PankyReadTime (Joomla 6 Content Plugin)

Requirements: Joomla 6.1+ and PHP 8.3+. Sites on Joomla 5.1–6.0 should stay on 3.2.0.

Version: 4.0.1 Text to Voice fixes for Linux/Ubuntu (see changelog)

Version: 4.0.0 Joomla 6.1+ only (see changelog)

Version: 3.2.0 Added Text to Voice support Set the release for Joomla 6x only

Version: 3.1.0

Security and Joomla 5/6 best-practice update (see changelog).

Version: 3.0.1

Fixed: Route to update channel

Version: 3.0.0

This plugin displays the average reading time for the current article and a scroll progress bar on Joomla 5.x sites. Output is shown only on single article pages (com_content.article).

Features

• Configurable reading speed (words per minute)
• Option to show seconds in the estimate
• Badge position: before content, after title, or after content
• Badge format: verbose (e.g. "3 minutes, 20 seconds") or compact (e.g. "3m 20s")
• Optional "Finish by" time (shows when the article will be finished, in the visitor's local time)
• Optional "Listen to article" button (play/pause/stop) using the browser's built-in text-to-speech, in the page language, with optional highlighting of the word being read. On Linux, the browser needs speech-dispatcher and a voice (e.g. sudo apt install speech-dispatcher espeak-ng)
• Customizable progress bar (color, height, top/bottom, optional percent label)
• Fully localized (English/Greek)

Usage

1. Install via Joomla Extensions → Install (upload the zip or copy to plugins/content/pankyreadingtime and use Discover/Install).
2. Enable the plugin in the Joomla admin.
3. Configure options in the plugin settings:
   • Reading speed
   • Show seconds
   • Badge position/format
   • Show finish time
   • Progress bar options
4. View any article page to see the badge and progress bar.

Example Output

Developer Notes

• Only runs on site frontend and single article context
• No build step or Composer dependencies
• Language keys in language/en-GB and language/el-GR
• Manifest and code version must match for releases

Changelog

4.0.1

• Fix: the Listen button only appears when the browser has a voice to speak with. On Linux (e.g. Ubuntu) without speech-dispatcher voices, or in snap browsers that can't reach it, it used to show but stay silent
• Fix: if speech doesn't start within 4 seconds or the browser reports an error, the controls reset and show "Speech isn't available in this browser" instead of staying on "Pause"
• Fix: work around Chrome sometimes dropping speech that starts right after a stop
• Author and maintainer details now point to Joomlaboratory

4.0.0

• Requires Joomla 6.1+ and PHP 8.3+; Joomla 5.x and 6.0 are no longer supported
• Uses the Joomla 6.1 plugin constructor (no dispatcher argument), removing the deprecation notice on 6.1+
• Update server moved to https://joomlaboratory.com/updates_7.xml; changelog at https://joomlaboratory.com/changelog_7.xml

3.2.0

• Added "Listen to article" (browser text-to-speech) with optional word highlighting

3.1.0

• Security: progress bar colour is validated (colour picker + server-side check) and all output is escaped
• Inline script/styles moved to Web Asset Manager files under media/plg_content_pankyreadingtime (CSP-friendly)
• Fix: update server now offers updates to every Joomla 5.1+ and 6.x version
• Fix: more accurate word count (words across tags, non-breaking spaces, script/style content)
• Fix: "Finish by" uses the visitor's local time and is no longer frozen by page caching
• Uses Joomla 5+ typed content events; proper plural language strings
• Badge time element uses class pankyreadingtime-estimate instead of the generic id="time"

3.0.0

• Restrict output to single article view
• Remove unused visibility toggles
• Add badge position, format, finish time, and progress bar options
• Language file cleanup and new keys