Minor concern: Clock/Time automatic announcements not working.

I can manually get it to say the time by right clicking the clock and clicking on "Say the Time." I tried changing it the announcements to "every minute" from "every hour," but that also didn't help it do it automatically.

I also decided to check the box "make a ticking sound every second" and that also doesn't seem to register.

The alarm clock feature is really cool though.

You've changed the silent period and/or you are currently in the silent period.

Open WorkShelf Preferences, go to the Sounds tab, check the range of the Silent Period at the bottom. This is to prevent always-on computers from waking everyone up at night with sound announcements.

Unfortunately the Silent period setting doesn't seem to do much, or another way of looking at it is the "silent period is simply on for the clock at all times regardless of when the silent period is set for." However, the silent period doesn't seem to affect the Alarm function. I did a quick test trial with the Alarm clock function multiple times and the alarm worked (example alarm to turn on 2:58pm) despite the silent period telling the Alarm clock not to function (example silent period from 1pm to 4pm).

Yes, I understand how (and why) you might look at it this way, but that only means you are missing the point of the Silent Period:

1. The Silent Period is only for sounds that are automatic or scheduled, i.e.; that would happen even if nobody was at the computer. This includes:

a) Clock time announcements.
b) Clock ticks.
c) New mail arrival announcements by the Email Checker module.
d) The sound Wanda makes when automatically showing a cookie because it's set to display cookies at specific intervals.

Any other sounds that might occur are initiated by the user, and, as such, they will not be 'unexpected'.

2. The only scheduled sounds that do not obey the Silent period, are, as you figured out, the Clock Alarms. And that is by design.

Think about it: you want an Alarm to wake you up. If the Silent Period included alarm sounds, then the alarm might not sound if you forgot to (and you would, believe me) change the Silent Period not to cover the time at which the alarm would go off.

If I mute my Phone, it won't ring if someone calls me in the middle of the night, but any wake-up alarm I might have set will still go off regardless. And that is how it should be.

If you absolutely do not want the application to make any sounds, then you do not change the Silent Period, you explicitly choose the 'Disable all sounds and voices' option in the same tab in Preferences.

That definitely makes sense for the Alarm and am glad you made note of that during development, but the clock/time announcement still doesn't seem to work when all the parameters are set to make it work according to my screenshot below, unless I'm missing a crucial element somewhere else? There must be something that I'm overlooking because it did work in the past. I just can't figure out what it could be.

Just testing some other sound files, and some/a lot don't seem to work either with my set parameters in the screenshot above. Putting item in recycle bin doesn't make a sound, but empty recycling bin does make a sound. Mouseover doesn't make a sound. And others have their own concerns as well with respect to sound.

The sound effects are one of the major reason I am going with Winstep. It gives the experience personality. Love the sound scheme that my dock makes when it rises and collapses (autohide) - this one still works thankfully. But other sound effects are a hit or miss right now.

I don't see anything wrong with the Silent Period code...

Hmm, what happens if you restart Winstep Xtreme? Does it work now?

Just tried it. Unfortunately it doesn't work (clock announcement, dropping things to recycle bin, mouseover sound effect, etc.). Autohide sound effect still works though. Should I restore it, but I also recently made a backup (yesterday I think), or should I just reinstall it. I honestly don't mind it if I have to start from the beginning, I just want it to work hopefully.

Wait, dropping things to the Recycle Bin and the mouse over sound effect don't work either?

Then that has nothing to do with the Silent Period.

Let's try to figure out what might be going on then. Let's go by parts:

1. Go to the Sounds tab in WorkShelf Preferences.
2. Select 'Nature' as the Sound Scheme.
3. Click 'Drop Item Into Recycle Bin' in the Events box.
4. Does 'Fire.wav' appear in Sounds? If so, are you able to hear the sound if you click the Test Sound button?
5. If so, drop anything a file you don't need into the Recycle Bin module *on the dock*. Do you hear the sound?

Oh yeah, by the way, I tried quitting the winstep dock and also restarting my computer. Same thing is still going on with the sound. Hit or miss.


That was actually the first thing I check, well partially. I guess there is a difference between the following two, one works to activate the sound, the other doesn't activate the sound.

(1) Physically drag an item into the recycle bin on the dock makes the fire.wav sound.
(2) Deleting the file (folder/text document) with the keyboard "delete" key from a desktop folder doesn't make a sound.

I have actually never physically drag and dropped an item to the recycle bin ever until now. I guess, having a sound file that plays when the user simply press deletes on the keyboard is out of the question then huh? This particular aspect is not a big deal but would have been nice. But the "other sound effects" are still a hit or miss. The mouseover sound effect doesn't work unfortunately.

You got that right. The sound is only meant to be played when you drop an item into the Recycle Bin module in the dock.

But then, exactly what isn't working?

What isn't working and I'll update this post as I continue to investigate. It didn't strike me to really investigate until the clock wasn't making the announcement.


What doesn't work:
(1) Mouseover sound effect.
(2) Clock announcement effect.
(3) Clock chime and clock tick effect.


Wanda: I changed it to "clock chime" and it worked once to make the chime sound, but now it doesn't anymore.

What does work:
(A) Empty recycle bin.
(B) Wanda - tried again, and now wanda fortune cookie popup works.

You're right about the mouseover, by the way. It's not working.

Ok, let me rephrase that.

The mouseover sound works when you mouseover the scroll arrows in the Shelf or the little tab icons (Prefs & Collapse/Expand) at the far left and far right of the Shelf.

I added that sound event so many years ago that now I don't remember if that is by design or not. All I know is that there is no code to play a sound when the user moves the mouse pointer over an actual icon, either on the Shelf or on the dock.

Actually just brought up the workshelf, and tried everything, scolling over icons, hitting the different tabs, doesn't make a sound at all.






Oh yeah: I'm watching the Warriors game right now, so I'll experiment with stuff after the game.

I decided to go ahead and "Reset Everything" under Workshelf> Preference> Advanced> Troubelshoot> Reset Everything.

The clock still doesn't make a sound. I have it set to speak every minute and tick every second, and still nothing. I decided to check out my Windows 8 laptop and apparently the clock works on that machine.



Is it possible for me to just uninstall and reinstall the program and see if that fix it. Will that mess up with the "trial period"