Re: [Ayatana] Two suggested designs for the Sound Indicator

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Hi folks

Last year, I was given the task of designing two versions of the sound
menu: a simple menu that would be implemented for Ubuntu 10.04, and an
extended version -- including music player integration -- that would be
implemented for Ubuntu 10.10.

I am now able to make public the specification for the extended version.
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoundMenu>

I wasn't able to keep up with this thread over the past few days, so
please excuse this omnibus reply.

About the point of the menu, Alex Launi wrote on 04/05/10 22:31:
>
> Can someone point me to a wiki page or a blueprint about the sound
> indicator? I've been following this discussion since its inception,
> but I can't find a *problem definition*. What exactly is the problem
> we are trying to address with this sound indicator?

There are two related goals:

1.  Make it easy to change output volume and, when appropriate,
    microphone volume.

2.  Reduce the number of items in the panel, by aggregating music
    playback controls and the system volume control into a single menu.

For #2, I'm not *entirely* sure that aggregating music playback controls
and the system volume control is a good way of achieving the goal of
reducing the number of items in the panel. But it's certainly worth
trying. If it doesn't work out, we could always take the music player
API we'll have implemented and present it some other way.

About the title of the menu, Diego Moya wrote on 04/05/10 20:20:
>
> On 4 May 2010 12:30, Mario Vukelic wrote:
> >
> > On Mon, 2010-05-03 at 23:03 -0500, Diego Moya wrote:
> > >
> > > And one feature I miss is having a volume slider always shown in
> > > the panel. This was removed from the Gnome volume control for
> > > unknown reasons, and was a convenient way to quickly set absolute
> > > volume with one click.
> >
> > Did you notice that you can use the scroll wheel when just pointing
> > at the volume indicator, i.e., without opening the menu? Works for
> > other volume controls too, e.g., in Totem. And in fact it seems to
> > work everywhere in gtk+, e.g., to scroll non-focused windows.
>
> Yes I know, and it's not enough for me. I preferred the old way where
> you used a single precise click to reduce a deafening sound, instead
> of having to wheel down during a couple seconds to achieve an
> acceptable level. This critical case is not well supported by the
> current volume control.

This is perhaps one case where global improvement (everything acting
like a menu) has had a local drawback (a volume slider can no longer
appear directly in the panel).

As Alex Launi pointed out, the "Mute All" item partly addresses this,
because it's the first item in the menu, so you can activate it with a
quick downward swipe. However, the volume slider in 10.04 is insensitive
when sound is muted, so once you've chosen "Mute All" you're left with a
choice of staying completely muted or returning (however temporarily) to
the too-loud volume.

To fix this, I've just updated the spec so that when sound is muted, the
volume control is set to zero instead of being made insensitive. So you
can mute the volume, and then increase it from zero to your desired
level. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoundMenu?action=diff&rev2=8&rev1=7>

About which applications should appear in the menu, Sense Hofstede wrote
on 03/05/10 10:34:
>...
> We have been shipping PulseAudio for a few releases now and I'd say
> it's time to start using the functionality it offers. I think we
> should add a slider for each different application in the Sound
> Indicator so the user is aware that she or he can change the sound
> levels independently as well as all at the same time. The necessary
> information would be extracted from PulseAudio, but applications that
> want more should register themselves with the indicator by providing
> their PulseAudio-name.

Martín Soto wrote on 03/05/10 18:14:
>
> On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 5:23 PM, Sense Hofstede <qense@xxxxxxxxxx
>...
> > Many people have said that adding all sound using applications is
> > not useful because they wouldn't use it. A few points:
> > * There is nothing that prevents you from ignoring the applications
> > in the list. In fact, I think we should make it very easy to
> > quickly access the main volume slider
>
> By adding elements to the UI, you make it harder for people to make
> sense of it. You also make it harder to use it in the long term, if
> only because people will have to identify the right element among a
> larger total number of elements. For these reasons, every single
> additional element has a cost. Unfortunately, asking people to ignore
> those elements they don't need or like simply doesn't work because,
> if the elements are there, their brains will perceive them.
>...
> > * It is easy to have a central place to control the sound, like Chow
> > Loong Jin already said. It's no use to go through all tabs and
> > writing a Firefox plugin doesn't provide much consistency and still
> > isn't central.
>
> This is the sort of question that cannot be entirely settled without
> user testing. That said, putting volume controls in the application is
> probably easier for most people, because they can make a direct
> connection between the sound source and the corresponding volume
> control. A central mixer, on the other hand, requires you to first
> recall the application name and then look it up in the mixer menu
> before you can do something. This appears a lot more complicated from
> a cognitive point of view.

With most applications that play sounds (other than brief alert sounds),
I think at least one these is true:
(a) they have their own prominent volume control (e.g. music player,
    movie player, audio editor)
(b) they block access to the sound menu altogether (e.g. a full-screen
    game)
(c) you want to control volume within separate parts of the same
    application, not the application as a whole (e.g. turning down the
    volume on a browser tab at rainymood.com while you watch a
    video in another browser tab).

