Re: [Usability] New Sound Preferences and Volume Control

[Andy Owen <andy-gnome-usability ultra-premium com>]

This is mostly related, but kind of not related. I think that instead of
(or at least as well as) having a list of all applications with audio
happening, so you can modify their volume, there should be a volume
slider as part of the window decoration.

Bad mockup:
http://www.ultra-premium.com/scratch/volume.png

The volume button would be on the title bar for every application that
uses pulse-audio.

Benefits:
1) It seems like a much more discoverable location (to my mind anyway)
2) Standardises volume control across all applications.
3) There is plenty of room on the title bar
4) It lets us cut down one step from the long chain of volume controls
5) It is useful for applications that don't have audio as a primary
focus (and hence don't really want to have a volume slider) (e.g. a
calendar app that plays a sound file when notifying you of an event) to
have a sensible spot for a volume control.

Things I'm not sure of:
1) Applications that sometimes play sound, but not always... how do they
get handled?
2) Do we need/have an api to tell an application not to bother with its
own volume control (for people without pulse)
3) Do we need/have an api to add widgets like this to the window
decoration?
4) Can an application register itself twice for pulse audio and have two
streams, what do we do here?
5) What about an application with multiple windows, do they all get the
slider? If just one gets it, how do we decide which one?
6) What about applications without a window?

While there are all these uncertainties, these are all things that me as
a person could answer for any specific case (except perhaps the multiple
streams from one application case).

This is something I've been thinking about for a while. I've been
wanting to do a more complilable mockup so I could get a better feel for
the issues involved... but since we are having this discussion now, it
seems relevant.

Andy

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).
> 
> 
> Thanks for reading,
> 
>         Frederic
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