[pulseaudio-discuss] Stream volumes as the universal volume adjustment method

[Maarten Bosmans]

2010/1/8 Tanu Kaskinen <tanuk at iki.fi>:
> pe, 2010-01-08 kello 01:02 +0100, Mads Kiilerich kirjoitti:
>> So if I adjust the volume with one application playing and then start
>> another application then the other application will use its default
>> volume and the relative volume will thus have changed?
>
> Yes. This is the problem problem with my approach, which I argue is
> smaller than the current problems and the problems with the
> device-volume-only approach. You can form a reflex so that whenever the
> volume is wrong, you know what to do without thinking so the problem is
> not so big. Although, I admit that for users who
>
> * use desktop event sounds,
> * change the listening context frequently
> * and most of the time have music or other "real" stream active,
>
> this is still quite bad, since the music volume and the event sound
> volume has to be changed individually and you have to go through
> clicking the volume applet. For those users I don't have other solutions
> than just dropping one of those three habits or living with the problem.

But consider the case a user wants total silence and hits the mute
button on his keyboard.
With your approach this will mute all active streams, but applications
that start emitting sound after that will be heard, a big, unexpected
inconvenience.

Maarten