Ah, I'm having fun with this! Just added support for Portuguese (PT/BR) and made a new 'Male Voice (PT)' voice pack. Currently talking to an Italian user to do the same for Italian.

English native speakers probably have no idea how lucky they are in English being relatively so simple. For anyone curious about this, I'm pasting below part of the message I sent to the Italian user describing how the Portuguese algorithm for saying the time works (so he can understand better what can be done and thus describe the Italian rules for saying the time to me).

P.S. Anyone reading this from different countries, please feel free to step in.

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I just added the Portuguese algorithm to say the time (I'm Portuguese), and, as I'm pretty sure you know, Portuguese is also based on Latin.

So, in Portuguese I'm using the 'Say AM/PM' setting as a way to distinguish between two different modes of saying the time. I think Italian might be similar if not the same, so keep with me.

If 'Say AM/PM' is enabled, the clock will say the time like this (the equivalent in Portuguese, of course):

10:00 = It's 10 in the morning
14:01 = It's 2 and 1 in the afternoon
20:00 = It's 8 in the night

We also use Noon for 12:00 and Midnight for 00:00, so under this mode the clock will also say

00:01 It's midnight and one.
12:01 It's noon and one.

Italian doesn't have this special way of saying the time just for noon and midnight, does it?

Anyway, moving on... If 'Say AM/PM' is disabled, the clock will then say the time like this:

10:02 = It's 10 hours and 2 minutes
14:02 = It's 14 hours and 2 minutes
00:02 = It's 0 hours and 2 minutes

Both these modes of saying the time are valid in Portuguese.

We have another special case: as with Italian, we distinguish between feminine and masculine genders. In Portuguese the words for one and two (1 and 2) are gender specific. 'Um' is masculine, 'Uma' is feminine. 'Dois' is masculine, 'Duas' is feminine. The other numbers are not gender specific, so 3,4,5, etc, use the same word regardless of gender.

The Portuguese word for 'Hour' (Hora) is feminine, thus the clock will say 'Uma hora' (one hour). But the word for minute (Minuto) is masculine, so the clock will say 'Um minuto' (one minute). So this becomes 'É uma hora e um minuto' (it's one hour and one minute).

Is it the same in Italian?

And to finalize and make things a bit more complex, in Portuguese we also make the distinction between singular and plural. The singular for hours in Portuguese is 'Hora', the plural is 'Horas'. So the clock will say 'Uma Hora' for '1 Hour' and 'Duas Horas' for '2 Hours'.

It will also use either 'São' (plural) or 'É' (singular) for 'The Time Is'. This results in 'É uma hora da manhã' (for 'It's one hour in the morning') and 'São duas horas da manhã' (for 'It's 2 hours in the morning')

Is it the same in Italian?

Sorry to ask you all these questions, but this rules have to be coded in as special cases (starting with v16.11 voice packs will have a Region/Country code which will allow the clock to choose which rules to use when saying the time or counting email messages).

I just did this for Portuguese and can do the same for Italian, but I need to know the rules.

I know this is completely irrelevant for English speakers, but for the benefit of all the others:

Already added new Portuguese, Portuguese Brazilian and Italian voice packs. On my way to add a Spanish voice pack.

You can call this version 2 of voice packs, since it's not only about adding new high-quality voices, it's also about correctly saying the time and properly counting messages in all the different languages.

Since I'm making all this effort, I think I might as well go all the way.

At 300 KB of uncompressible data or more per voice pak, I can't include all the available international voice paks with the application, unlike I do with the text language files.

So, instead of expecting the user to actively look for a voice pak in his own language in the Themes page of the Winstep web site (most won't bother or won't even know such a thing exists) I'm thinking about enlisting the help of the Winstep Update Manager.

When you install the software, it automatically chooses a language based on the current Windows language. So, for instance, if you're running the Spanish version of Windows, Winstep should also automatically run for the first time in Spanish.

About a minute or so after first installation, the Winstep Update Manager automatically checks for updates. This is important, because many times users download older versions from sites other than Winstep (in fact, one of the biggest mistakes I ever made was not making this check the default until v14.11 or so).

I can make the Winstep Update Manager also check for the existence of a voice pack in the user's currently selected language and present it to the user as an optional download if one exists. This way the user gets a voice pak in his own language without having to explicitly look for it, and I don't have to include all international voice paks with the application itself. Win-win.

Added the Spanish voice pak too. So far we have English, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Italian and Spanish.

Now I need to make the French and German voice paks and I'll call it a day - others can make more if they want. German is going to be really difficult, since it's the language I am the least fluent with (plus they say the numbers the other way around: while we say twenty one, they say one and twenty - still perfectly doable in code, of course).

Wonder if I should try my hand at Russian too? I have a feeling it would be easier than German lol

We now have (version 2) English, Portuguese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Italian, Spanish, French and German voice paks. I'm pretty much sick of chopping up MP3 sound files lol

Making the algorithm for saying the time in German was a bit of a nightmare as predicted: besides saying the numbers backwards, minutes are also spoken BEFORE the hours... plus all that x to and y past and x to half and y past half... ouch.

Nyet! In Soviet Russia, the clock makes YOU tell IT the time.

LOL!

Winstep has quite a following in Russia. Pity nearly all of them are pirates.

Also unfortunate that Russia is where the cracks keep coming from - so perhaps its time to let them do something constructive for a change, i.e.; make their own voice pak.

Apologies to the handful of Russians who did the right thing and actually bought the software, if you're reading this. You at least deserve better.

No arquement about that, but they are also a great advertisement for Winstep, I for one never knew anything about this software, tried a cracked program, and was so impressed that I have gladly paid for over four years.

