I came across this feature a few weeks ago and have come to like it a lot.  This post will describe how to have incoming instant messages spoken if the Adium window is not in focus.  A window in focus is a window that is selected and usually in front.  This feature comes into play is when Adium is not the window you’re working it.  I like it because if I’m busy doing something else in another application I can hear messages that come in.

Open Adium and select Adium –> Preferences

Select Events

Find in the list, [Message received (Background Chat)] and click on it

Click the + icon at the bottom left of the window, this will drop down an actions menu

In the, Action: drop down list select, “Speak Selected Text”

In the, Text to Speak: area type “%m”, without the quotes.

That’s it, %m tells Adium to speak the “message”