Given that, I don't think a per-application volume setting is useful
enough to include in the sound menu. It is available in the Sound
Preferences window "Applications" tab, and maybe that tab should be the
default tab in the Sound Preferences window. But it doesn't really need
to be more prominent than that.

About the system volume control, Diego Moya wrote on 04/05/10 15:40:
>
> 2010/5/4 Martín Soto:
> >
> > IMO, we should start by getting rid of the system-wide volume. It
> > adds lots of complexity without providing any significant
> > advantages.
>
> It has one killer feature that can't be obtained with individual
> application controls: dimming all sound from the computer quickly with
> one single gesture. Also we shouldn't get rid of the global mute
> control, which is absolutely indispensable.
>
>> Setting the volume in this case should be absolutely straightforward
>> but it's not in current Ubuntu. You have to deal with two sliders,
>> one usually inside the player (e.g., the button/slider in
>> Rhythmbox's top-right corner) and one in the volume indicator that
>> interact with each other in a funny, unintuitive way. Sliding any of
>> them down, for example, will mute sound, but if you want to reach
>> the maximal volume, you'll have to slide them *both* all the way up.
>> Of course, if you understand that the sliders correspond to two
>> separate volume filters that are connected serially, you'll be able
>> to deal with this system just fine. But most people won't grasp
>> this--or at least, it will be a long time until they do--and they'll
>> be confused and frustrated.
>
> I agree with you in this - separate cumulative sliders are a
> nonsensical way to manage global sound. I preferred the old approach
> where sliders inside music players set the global volume instead of a
> per-app setting.

It is awkward that we have separate system and application-specific
volume settings, but I don't see how getting rid of the system volume
setting would work.

For example, any solution to this would need to include an answer to the
question: What should the volume keys on the keyboard do?

Chow Loong Jin wrote on 03/05/10 16:26:
>
> On Monday 03,May,2010 10:17 PM, Martín Soto wrote:
>...
>> That is, notification-type sounds should be mixed with whatever else
>> that is playing. I think, however, that their volume can probably be
>> selected automatically in such a way that they are heard on top of
>> the background. This way we don't force people to fiddle with
>> another volume slider in order to hear their notifications.
>
> Sorry, I read that as "soften the music to let notification sounds be
> heard" and my response was meant to be phrased the same way. Choosing
> a default notification volume that is higher than other things should
> do the job well enough. Anything else is likely to annoy the user,
> especially audiophiles among other users who get touchy when their
> music is disturbed.

Ensuring the alert sounds are loud enough to be heard over other sounds
- -- whether by making them temporarily louder, or making the other sounds
temporarily softer -- is an interesting idea, but it seems out of scope
for the sound menu itself.

On the music player integration, Sense Hofstede wrote on 03/05/10 10:34:
>
> At the top of all mock-ups is a music player. E.g. Rhythmbox wouldn't
> get its own applet but instead register itself with the Sound
> Indicator.
>...
> Mock-up One
> <http://people.ubuntu.com/~qense/SoundIndicatorMockupOne.jpg>
>...
> Mock-up Two
> <http://people.ubuntu.com/~qense/SoundIndicatorMockupTwo.jpg>
>...

This section of your wireframe looks quite similar to mine. :-)

>            You can control the player from the Sound Indicator as well
> as toggle its visibility.
> The visibility or focus of all applications can be toggled from the
> Sound Indicator to provide consistency and a service to our users.

There are items representing named applications in the messaging menu
and the me menu, and there will be in the sound menu and the clock menu.
Probably they should all behave the same way, i.e. launching or
switching to the application.

> You can mute an application or the system by single-clicking the
> speaker icon.

Yep, this is implemented in the sound menu in 10.04.

> In all mock-ups I've added the master volume slider to the bottom of
> the indicator menu, but it might be better to move it to the top to
> make the most-often used action the easiest to reach.

Right -- the master volume is in the same place regardless of which
music players are present and how many items they've provided.

Alex Lourie wrote on 03/05/10 11:15:
>
> On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 12:07 PM, Sense Hofstede <qense@xxxxxxxxxx
>...
> > On 3 May 2010 11:04, Alex Lourie <djay.il <http://djay.il>@gmail.com
>...
> > > How about a dinamic ordering in the indicator?
> > >
> > > So if I don't have any music player currently running (or
> > > playing), the an "active" application should appear first (for
> > > example, Firefox, or better even - VOIP application, such as
> > > empathy or Skype).
> >
> > Very good idea! It would indeed be a huge usability benefit if the
> > applications are sorted on their activity so you can easily set the
> > volume of the application you're most likely interacting with.
>
> You could even "hide" everything else in some kind of a submenu... so
> you'd only see the media player (if running), the application you're
> running currently and the master volume. If current application
> doesn't support audio, then show the first few that do. Everything
> else could be in "Other >" entry.

Conor Curran has worked out how to do something simpler to satisfy the
same case: When a VoIP application is active, we'll show a slider for
the microphone volume in the menu, together with the slider for output
volume. When it isn't, we won't.

I look forward to your feedback on the rest of the specification.

Cheers
- -- 
Matthew Paul Thomas
http://mpt.net.nz/
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