Re: [Usability] New Sound Preferences and Volume Control

[Maxim Levitsky <maximlevitsky gmail com>]

On Wed, 2008-11-19 at 12:23 +0100, Frederic Peters wrote:
> 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).
> 


Let me comment on that...

First of all, I like the idea of pulseaudio, but currently it just
doesn't work on any of my systems, and no skype isn't the only reason,
but there are much more:

1 - recording doesn't work at all, don't remember exactly what was
broken, but it is broken.

2 - playback pauses under system load.

3 - skype doesn't work, I know that it isn't a free app, but let me say
that every time new interface is designed, there should be a
compatability layer that should allow old ifaces to exits at least for a
while.


Lastly, I have a question, what it the ulitimate goal of PA?
Will it be the only sound interface to be accessed directly when there
is need to do PCM playback/recording, and complex format decoders like
gstreamer will talk directly to PA, or there be yet another abstraction
(I have heard about libcanabera, or so


If you really make the PA, the only sound iface, then this is good, you
might then implement OSS on top of it as done in CUSE example driver,
and alsa iface might be done on top of it.

If this be another mid-level library, then in my opinion its no good.

PA mixer might be nice, but at least keep alsa mixer too, and maybe add
an option of 'device settings' in PA mixer?

In other words I am not against PA, but make it really work, and be
usefull to reduce linux sound entropy :-)

Best regards,
	Maxim Levitsky