Re: [Usability] Mute in GNOME mixer applet does not have correct behavior

[Jaap Haitsma <jaap haitsma org>]

Hi Rodney,

Since it is clear to me that you already made up your mind here's my
final response.

On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 11:34 -0500, Rodney Dawes wrote:
> On Sun, 2006-03-19 at 15:19 +0100, Jaap Haitsma wrote:
> > Though IMHO it is better the current proposal. I see two possible minor
> > bug reports that might be filed:
> 
> > 1. Volume is at 32% (low icon is displayed). User wants to set volume to
> > zero (no audio is currently playing) by holding down volume down key on
> > his keyboard. Result nothing seems to happen because the icon does not
> > change
> 
> This is no different than if the volume were going from 32% to say 10%.
> The icon would still be the same. We should not rely on an icon to show
> the audio level. It is an approximation, not an actual representation.
> When changing the volume with the keyboard as you suggest, the pop-up
> should be getting displayed, and it should show a progress bar and label
> with an exact representation of the volume, along with the icon.

Wanting to set the volume to a level so that you do not hear is a
special case. Just wanting to set volume lower isn't. 

> > 2. A non gstreamer app mutes an audio card by setting the volume to
> > zero. The applet will then still show the "low" icon which is a bit
> > weird because the app just muted the audio.
> 
> Are we talking about the GNOME desktop release, or are we talking about
> any random piece of software available?

Any random piece of software. I agree it's maybe not that likely but if
we can make the mixer applet functioning well in that case, why not do
that? It was brought up by the gnome-mixer-applet maintainers in
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=164925

> > * My proposal (use "0" icon for volume = 0 and mute = off)
> > 
> > volume(x)       Icon
> > ----------------------
> > mute            mute
> > 0               0
> > 0 < x < 1/3     low
> > 1/3 <= x < 2/3  med
> > 2/3 <= x < 1    max
> 
> Please stop special-casing 0. It is not special. It is either MUTE or
> LOW. Let's make it LOW if you don't want it to be MUTE.
> 
> > Bug 1 is this case will not be filed and the possibility that bug 2 is
> > filed is also lower, because there is a visual clue that the volume
> > equals zero.
> 
> As my example above states, your bug may still be filed for values above
> 0%. What happens for a volume level of 1%? The icons are not an exact
> representation of the value of the volume level. They never have been.

The bug won't be filed in my case. The user holds down the key until he
sees the "0" icon and then stops.

> > So at the cost of one extra icon the icons spec we probably prevent the
> > filing of two bugs. So the "0" icon has a clear use. Can you explain me
> > what the problem is of adding it to the spec?
> 
> The icon makes absolutely no sense. There's no reason to have a single
> icon for 1/101 values, and 3 others for 33.33../100 values each. And by
> your argument that a single ) is not representative of the 0% level, the
> same can be said for no ), as on some cards, audio may still be emitted
> at a 0% volume setting. Just stop special-casing 0 and use the low icon.

0% volume is a special case because together with mute it's the only
possibility to make your computer completely silent.


> Also, what about the case where the mixer applet isn't on the panel? Do
> you really think we should be relying solely on a tiny mixer applet on
> the panel to show the user the volume state?

I agree that we cannot only rely on the mixer applet, but in my opinion
that is not a reason to make it not display the state as good as
possible.

If there aren't any other people who feel like me that there should be a
"0" icon to represent, I'm happy to go with your suggested improvement
that the 0% volume is shown as "low" instead of "muted" as it is now.

Cheers,

Jaap