Sound naming spec: problems with prefixes

[Lennart Poettering]

On Thu, 17.07.08 14:29, Bastien Nocera (hadess at hadess.net) wrote:

> Heya,
> 
> I feel some of the names for the sounds are the wrong way around.
> 
> For example:
> network-connectivity-lost
> network-connectivity-error
> network-connectivity-established
> 
> To me, network-connectivity-error should be error-network-connectivity.
> So that we could have a generic error sound.

But having a generic sound to alert the user about network
connectivity changes might make sense too?

I think people can always see this both ways. When Marc-Andre and I
discussed this we came to the conclusion that we have to pick *one*
order, regardless if there might be a use case for the opposite order
too. 

Maybe to fix this properly we should allow both prefixing and
postfixing sounds? i.e. when we look for a sound "a-b-c" we should
look for the power set of it i.e. for "a-b-c", "a-b", "b-c", "a", "b",
"c". This would be a significant departure from the icon naming logic
however. Sounds like overkill on first sight, but actually I don't
think it would be that bad. Or maybe instead of the power set we pick
the set of all prefixes in union with all suffixes? i.e. "a-b-c",
"a-b", "b-c", "a", "c" -- but no "b".

> The problem I see is that for some sounds, it's good to be able to match
> to a prefix, but sometimes it's not good enough. So to set a generic
> "error" sound, I'd need to modify:
> dialog-error

For dialog-error some people might prefer to have a single sound for
all dialogs popping up, instead of having a single sound for all
errors that happen. Hence again, the order of these names is very much
debatable. 

> I've targetted 30-odd sounds (including the bell) to be user modifiable
> in the preferences:
> * Battery warning:
> power-unplug-battery-low
> battery-low
> battery-caution
> 
> * Long action completed:
> complete-copy
> complete-download
> complete-media-burn
> complete-media-rip
> complete-scan
> 
> * Bells:
> bell-terminal
> bell-window-system
> 
> * Button clicked:
> button-pressed
> menu-click
> menu-popup
> menu-popdown

What do you want to do with menu-replace?

> * Button toggled:
> button-toggle-off
> button-toggle-on
> 
> * Login:
> desktop-login
> 
> * Logout:
> desktop-logout
> 
> * Error:
> dialog-error
> 
> * Information or question (have a better idea?)
> dialog-information
> dialog-question

Hmm, sounds for opening dialogs but no sounds for opening/closing
windows?

> * Warning:
> dialog-warning
> 
> * New email:
> message-new-email

No IM sounds? Maybe collapse IM and email to "message-new"?

> 
> * Empty trash:
> trash-empty
> 
> * Window maximised:
> window-maximized
> 
> * Window unmaximised:
> window-unmaximized
> 
> * Window minimised:
> window-minimized

No window-unminimized?

> What do you think?

Dunno. I'd properly start the otherway round: i.e. take the full list
and remove the items I think are unnecessary to show or can be
merged into a single prefix. So, take the full list and subtract:

audio-*
completion-*
count-down
camera-*
screen-capture-*
phone-*
device-*
software-update-available
software-update-urgent
system-*

Merge:

all with "trash"
desktop-switch-*
message-new-*
bell-*
window-attention-*
window-inactive-click-*
message-sent-*

I am not sure to what this boils down however, and where it differs
from your list.

Then, I'd probably have in the code but commented all sounds that we
do not generate any sound for at the moment. Since libcanberra-gtk-module is the
only code that currently generates sounds this would leave these
sounds:

   dialog-error
   dialog-warning
   dialog-information
   dialog-question
   window-new
   window-close
   window-minimized
   window-unminimized
   window-maximized
   window-unmaximized
   notebook-tab-changed
   dialog-ok
   dialog-cancel
   item-selected
   link-pressed
   link-released
   button-pressed
   button-released
   menu-click
   button-toggle-on
   button-toggle-off
   menu-popup
   menu-popdown
   menu-replace
   tooltip-popup
   tooltip-popdown

OTOH: all of these are input feedback sounds. We have a checkbox for
that anyway. Maybe these are the ones which should not be displayed at all?

Lennart

-- 
Lennart Poettering                        Red Hat, Inc.
lennart [at] poettering [dot] net         ICQ# 11060553
http://0pointer.net/lennart/           GnuPG 0x1A015CC4