for different times of the day.

clocktalk internally uses the defaults command line utility to change the system state of the periodic time announcement.

Usage

usage: clocktalk [-h] [-d] [-e] [-p {hour,half,quarter}] [-r] [-R RATE] [-v] [-V VOLUME] [-x]

Command line utility to configure and enable periodic macOS time announcements.

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -d, --debug           debug mode; temp.plist will be created if --execute flag is present
  -e, --enable          enable periodic time announcements (default is disabled if not present)
  -p {hour,half,quarter}, --period {hour,half,quarter}
                        period to annouce time (default hour)
  -r, --read            read current configuration (all other arguments ignored)
  -R RATE, --rate RATE  set speech rate from 0.5 to 2.0 (disabled if not present)
  -v, --version         print version information and exit
  -V VOLUME, --volume VOLUME
                        set volume from 0.3 to 1.0 (default 0.5 if not present)
  -x, --execute         when present, execute the acutal `defaults` command

This is a wrapper script around the command line tool `defaults` to configure the domain `com.apple.speech.synthesis.general.prefs`.

Install

Installation of clocktalk is via a Makefile target install. It is invoked as shown below.

$ make install

In the Makefile the INSTALL_DIR is set to $(HOME)/bin which will be created if it does not already exist. $(HOME)/bin should also be in your PATH environment variable. If you wish INSTALL_DIR to be different, the INSTALL_DIR in the Makefile to your preference before running make install.

Running clocktalk

To turn on the clock announcements so that they are spoken at the top of the hour run the following command:

$ clocktalk --enable --execute

Alternately you can use the short argument flags and type clocktalk -ex.

To turn off the clock announcements:

$ clocktalk --execute

To view the current state of the general preferences for the speech synthesizer,

$ clocktalk --read

Note that just invoking clocktalk alone will also default to reading the speech synthesizer general preferences.

License

Copyright © Charles Y. Choi

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the “License”); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.