v1.3.7

🚀 Features & Core Upgrades

• Upgraded AI Model (v1.3.5): Transitioned to Google's gemma-4-26b-a4b-it model via the Gemini API for richer and more creative poetic generation.
• Sliding-Window Rate Limiter (v1.3.5): Implemented a local sliding-window rate limiter restricted to 15 requests per minute to stay safely within the free-tier API quota.
• Cross-Platform Launcher (v1.3.4): Added rhyming-clock.sh shell script for Linux/macOS support, making the retro widget available across all major operating systems.
• Auto-Environment Setup (v1.3.4): The launcher scripts (.bat and .sh) now automatically detect a missing .env file and generate it from .env.example, making initial setup seamless.

🔒 Security & Resilience

• Secure API Key Handling (v1.3.6): Transitioned API key transmission from the URL query parameter to the x-goog-api-key HTTP header, preventing keys from leaking into browser history, referrers, or web logs.
• Robust Error Recovery (v1.3.6): Integrated capped exponential backoff and transient error retries (honoring Retry-After header) to handle 429 and 5xx API responses gracefully.
• Safer Rendering (v1.3.6): Switched poem text rendering from innerHTML to textContent to prevent arbitrary model output from being parsed as HTML (mitigating styling breakages and XSS vectors).
• Persistent Rate-Limit State (v1.3.6): The rate limiter now persists request timestamps to localStorage so the free-tier quota is enforced across page reloads.

🛠️ Bug Fixes & Code Cleanup

• Concurrency Guard (v1.3.6): Added an isGenerating flag to prevent simultaneous API requests triggered by overlapping timer ticks and window visibility-change events.
• HTML Integrity (v1.3.6): Fixed a malformed HTML issue by adding the missing opening <head> tag.
• Asset Organization (v1.3.3): Cleaned up the root directory by moving all screenshots, icons, and favicons into a dedicated assets/ subdirectory.
• README Grid Alignment (v1.3.7): Rearranged the screenshots in the main README.md into a clean 2x2 grid layout using responsive HTML tags.

Full Changelog: v1.3.2...v1.3.7

v1.3.2

Add documentation and update references

Added CODE_DOCUMENTATION.md, DESIGN_PHILOSOPHY.md, CONTRIBUTING.md, and LICENSE for project documentation and licensing. Updated README.md to reference new documentation files. Removed obsolete code_readme.md.

Full Changelog: v1.3.1...v1.3.2

v1.3.1 - Text-to-Speech & Audio Enhancements

🔊 v1.3.1 - Text-to-Speech & Audio Enhancements

Your rhyming clock now speaks! Poems are read aloud automatically with configurable voices.

✨ New Features

🎤 Text-to-Speech (TTS)

• Automatic Read-Aloud: Every poem is now spoken automatically after typing completes
• Enabled by Default: No setup required—works out of the box
• Multiple Voice Options: Choose from Windows voices (Microsoft David, Microsoft Zira), Chrome voices (Google US English), or macOS voices
• Zero Cost: Uses the browser's built-in Web Speech API—no API keys or internet required for speech
• Toggle Control: Click [ TTS: ON ] to disable; preference saved to localStorage

🔧 Configuration Variables

New easy-to-adjust settings in rhyming-clock.html:

• TTS_PREFERRED_VOICE — Select your preferred speaking voice
• TYPING_SOUND_VOLUME — Adjust typing sound volume (0 to 0.05)

⚡ Instant Audio Playback

• Audio and TTS now play immediately on page load
• No more clicking required to activate sounds
• Powered by Chrome's --autoplay-policy flag

🛠️ Technical Changes

• Added --autoplay-policy=no-user-gesture-required to launcher
• Voice preloading via onvoiceschanged event ensures correct voice from first poem
• Audio context initializes immediately on load
• Updated documentation in README.md and code_readme.md

📋 Upgrade Notes

• Simply replace your existing files
• Close any running Rhyming Clock windows
• Re-launch via rhyming-clock.bat to apply new Chrome flags

Full Changelog: v1.2.0...v1.3.1

v1.2.0 - Visual Polish & Creative AI Update

• AI Creativity Boost: Refined the core prompt to encourage more "Random" and "Creative" poems, ensuring every minute feels fresh and unique.
• UI Readability: Increased the font size for the SYS_MODE and LOG status indicators to 12px for better visibility on the CRT display.
• Conflict Prevention: Migrated the background logger server to port 8088 to avoid potential port collisions with other local development services.
• Gallery Expansion: Added a new screenshot to the documentation to showcase the latest UI improvements.

v1.0.1

Full Changelog: v1.0.0...v1.0.1

v1.0.0 Initial Release

✨ Features

• AI-Powered Poetry: Every minute, a new 2-line rhyming poem is generated based on the current time using Google Gemini AI.
• Retro Aesthetic: Designed with a CRT-style display, scanlines, and a pulsing power LED.
• Minimalist Window: Launches in a small, non-intrusive 300x200 window in the top-right corner of your screen.
• Typing Sound Effects: Authentic mechanical typing sounds as the poem appears.
• Resource Efficient: Ultra-low resource usage. The app syncs with the system clock and only refreshes once per minute.
• Smart Background Pause: Automatically pauses all AI generation and processing when the window is minimized or hidden, saving your API quota and system memory.
• Improved Reliability: Robust launcher script with automatic path correction and screen detection.