[pulseaudio-discuss] Automatically change 'Default device'?

[Lennart Poettering]

On Mon, 15.02.10 17:13, Ng Oon-Ee (ngoonee at gmail.com) wrote:

> > Wait no longer!
> > 
> > http://colin.guthr.ie/2010/02/this-is-the-route-to-hell/
> > 
> > Col
> > 
> A nice read Colin, thanks.
> 
> /me also wonders whether all these 'restore' options need to be made
> much more transparent. At the very least with a checkbox somewhere
> saying "save per-stream routings". I believe in the simplest use cases
> (internal laptop speakers or BT headset on the move, USB headset at
> home), it would be advantageous to be able to specify that stream
> routings should NOT be saved, but that a device preference should
> instead be used.
> 
> Of course, this is up to those who write the code (and I believe the
> same thing could be achieved by NOT loading module-stream-restore). I
> know that it would cover about 90% of my personal use-case though.

My own thoughts about all of this are basically:

1) I think it is bad UI to expose the entire history of devices to the
   user and allow him to rearrange items in there. I am aware that KDE
   folks disagree with me on this and like stuff like that and Colin
   is willing to please them.

2) We definitely should save the device history for streams, and when
   it comes to  finding a device for a stream go backwards finding the 
   newest entry that is applicable and apply it. All of this should be
   automatic and opaque to the user.

3) If that didn't result in anything try to find a good default by
   some other means, i.e. by used "intended roles" and stuff like
   that. Should be automatic and opaque to the user as well.

4) The UI would allow the user to fix any setting the system chose
   and the system will then remember as good as possible.

I think this is a simple enough scheme. Certainly, the logic in #3
(especially) might not be obvious to the user, but that doesn't
matter: we have to default to something, and it's better to pick the
most likely device in an non-obvious way than pick a completely random
one.

As I understood Colin's blog his suggestion mostly differs in that he
wants apps to get full access to the device history and change it, so
that what I call the "history" hence becomes more of a "priority
list".

But uh, while I don't think that would be good idea UI-wise, if that's
what makes KDE folks happy this should not be a stumbling block to to
merge both approaches.

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering                        Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net
http://0pointer.net/lennart/           GnuPG 0x1A015CC4