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

[Jason Taylor]

On 16 June 2010 04:05, Colin Guthrie <gmane at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
> 'Twas brillig, and Jeremy Nickurak at 15/06/10 16:31 did gyre and gimble:
>> On Tue, Jun 15, 2010 at 01:40, Colin Guthrie <gmane at colin.guthr.ie> wrote:
>>> I really don't think this is wise. There are so many cases where this
>>> doesn't work. If you are in the process of plugging something in, you
>>> *expect* to have to take some action. You're in the mind set that you'll
>>> need to take action to make the device work.
>>
>> Can't disagree strongly enough here.
>>
>> When you plug headphones into your laptop, the sound switches from the
>> speakers to the headphones. No intervention. This should definitely be
>> the same case with plugging in USB headphones.
>
> But speaker jacks are completely different to USB sound devices. You
> cannot use them as a comparable example here.
>
> I mean, if I've got some USB speakers which have a jack socket on the
> front of them (I'm looking at just such devices right now in front of
> me) and I plug in some headphones to the jack socket on my computer, I
> do not expect the sound to be moved across from playing on the USB
> device to my internal device and subsequently on my headphones when this
> happens.
>
> Added to this, there are numerous examples of when I really don't want,
> nor would expect this to happen. e.g. I'm playing music and I get my USB
> headset to make a VoIP call. My music playing happily on my USB Speakers
> and I want it stay there, but as soon as I plug in my headset it
> transfers. I'd much rather it stayed where it was. I may want to leave
> my USB Headset plugged in (I often do).
>
> I don't think I'm out of the ordinary here. And there are countless
> other scenarios where this just doesn't work OOTB.
>
> The general rule is if you can't do something automatically that works
> every time, then don't do it automatically at all, but make it easy and
> obvious to the user how to do it manually.
>

I think we're close to wanting the same thing, if you have
specifically told the music to go to the USB speakers it should, all
other streams/clients that have not * specifically* been told which
device to use should switch to the new *local* (not network sinks)
device...

I think that covers the use you are suggesting while still keeping
everything sane...

My example
- Buy new laptop install linux
- Plug in USB speakers first time... all sound (including currently
playing streams) moves to USB speakers
- Plug in USB headset first time all sound moves to Headset,
- Set music to output to USB speakers as preferred device
- Unplug headset
- Plugin headset, music stays on speakers all other sound moves to headset
- Remove headset
- Attach bluetooth headset, music stays on speakers all other sound
moves to bluetooth headset
- Remove USB speakers, music moves to bluetooth headset

Thats what makes sense to me anyway

Cheers

Jason Taylor

-- 
"Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely
pointless. " - Calven