ubuntu-phone team mailing list archive

[Jim Hodapp <jim.hodapp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Sep 24, 2015 at 5:04 AM, Michael Zanetti <
michael.zanetti@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Matthew, thanks for th detailed reply.
>
> On 22.09.2015 18:36, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> > Michael Zanetti wrote on 21/09/15 09:30:
> >
> >> ...
> >
> >> If you go through launchpad bugs, you'll find lots of bugs related
> >> to volume control [1][2][3][4]. Let me summarize it up here:
> >
> >> The biggest issue is that the volume buttons are completely
> >> unpredictable. They control a different volume level each time you
> >> touch them. For instance, play some game with a background music,
> >> press the volume buttons. It will adjust the game's sound level
> >> (maybe, with a bit of luck). Then start the game "Dinosaur" from
> >> the store and try again, you'll notice that while playing this game
> >> the volume buttons don't affect the sound made by the game any more
> >> but instead they'll leave the game at 100% volume,
> >
> > This is probably "Volume obtained is 100% in multimedia sink for
> > sounds from app" <http://launchpad.net/bugs/1485522>.
> >
> >> while silencing your phone call ringtones. This is the thing that
> >> makes me lose phone calls all the time. I play some game with the
> >> phone, and when I'm done my ringtones are silenced without me even
> >> knowing.
> >
> > Have you reported the bug of the ringtone being silenced? That seems
> > like a separate bug from the game volume being set to 100%.
>
> Well, this is not really a bug in an implementation itself, but rather
> in the way we use the buttons. I press volume down a couple of times
> wanting to adjust the game value, but instead it acts on the ringtone
> volume because the game currently doesn't play a sound. The short sound
> effects are too short to make the buttons act on them in a useful way.
>

So it sounds like this is really the major issue to fix and it's one that
can be fixed in some fairly straightforward ways. One would be a separate
slider for the specific role to control the volume of sound effects.
Michael, I'm trying to remember specifically - for any game you've written,
are you using the alert audio role for the sound effects or multimedia role?


