Annunciator

A voice annunciator for the alarm system. Can also serve as an enunciator, announcer, computer speech generator or electronic chatterbox.

Operation

Start from the menu CSS/Alarm/Annunciator or as a headless Annunciator application from the command-line.

Functional Details

Technically, a JMS listener. It subscribes to MapMessages from a configurable list of JMS Topics, typically the TALK topics used by Alarm Servers for voice annunciations. One Annunciator can listen to multiple Alarm Servers, or even to topics from JMS senders outside the alarm system.

The 'TEXT' property of received messages is annunciated. When multiple messages arrive, they are queued up until they can be sent to a voice annunciator. If messages contain a 'SEVERITY' property, it is used to prioritize their order in the queue.

When too many messages arrive, especially from the alarm system, there is usually little use in annunciating them because the bigger message is: There are MANY messages, do something about it! If the queue length exceeds a configurable threshold, the queue is therefore cleared and only a single "There are ... more messages" is announced except for messages that start with a special prefix to make them stand out ("!"): They won't be suppressed.

Preference Settings

URL: JMS server URL. Usually has to match the URL used by the Alarm Server and client GUI, but allows use of the Annunciator in other setups, for example by pointing to the URL of a JMS mirror for multiple alarm server setups.
Topics: Comma-separated list of JMS TOPICS. Typically those used by Alarm Servers.
Translation File: The computer speech library is imperfect. Especially abbreviations are better spelled out ("Mebbit" instead of "MEBT"). A translations file can include such translations which are automatically applied to all received TEXT before it is annunciated.
Specify the full path to a file that contains this:
```
# File of translations
# Format:
#       some_regular_expression_pattern = translation

INVALID=in valid
MEBT=mebbit
    
```
To avoid confusion, though, it's usually better to not use translations and instead change the annunication text in the Alarm Server configuration.
Severities: Comma-separated list of recognized severities, highest priority first.
Threshold: Number of queued messages beyond which messages are cleared.
Message History: Number of past messages shown in the annunciator history.