Chatter v1.6 Notes Cuga Rajal, February 20, 2024
"chatter.php" is a shell script that can be used to speak local chat of Firestorm on macOS systems, using the built-in text-to-speech feature of macOS. It should work on macOS versions 10.15 and later.
Version 1.6 is an update compatible with macOS Sonoma (macOS 14) and adds bug fixes.
Get the latest version of the script from: https://github.com/cuga-rajal
How to set up:
- In macOS 12 or later, go to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Spoken Content
(In macOS 10.12 to 10.15, go to System Preferences -> Accessibility -> Speech)
Click the System Voice drop-down menu and select Manage Voices at the bottom of the list. Select the voices you wish to use and download them if necessary. On macOS Ventura (macOS 13) and later the Siri voices cannot be used.
Open the chatter.php script and edit the $voices configuration section to match the voices on your system you want to use.
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The program requires PHP. On macOS 12 or later this must be installed with Homebrew.
brew install php
Check that php is installed at /opt/homebrew/bin/php
- In Firestorm, go to the Preferences window and select Privacy -> Logs & Transcripts
Check the checkbox "Save nearby chat transcript"
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Log in to Second Life or Opensim if you aren't already
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Once you are logged in you can run the script, either from a terminal or by opening the wrapper application provided with the package.
To run the script in a terminal window:
Open a window for the Terminal program and type
php [full path to chatter.php]
for example, if you place the script on your desktop, you could use:
php ~/Desktop/chatter.php
You should begin to hear the computer speak each line of local chat from other avatars.
The file "Chatter.app.zip" in the repository is a ZIP archive of an app wrapper for the program. Just unzip and double-click to start.
It was created using Platypus, https://www.sveinbjorn.org/platypus
The script filters out some system messages that appear in local chat. It only supports English at this time.
This is a work in progress. Please notify me of bugs or feature requests.
Thanks,
Cuga Rajal (Second Life and OSGrid) [email protected]