> >
> >> Another issue is that currently there's not really way to figure
> >> what volume level your device is set to. The slider in the
> >> indicator is quite meaningless, given it will fool you by
> >> displaying some value, but next time a sound is produced it will
> >> jump to some different value before playing the sound.
> >
> > I thought this was what your first cited bug report was about, but you
> > seem to be sure that it is not, so I've reported it separately.
> > <http://launchpad.net/bugs/1498466>
> >
> >> This also creates the issue that there's no way to control your
> >> sound level *before* you start a game, means you can't really start
> >> a game on Ubuntu Touch in a place where you can't make noise,
> >> because you have no chance to set the volume before it starts
> >> playing.
> >
> > In theory, you can go into Silent Mode before you start the game.
> >
> > In practice, this doesn't work because of a separate problem: Silent
> > Mode requires care from app developers, but our SDK makes it highly
> > impractical. It requires care from app developers, because the OS
> > alone can't tell which sounds should play even in Silent Mode (alarms,
> > manually-played videos, language-training exercises) and which should
> > not (ringtones, background music, game cutscenes, sound effects). And
> > our SDK makes it highly impractical, firstly because we give no hint
> > how to do it <https://developer.ubuntu.com/en/search/?q=silent+mode>,
> > and secondly because even if we did, a developer would need to
> > remember to wrap an
> > if(getUserValue("com.ubuntu.touch.AccountsService.Sound",
> > "SilentMode").toBool()){...} or equivalent around every sound that
> > should not play in Silent Mode -- which, most of the time, they'll
> > forget to do.
> > <http://irclogs.ubuntu.com/2015/06/01/%23ubuntu-touch.html#t15:26>
>
> Hmm, I think this is a good point where we have a different
> understanding: You say in silent mode some things should be silenced
> (ringtones, background music, sound effects) but some things should
> still be playing (manually-played videos).
> I for one would assume that when I put silent mode on my phone, it is
> silent. Even manually played videos shouldn't make a sound unless I
> explicitly raise the multimedia volume which would exit silent mode.
> Note that I'm not necessarily saying this would also raise ringtone
> volumes. Ringtone volumes might still be at 0, but it's not in "silent
> mode" any more. When the phone says it is in silent mode, I rely on the
> fact that I can do whatever I want with it and it won't make a sound.
>
> I guess alarms would be a special case indeed here which might escape
> the silent mode and still are allowed to make sounds there. Not sure...
> I guess alarms from the clock application are different than calendar
> entries there. I would want my phone to wake me up in the morning even
> though I left it in silent mode yesterday, however, in silent mode I
> don't want my phone to ring a calendar entry every hour. Maybe calendar
> entries should use the multimedia or ringtone role too and only real
> alarms from the clock app have the special alarm casing...
>
> I agree that relying on the app developer to take care about it is not
> way to go here.
>
> >
> >> I've spent some time to figure where the issue is coming from and
> >> what a solution could be. The main reason where this issue is
> >> coming from is that we have a number of different audio roles that
> >> applications are using. The volume buttons, as well as the slider
> >> in the indicators try to be clever in knowing which role they
> >> should address whenever you touch them. This, however, seems to
> >> reliably fail in 99% of the cases you want to use it.
> >
> > Maybe the roles are the problem, or maybe they aren't. We can't tell,
> > as long as the three bugs above aren't fixed.
> >
> >> So here's my proposal:
> >
> >> * Let's drop all the audio roles we have except for ringtone
> >> (alert) and multimedia. We don't need more of them, it'll make
> >> things unnecessarily complex.
> >
> > Proposing to revamp the audio roles here is like camping at night:
> > you're being bitten by bugs, and it's more frustrating than usual,
> > because they're bugs you can hear but not see. Your proposed solution
> > is to replace the tent.
> >
> > Well, maybe the tent is the problem. But let's try getting rid of the
> > bugs inside the current tent first.
> >
> >> * Make the hardware buttons always control the multimedia volume,
> >> that is, game sounds, music player etc but don't ever touch
> >> ringtone volume with them.
> >
> > As Alan Pope pointed out, that would mean you couldn't quiet a ringing
> > phone. Your response was to independently devise one detail of the
> > current design:
>
> Yes. As I replied to Alan in another mail of this thread, I agree, I've
> missed that at first.
>
> >
> >> Probably the hardware buttons should then control ringtone volume
> >> while no app is focused (or a call indication is on top) and
> >> control the multimedia volume whenever an app is focused or
> >> media-hub is playing in the background.
> >
> > Similar to the current design: <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Sound#role>
> > |
> > | * Otherwise, if media is playing, the active output role should be
> > | "multimedia".
> > | * Otherwise, the active role should be "alert".
> >
> > ("Alert" here includes ringtones. If you're playing music and your
> > phone rings, you should still be able to adjust the ringtone volume,
> > because the music should have paused automatically.)
>
> I think the main difference here is "if media is playing" vs "if an app
> with audio permission is focused". An app (for example Dinosaur) might
> not be playing any background music, just very short sound effects.
> Those sounds are too short for the user to react on them and press the
> volume buttons. By the time the buttons are pressed, we're back in the
> alert role and the user controls the ringtone instead of those sound
> effects.
>
> >
> >> * Make the volume slider in the indicator always control the
> >> multimedia volume, never touch the ringtone volume.
> >
> > Besides the same problem of quieting a ringing phone, this is also
> > funny because Michał Sawicz proposed the exact opposite: "Sound
> > indicator should only indicate ringtone volume"
> > <http://launchpad.net/bugs/1478075>. (Though he never explained why.)
>
> If we continue to only have one slider, yes, it should probably be the
> ringtone one. But I would really suggest to add multiple sliders. One
> for each role except the one for alarms.
>
> >
> >> * Apps should always use the multimedia role, regardless of what
> >> they do (unless thy deal with actual calls or incoming messages).
> >
> > So should VoIP apps -- Skype, Google Hangouts, Facebook Messenger, etc
> > -- use the same "actual calls" volume level for their calls? It would
> > be odd if they didn't. But if they should, that's a third role.
>
> Why is that a third role? IMO just the same as the primary ringtone role.
>
> >
> >> * Add a second "slider" to the indicators that controls ringtone
> >> volume. That slider could be a bit special tho, i.e. that it works
> >> more like a profile selector. 0 is "vibrate only", 1 is "beep" and
> >> all the greater values adjust volume of the ringtones.
> >
> > Making Silent Mode part of the volume slider is an interesting idea
> > (and Android and Windows Phone do this already), but that does not
> > require changing the roles or adding extra sliders.
> >
> > Apparently "beep" is an old Nokia feature, but I'm not confident that
> > people would understand what it was for if it was part of a volume
> > slider.
> >
> >> One thing I've not mentioned here yet are alarms. Alarms, again
> >> could/should have their own role.
> >
> > Well then, now we're up to four roles ... the same as the current
> > design!
>
> Not really, so far there's two, and the alarm, which I probably wouldn't
> treat like the other two roles. Meaning, an alarm doesn't need to be
> adjusted like the others, by pressing the hardware buttons or having a
> slider for them, the volume for them is defined when the alarm is set
> up. So yes, it could be a "role" in that sense, but more hidden than the
> other two.
>
> >
> > So, yes, the current four roles are complex. And maybe they need
> > tweaking. But it's unlikely that they're *unnecessarily* complex.
> >
> >> But one never controls that role with either the buttons or a
> >> slider. Instead, each alarm has his own volume value assigned when
> >> the alarm is created, and an alarm is always played at the volume
> >> its config says (except maybe only vibrate when the phone profile
> >> is set to vibrate only - but those are small details we could work
> >> out on the road).
> >
> >> ...
> >
> > That would have two drawbacks. First, it would make the UI more
> > complex for every app that sets alarms -- even in just the
> > default/impending-default apps, we'd need volume sliders in Clock,
> > Calendar, Tasks, and Notes. Yikes.
>
> IMO that would be quite nice tbh...
>
> >
> > Second, it implies that "The volume I specified for the alarm, however
> > long ago I did that" is more likely to be appropriate *now* than "the
> > volume I adjusted, or was okay with, the last time an alarm went off".
> > I think the reverse is true.
>
> I think of it rather this way: The alarm that wakes me up in the morning
> should always be the same volume, regardless of the volume that reminds
> me of meetings during the day. I would want to have alarms for calendar
> entries rather silent to not disturb the whole office all day long, but
> the morning alarm needs to be full force ahead, or I'll sleep in. And I
> can't manage to remind myself every evening to check and adjust the
> alarm volume for the next morning.
>
> Br,
> Michael
>
>
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