Invisible Clock is a small System 7-only Apple Macintosh utility that audibly announces the time between the hours you choose every hour, half-hour, or quarter-hour as you prefer at the volume you decide.
Actually, it’s a pair of applications: “Invisible Clock” and “Invisible Clockwork.” Invisible Clockwork does the announcing. Whenever it’s running, it sits quietly in the background except to announce the time every so often. You use Invisible Clock to tell Invisible Clockwork when, how often, and how loud to announce.
INSTALLING INVISIBLE CLOCK
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You must be running System 7.0 or later on your Macintosh to use Invisible Clock.
Invisible Clock 2.0 does not work on the Macintosh Plus, SE, or Classic.
Move the application “Invisible Clockwork” to the Startup Items folder of your System Folder.
Move the file “Invisible Clock Sounds” (and, if you have it, “More Invisible Clock Sounds”) to the Preferences folder of your System Folder.
If you're using alternative sounds files, such as “Invisible Joanne Sounds,” first rename the files as “Invisible Clock Sounds” and “More Invisible Clock Sounds”.
Move the application “Invisible Clock” to the Control Panels folder in your System Folder. Double-click on it to set your preferences.
Invisible Clockwork will start automatically whenever you start your Macintosh. You may also choose Start Announcing from the File menu in Invisible Clock to start Invisible Clockwork. Use Balloon Help in Invisible Clock for instructions on setting your preferences.
WHAT DID I JUST DO?
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Invisible Clock
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Invisible Clock lets you set different preferences for each day of the week. Hold down the Option key when you click on a button, menu, or slider to change its setting for all days. Use System 7’s Balloon Help for more information about each of Invisible Clock’s controls.
Once your preferences are set, quit Invisible Clock. Invisible Clockwork does the announcing.
Invisible Clockwork
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Invisible Clockwork is a background-only application, so it doesn’t have any menus or windows and you can’t choose it from the Application menu on the right side of your menu bar. To quit Invisible Clockwork, start the Invisible Clock application and choose Stop Announcing from the File menu.
Once Invisible Clockwork is in your Startup Items folder, it will automatically start every time you turn on your Macintosh. If you don’t want this to happen, you may also move it to your Preferences folder or leave it in the same folder as Invisible Clock.
To temporarily keep Invisible Clockwork from automatically starting, start 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.)
Invisible Clock Sounds and More Invisible Clock Sounds
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Invisible Clock Sounds contains the sounds Invisible Clockwork needs to announce the day and time accurately to within fifteen minutes.
More Invisible Clock Sounds contains the sounds Invisible Clockwork needs to announce the time accurately to the minute. Since Invisible Clockwork announces only every fifteen minutes, you probably won’t need this 200K file. If you use Apple events to announce the time with Invisible Clockwork, you’ll want to install this file.
You can double-click on the Invisible Clock Sounds and More Invisible Clock Sounds files in the Finder for an audible explanation about them.
CHANGES SINCE INVISIBLE CLOCK 1.0.1
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Invisible Clock is more invisible than ever. The part of Invisible Clock that must be running to announce the time has been moved to the background-only application Invisible Clockwork, so you’ll never have to put up with Invisible Clock always appearing in your Application menu.
You can set different preferences for each day of the week.
Sounds are now played asynchronously, so your Mac won’t seize up while the time is being announced.
The time can be announced at a volume independent of the volume you’ve set in the Sounds control panel.
You can announce the time with Apple events and AppleScript.
With the file More Invisible Clock Sounds installed, announcements will be accurate to the minute all the time.
Setting the From hour to the same hour as the Until hour now announces the time only at the top of that hour. Previously, this told Invisible Clock to announce the time all day.
Invisible Clock 2.0 does not work on the Macintosh Plus, SE, or Classic.
ANNOUNCING THE TIME WITH APPLESCRIPT AND APPLE EVENTS
You can announce the time from AppleScript or another application by sending an Apple event to Invisible Clockwork. Make sure the file “More Invisible Clock Sounds” is in your Preferences folder, otherwise Invisible Clockwork will only tell you “about” what time it is.
In AppleScript, tell Invisible Clockwork announce the time as shown in the following example script:
tell application "Invisible Clockwork" to announce time
(Alas, last minute testing revealed that if Sound Manager 3.0 is installed, the time announcement will be clipped unless Invisible Clockwork is already running.)
From other applications, send an Apple event of class 'Annc', ID 'Time' to Invisible Clockwork to announce the time. You can also send the standard Open Application and Quit Application events.
If you send an Apple event to announce the time while Invisible Clockwork is announcing, the event will be ignored. If you send an Apple event to quit Invisible Clockwork while it’s announcing, it will quit when the announcement is complete.
For more information about AppleScript, check out Derrick Schneider’s AppleScript tutorial, “The Tao of AppleScript,” which comes complete with AppleScript and several useful scriptable applications. It’s available through BMUG. For more information about BMUG, start Invisible Clock and choose About Invisible Clock from the Apple menu.
CONFLICTING SETTINGS
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It’s possible to set overlapping announcement preferences with Invisible Clock. Each day’s preferences apply from the From hour on that day until the next Until hour.
For example, you could set Friday’s preferences to announce every quarter-hour from 9AM until 2AM (that is, 2AM Saturday morning). Meanwhile, Saturday’s preferences may be set to announce every hour from 1AM until 5PM.
In such cases, the previous day’s settings will override the current day’s settings. In this example, Friday’s preferences will make Invisible Clockwork announce every quarter-hour until 2AM Saturday morning, despite Saturday’s preferences to announce only once an hour after 1AM.
CUSTOMIZING THE SOUNDS FILE
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The file “Invisible Clock Sounds” and “More Invisible Clock Sounds” contain 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. See the file “About Invisible Clock Sounds” for more information.
DETAILS
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Invisible Clockwork will not announce the time if the speaker volume is set to zero in the Sounds control panel.
As an application, Invisible Clock doesn’t officially belong in your Control Panels folder. It doesn’t matter where Invisible Clock is, though, as long as you don’t keep it in the Startup Items folder.
When you double-click on Invisible Clockwork, the icon will gray-out as any other application icon does. Unfortunately, when you quit Invisible Clockwork, the icon may remain grayed-out. As a programmer, I have no control over this. It’s simply an anomaly of how the Finder deals with background-only applications.
1) one set of files including the applications “Invisible Clock” and “Invisible Clockwork” and the files “About Invisible Clock 2.0”, “Invisible Clock Sounds”, “More Invisible Clock Sounds”, and “About Invisible Clock Sounds”; or
2) two sets of files, the first including “Invisible Clock”, “Invisible Clockwork”, “About Invisible Clock 2.0”, “Invisible Clock Sounds”, “About Invisible Clock Sounds”, the second including “More Invisible Clock Sounds”.
