SPEAKING CLOCK DELUXE - VERSION HISTORY
============================================================

Version 3.6 - released 2009-01-28
-----------------------------------

News:

- Text-to-speech functions are now designed to work with Speech API
  ver 5.0 or newer, meaning all TTS functionality will work
  directly out-of-the-box with Windows 2000/XP/Vista. 
- The calculator function is now implemented as a separate window,
  as many users did not understand how to use the calculator in
  previous versions. 
- The volume of time announcements can now be adjusted. 
- Languages can now be selected from the popup menu. The language
  selection button has been removed. 
- New skin: Aluminium. 

Fixes:

- Several changes to improve compatibility with Windows XP and Vista. 
- The user interface has been re-designed with a more modern look. 
- Minor bugfixes in several areas. 


Version 3.52 - released 2003-11-05
-----------------------------------

Fixes:

- The small analog display mode now updates the time correctly.
- When the autosync feature was enabled, time announcements could
  sometimes "stutter". This have now been corrected.


Version 3.51 - released 2003-07-27
-----------------------------------

News:

- The "time in tray" option that displays the time in the system tray
  now offers a font/color setting, which makes it possible to control
  the look of the time display.

Fixes:

- The "time in tray" will stay visible on Windows XP, even if the
  Windows XP default option of auto-hiding icons is enabled. You need
  to select the "Custom-font" option for this to work.


Version 3.5 - released 2003-02-28
-----------------------------------

News:

- New graphics subsystem, which will improve compatibility with some
  video cards, and resolve a few other annoying issues.
- New handling of language files, these files are now located in the
  subdirectory "voice", and have new, more meaningful, names. All old-
  style files will be moved and renamed when this version is run the
  first time.
- New time synchronization engine which uses the SNTP protocol. This
  is a more modern and exact protocol. Now there is also a schedule
  option for time synchronizations, which will automatically connect
  to a time server on a selected interval.
- New timer options: A timer or stopwatch can now announce the time
  left/time elapsed, the interval is selectable. A preset time can
  also be defined, that affects all created timers.
- A timer can be started from an alarm, which means a preset timer
  can be started at the time set in the alarm.
- The settings dialog has changed completely, it's now divided in
  logical groups to make it easier to find the settings for each
  function. Due to this, some settings have moved to a more logical
  place.
- A transparency option for the display have been added, this only
  works on Windows 2000/XP.
- The analog tray icon face now indicates the time!
- Help file now in HTML format.
  
Fixes:

- The timing base for timers have been changed, it's now completely
  accurate on all systems (i.e. do no longer rely on OS timers).
- The tray icon and taskbar problems with Windows Xp have been
  fixed.
- New big analog face design (thanks Paul!).
- Many other minor fixes.


Version 3.06 - released 2002-07-03
-----------------------------------

News:

- You can now set a custom sound for both announcements and timer
  events. For this to work you need to rename the WAV file(s) of
  your choice to either "announce.wav" or "timer.wav" and place
  the file(s) in the clock's directory. Then select this sound in
  the settings dialog.
- Alarms can now quickly be disabled or enabled by right-clicking
  and choosing "Enable" or "Disable" from the popup menu.
- When the alarm goes off (with the alarm alert window), the screen
  will activate even if it was in energy saver mode.
- When the clock is run for the first time, a quick setup screen
  is displayed, which will help the user with basic settings.
  
Fixes:

- The last used text-to-speech voice was not restored properly when
  the clock was restarted. This is now fixed.
- A few minor text changes in dialogs, to make some options easier
  to understand.


Version 3.05 - released 2002-05-01
-----------------------------------

News:

- The speech interface is completely rewritten, and as a result the
  clock is now compatible with more speech engines, most notable the
  Lernout & Hauspie TruVoice American English engine (the default
  engine for MS Agent characters).
  
Fixes:

- The detection routine for MS Agent and text-to-speech ActiveX
  components is updated, and if a component is installed but
  not properly registered the user will be asked if the clock
  should try and register the component. The previous versions
  displayed an error message and did not work properly before
  the component was manually registered.

Version 3.04 - released 2002-01-20
-----------------------------------

News:

- A new option is available in the alarm settings dialog:
  Automatically close the alarm window. This means an open alarm
  alert window will close itself after 30 seconds, so that new alarms
  will pop up. In previous versions, you needed to click the OK button
  on each alarm window in order to see/hear new alarm alerts.

Fixes:

- The time display in the system tray now works correctly with Windows
  XP. The startup delay for adjusting the system tray time display has
  been increased.

Version 3.03a - released 2001-09-09
-----------------------------------

News:

- The language selection button is now available in the main
  display again, if natural speech is selected. No need to
  open the settings dialog to change language.
- Improved install/uninstall routine, now detects if the clock
  is running while performing the uninstall.
- Updated help file.

Version 3.03 - released 2000-12-04
----------------------------------

Fixes:

- Error message "0-03 is not an integer value" would pop up
  on startup when the clock was slightly off screen when closed.
- Access violation error if the path to the clock directory was
  too long (occured mostly on non-english versions of Windows).
- Updated help file and web site links.
- Improved install routine.

