In my setup, fastlane usually runs on a separate computer in my closet. Therefore I find it helpful to add audio messages such that I can hear the status:
sh 'say "Creating screenshots for iOS devices."'
Fastlane's say() command sometimes hasn't worked for me. That's why I have used sh 'say'. However, that was recorded by fastlane as an action. Using this Ruby syntax is not tracked as an action:
`say "Processing images."`
But neither does its produce any text in the log. So I created this Ruby function which prints the message and then speaks it:
def talk(s) puts s; `say "#{s}"` end
With the function anywhere in fastlanes Fastfile, one can just call it like a command:
talk "Framing screenshots"
Speaking Multiple Phrases
This all works nicely, but I discovered that my error message needs to be made more prominent. I might be in the bathroom and don't hear the announcement. That's why I have now changed it to be a lot longer and a lot more annoying.
error do |lane, exception|
phrases = [
"Are you serious?",
"Huston, we've had a problem!",
"I can't believe it!",
"I thought you had fixed that.",
"Is it broken again?",
"Maybe we can just reboot it?",
"No! No! No, not again!",
"Oops! I did it again!",
"Something smells fishy!",
"There is a left-over screw here.",
"There must be a rational explanation for this.",
"This must be a mistake!",
"What if we pressed the red button?",
"What is going on?",
"What is this switch for?",
"Where's the beef?",
"Where is the user manual?",
"Who pressed the red button?",
"Who put the dogs out?",
"You must be joking!",
]
`say "#{ phrases.shuffle.join(" [[slnc 2500]] ") }"`
end
Note that the phrases are shuffled and concatenated by [[sinc 2500]] instructions which add 2.5-second-long pauses between the phrases. I found that in Apple's Speech Synthesis Programming Guide.