[pulseaudio-discuss] Changing default soundcard on attach/detach of soundcards

[Colin Guthrie]

'Twas brillig, and Jan Braun at 15/07/10 06:46 did gyre and gimble:
> Colin Guthrie schrob:
>> e.g. when a new BT Headset is discovered, module-intended-roles would
>> basically check to see whether the device is already in the "voip"
>> priority list and if not, it would inject it at the top, rather than the
>> bottom of the list (there could be various caveats included in this logic).
> 
> That means the new BT headset gets priority over the old Headset. I
> wouldn't want that. In fact, my voip priority list would look like this:
> 
> Old Headset
> <use default/non-voip priority list>
> 
> and the new BT headset should add itself to the bottom, just before <use
> default priority list>.
> Not sure if that's an important scenario, but I thought I'd throw out
> the notion of "incomplete" priority lists.

The current functionality would not change your headset if one was
already in use, but it would use either one if "turned on" during a call.

The automatic priority list stuff could be made to work in the same way
too fairly easily.

>> Otherwise it would do nothing and the default behaviour would ultimately
>> be triggered and put new devices at the end of any priority lists.
> 
> Obviously, in my scenario, the default behaviour would be to put new
> devices at the end of the default priority list only.

Yeah, that would be my general opinion too. With the exception of
certain "special cases" whereby certain devices are inserted slightly
differently into certain lists. e.g. bluetooth devices go to the top of
the voip priority list (although a caveat could be added to say it goes
to the top, iff the current top is not a headset device.

It may also be possible to configure this to not happen at all and
always go to the end of the list. Although for the amount of times an
average user registers new headset devices, it may not be worth making
this configurable.... just change the config and it'll be fine for the
future.


>> 'Twas brillig, and Jason Taylor at 16/06/10 00:58 did gyre and gimble:
>>> I want to be able to tell my sister that all she has to do to use her
>>> headset is "plug it in".
> 
> If she has just bought that headset, that's impossible. At least not
> without getting MY sister in trouble because she plugged her new headset
> in and her speakers stopped working.
> There's no default for that sitation that satisfies everyone, hence the
> default should be the least surprising action. Which IMHO is "as you were"
> and requiring manual intervention to play music on the new device.
> 
> On the other hand, after having configured PA *once* to play your sister's
> music on the headphones, PA certainly should remember that. (AFAICT, it
> currently does, and nobody wants to change that.)

I generally agree with this (as I have previously stated). I do think
there can be some exceptions (like headsets for voip apps), but these
need to be carefully handled.

Col

-- 

Colin Guthrie
gmane(at)colin.guthr.ie
http://colin.guthr.ie/

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