Version 3.02 - released 2000-05-01
----------------------------------

Fixes:

- The "preview agent" button caused an error on some systems.
- The button to preview the timer sound was sometimes not
  enabled.
- Improved quality of the in-built announce and timer sounds.

Version 3.01 - released 2000-04-16
----------------------------------

Fixes:

- Under some circumstances an error message would appear
  when the alarm went off. No alarm sound would be heard.
- When the Repeat Sound setting in the alarm dialog was set
  to zero, they alarm sound would not be heard at all.
- When an analog face was selected and the clock was on screen,
  exiting the settings dialog would produce some garbage on the
  screen.
- The help has been updated with detailed info on how to
  install agent and text-to-speech support.

Version 3.0 - released 2000-04-11
----------------------------------

News:

- Support for MS Agents - animated speaking characters that
  can pop up on your screen and announce the time, notify
  you of alarm events and read out quotes if you like.
  (Agent support is included with Windows 2000. if you use
  Windows 95 or 98 you have to install support, as this is
  not included with the clock.)

- Support for text-to-speech engines. Using this technology,
  any text can be read out loud. The clock can use this to
  tell you the time, notify you of alarm events (including
  telling you the alarm text you have entered). It supports
  speech engines for other languages than English (for instance
  the Digalo engines). One unique feature is that it will say
  the time correctly in French, Spanish, German and Russian
  if you have a speech engine in any of those languages.
  (Text-to-speech is included with Windows 2000. If you use
  Windows 95 or 98 you have to install text-to-speech support,
  as this is not included with the clock.)

- Clipboard reader with a hotkey, using text-to-speech. This
  function will read any text you have copied to the clipboard.

- New calculator mode that uses the dot matrix display in the
  large digital mode to show the results of your calculations.
  Input is made using the numeric keypad on your keyboard.
  The calculator can be set to speak, using text-to-speech
  technology (works correctly in English, French, German, Spanish
  and Russian).

- Complete control over how to announce the time and notification
  of alarm events. You can use the original "natural speech"
  technology, the new text-to-speech support or use an agent.
  The method can be individually selected for announcements and
  alarms.

- The clock is now by default hidden from the task bar. There is
  an option to show it for those who prefer it.

Enhanced features:

- New setting for how many times the alarm sound should repeat.

- The display mode and skin can now be selected from the system
  tray menu.

- The right-click menu can now also be accessed using a button in
  the main window.

- Better-looking LCD-style system tray font.

Internal fixes:

- Improved screen handling which makes the display update quicker.
  Should also make it work on a few video cards that produced errors
  with previous versions.

Version 2.1 - released 2000-01-16
----------------------------------

News:

- The included language is now American English with a
  male voice. If you are upgrading, please note that
  there both "English" and "AmericanEnglish" is available.

- You can now choose between two fonts for the system
  tray time display - LCD or Arial. There is also a
  choice if you want AM/PM displayed in the system tray
  or not (in 12 hr mode).

- There is a new option to disable speech in the
  announcement settings, which means the clock can play
  one of the announcement sounds, but without announcing
  the time.

- The time zone offset now also has a minute setting, so
  you can display time zones that also have a 30 minutes
  offset.

- There is a choice to remove the crissover on the
  analog hands.

- The "time-in-tray" fix option is now removed. When you
  have chosen to display the time in the system tray,
  the clock will always on startup move the icons to the
  right-most part of the system tray after 10 seconds.

Fixes:

- The system tray icons are now dynamically created, which
  saves system resources and memory.

Version 2.01 - released 1999-12-13
----------------------------------

Fixes:

- The saving of the settings is changed, it should now
  always save the settings.

- The calendar now shows the today's date when opened.

- When changing between 12 and 24 hr format, the tray
  icon (when showing the time) is now updated.

- A few other minor fixes.

Version 2.0 - released 1999-12-01
---------------------------------

News:

- No more title bar and tool bar - this version uses an
  all-graphical interface only.

- New small digital display - small enough to fit on the
  title bar on any application.

- New small analog face.

- Calendar window that quickly gives you an overview of
  the months.

- Timer/stopwatch, meausure time using up to five different
  timers.

- Global short key, at last you can announce time even if
  the clock is not in view.

- Time synchronization can be made through a proxy server.

- The announce function can be set to play a sound before
  the time is announced.

- The alarm function can use in-built sounds.

- Time synchronization is now fully multi-threaded.

Fixes:

- Completely rewritten screen display handling, more resource
  efficient.

- More stable time synchronization.

- Now closes correctly on Windows NT/2000

Version 1.01 - released 1999-10-05
----------------------------------

News:

- The time synchronization will now report the time info it
  received from the time server, even if no synchronization
  took place.

Fixes:

- The announce interval hour setting was reset in some
  circumstances.

- The selected wave file is now played when the alarm goes
  off (before the wave file specified in the first alarm always
  played).

- Error message and settings reset when the clock was closed
  while the display was halfway outside the display window.

- The multithreaded speak function has been improved.

- The offset for the time zone now works correctly when a
  negative value is entered.

Version 1.0 - released 1999-08-09
---------------------------------

First release.