[pulseaudio-discuss] [PATCH pavucontrol] mainwindow: Show the availability of the ports and profiles.

[Tanu Kaskinen]

On Sat, 2012-11-10 at 22:54 +0100, David Henningsson wrote:
> On 11/09/2012 08:26 PM, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> > On Fri, 2012-11-09 at 19:29 +0100, David Henningsson wrote:
> >> On 11/09/2012 07:17 PM, Tanu Kaskinen wrote:
> >>> On Thu, 2012-11-08 at 23:38 +0100, poljar (Damir Jelić) wrote:
> >>>> +        if (hasNo && !hasYes && !hasOther)
> >>>> +            desc += " (unplugged)";
> >>>> +        else if (hasYes && !hasNo && !hasOther)
> >>>> +            desc += " (plugged in)";
> >>>
> >>> I think profiles should be "plugged in" if any port is available.
> >>
> >> The reason I did it for profiles in the first place, were just to make
> >> the user get a hint about which one of the four HDMIs to select on the
> >> configuration tab, and there is just one port per profile in that scenario.
> >>
> >> I also think that if one port is available and another is not, we
> >> shouldn't say that the entire profile is "plugged in". It really only
> >> makes sense to write something when all of the ports have the same
> >> value. I e, the current code is correct IMO.
> >
> > What about laptop speakers that are always available (let's ignore the
> > fact that it looks like the analog-output-speaker port never reports
> > itself as "available", only "unknown" or "unavailable")? If headphones
> > are not plugged in, I think the output:analog-stereo profile is still
> > very much available ("plugged in" is not the best phrase in this case).
> >
> > I think the distinction between "all ports available" and "some ports
> > available" is confusing to the user,
> 
> I don't think that is confusing, and...

Ok.

> > and it would be better to drop that
> > distinction altogether. I would actually prefer not using any status
> > specifier for profiles, except if all ports are unavailable, in which
> > case I think "unplugged" is fine to signal to the user that this profile
> > is pretty useless.
> 
> ...I think that this last proposal would be more confusing as it treats 
> the states of "plugged in" and "unplugged" differently.

Well, I guess the problem is that profiles don't actually have "plugged
in" vs. "unplugged" state. Only individual inputs and outputs do. I can
see the usefulness for telling the user when we know for sure that a
profile is useless. I see less usefulness in telling when we know that
all ports of a profile are available, since I believe in most cases
profiles will be only partially connected, despite being still useful,
and displaying some profiles as "plugged in" undermines the user's
confidence in the fine profiles that don't have any specifier.

But if I'm not convincing anyone here, I'm certainly not blocking on
this issue.

-- 
Tanu