True without a doubt too, but fallacious all the same. YOU did the right thing (and thanks for that, by the way) but how many others heard about Winstep software from other (legit) places but ended up not purchasing it simply because they were able to find a cracked version?

The stupid thing is that users doing this are actually also shooting themselves in the foot without even realizing it:

For instance, they love complaining about a lack of really good themes - ironically, some of the best Winstep themes out there were actually commissioned and paid for by me (and no, they were not cheap) - and then made available publicly for free.

Everybody benefited from this (it's called 'spreading the wealth'): the professional skinner who made the theme and got paid for it, Winstep because it had one more great theme on its portfolio to attract new users, and every single user out there because the theme was freely available to them.

But the bottom line is simple: if there isn't enough revenue, I cannot afford to do this.

I would love to go ahead and host Winstep's own Themes Gallery instead of relying on 3rd party sites like WC and DA. But, again, this requires money - money to pay the web designer who builds the Gallery + databases, etc, and money to pay for the bandwidth every month.

I would also love to have professionally made, always up-to-date, language translations for every language under the sun... alas, this too requires money to pay professional translators.

So, if some people keep choosing to steal from others (because it truly is stealing) instead of contributing with their *fair* share (no more, no less), what ends up happening is everybody loosing: me, the legit users, and them too.

Any German users reading this? I need the following translated to German ASAP, please:

- Power failed. The system is operating on battery power.
- The system is operating on battery power.
- Power restored. The utility power has been restored.
- The system is operating on AC power.
- Battery disconnected. Cannot retrieve information from battery.
- Low battery notification.
- Critical battery notification. The system will shutdown soon.

I'm missing those battery module voice notifications to complete the German voice pak (for obvious reasons the text needs to be input into the text-to-speech engine in German, and Google Translate is no help here).

Amazingly enough I asked two German users for help with this and none of them replied back so far. I would have thought this would be in their interest too? Ah well.

Jorge, I'll see what I can do. I just contacted a German friend of mine. I took a pic of your post with my cellphone and sent it to her.

She called me and said she just started work so she'll try to get to it in the next day or so.

Thanks, Windy.

Windy, just got a reply from one of the German users with the translations!

Thanks anyway, and please thank your friend for me too.

Ok, second beta released.

This will have to be, by necessity, a very quick beta since I want to release v16.11 still in November.

As I wrote above, I decided to use the Winstep Update Manager to distribute voice packs in the user's language, when one is available.

Although the English voice pack comes with the application by default, I wanted to test this feature, so even English users will be prompted to download v2 of the English voice pack.

To test this: once the new beta has been installed and running, immediately perform a manual Check for Updates.

If you have the Winstep application set to English, Spanish, Italian, German, French, Portuguese or Brazilian (the languages with currently v2 available Voice Packs), this time the Winstep Update Manager should pick a voice pack. Let the Update Manager download and install it.

Once the Voice Pack has been installed, it should be automatically selected as your current voice pack (e.g.; if you are Italian, for instance, the clock will now properly say the time in Italian after installing the Italian voice pack).

Please let me know how this went. Since this involves changes in the Winstep Update Manager and any problems with it are critical, I need feedback ASAP.

Now, for other changes in this beta:

As usual, you can see the complete change log by opening Preferences, clicking on the version number in the top right corner of the About tab, then clicking the 'View Change Log' button in the dialog that pops up.

There were MANY changes made, more than will be apparent by looking at the change log, and many 'under the hood'.

Some highlights:

1. Clicking the clock module in Winstep Xtreme will now open the built-in Calendar module. You can make it open the Windows Calendar as before by selecting the (new) relevant setting in the Clock Settings dialog.

2. The 'Bounce' effect has been changed to make it more similar with the Mac OSX dock bounce effect. It now also has configurable magnitude and duration settings.

3. All the problems related to clicking on a desktop calendar module that has been scaled down should now be fixed.

4. When using a mouse over effect such as Jump and Bounce in a dock, the icon label will now move up and down with the icon.

5. Fixed an old and very hard to diagnose z-order bug that usually happened when the dock was set to the bottom of the screen right above the taskbar. After clicking a button on the taskbar to bring a new window forward, the dock would bring forward the previously foreground window as the mouse pointer traveled over it to reach the new window. Bloody annoying!

6. Fixed another bug introduced in the first beta where a module could stop updating itself if only one version of it existed in a dock or Shelf tab.

Happy ThanksGiving and please don't forget to give some feedback as soon as possible.

Ok, there is a bug in this latest beta (which I just fixed) that *apparently* prevents you from switching to a different voice in Preferences.

I say apparently because the problem is not switching to another voice, but displaying the currently selected voice. Whatever voice you select in the Sounds tab in Preferences (say you select the English 'Male Voice') will actually remain selected if you immediately press the OK button. However, if you go back to the Sounds tab, it will/might show a different voice selected.

So, you can either

a) Open Preferences, go to the Sounds tab, and, if you are German for instance, change the voice to 'Weibliche Stimme v2 (DE)' (please note the 'v2 (DE)' part in the name, that is VERY important) and immediately press OK to close Preferences.

By the way, while you are in the Sounds tab you can actually click the 'Test Voice' button to hear the voice you just selected.

b) Select a voice by *right clicking* on the Clock module -> Voices -> 'Weibliche Stimme v2 (DE)


The reason the voice name must say 'v2' is because only v2 voice packs have all the necessary voice bits and region codes required to properly say the time in various languages.

One question for those of you using the Calendar module:

Should it display some sort of 'mouseover marker' as you move the mouse pointer over the days of the month, or is it fine as is now?

Sometimes I feel as if there should be some kind of visual feedback as you move the pointer over the different days, on the other hand that is not actually necessary since, functionality wise, it works fine.