[Usability] New Sound Preferences and Volume Control

[Frederic Peters <fpeters 0d be>]

Hello William, hello the usability team,

We are still early in the 2.25 release cycle and I think this is the
right time to discuss the future of the Sound Preferences and Volume
Control, in a PulseAudio world.

I had a quick look through usability-list archives and didn't find 
the subject discussed, please correct me if I missed a discussion;
and please do note my comments are based on a snapshot I built
yesterday.

Anyway, I'll dive into the matter and point everyone to the currently
developed gnome-volume-control (hosted in gnome-media/ repository).
Here is how it looks like:

  http://www.0d.be/captures/sound-prefs-pane-1.png
  http://www.0d.be/captures/sound-prefs-pane-2.png
  http://www.0d.be/captures/sound-prefs-pane-3.png
  http://www.0d.be/captures/sound-prefs-pane-4.png

My major concern is the merging of prefs and volume control in the
same window; especially as "Sound Effects" is the first pane, and the
treeview doesn't fit a window of that dimension; compare with the 2.24
Sound Preferences:

  http://library.gnome.org/misc/release-notes/2.24/figures/rnusers.sound-prefs.png.en

My other concern is that in normal use, of all four panes, I will just
be interested in a few widgets, output volume and input volume, plus
whatever is playing at the moment; and all that would fit very well in
a small window; as I was looking for discussions on live.gnome.org I
stumbled upon this one: http://static.flickr.com/20/70003494_668cfdc0dd.jpg


Finally I am also concerned about the rewrite of the mixer applet as a
notification area icon (just like I am concerned with every other
abuse of the notification area), especially as it would be a
regression in this case.  Could required enhancements to the applet be
discussed in the open?  (I added Callum in CC).


Thanks for reading,

        Frederic