Speaker testing

Based off the work Lennart did, let me introduce you to the speaker testing UI in gnome-volume-control.

Patch lives in Bugzilla, and will be in the Fedora 13 repositories shortly.

Bad at updates, Easy 5.1

Looks like I didn't blog one bit after GCDS (or usefully during). I won't do it usefully now either.

gnome-volume-control (in master) has profile switching support. You can now disable devices you're not interested in, and setup 5.1 support for your desktop in 2 clicks.


Input switches (and highlights of the volume control BoF) to come later.

I really haz 5.1

As promised, gnome-volume-control in master now has fade and subwoofer support, as well as instant-apply for the default output selection. We just need to be able to set it up for 5.1 now...

I haz 5.1!

Our new volume feature

The feature was some time in coming, but Jon bit the bullet, and created the new gnome-volume-control. I came in afterwards, and did bug fixing and small new features.

Compared to the old volume control, we're already winning in terms of ease of use: no more weirdly named ALSA mixers we need to work-around, easy selection of input and output devices, microphone level bar.

Even the applet (as well as the gnome-settings-daemon media keys plugin) is now simpler because it doesn't need to work-around weird sound cards, with weirdly named channels.

PulseAudio 0.9.15 brings a few new features that we'll be able to use in the near future, such as back/front fade, sound card profiles selection (one click to setup multi-speaker output), and probably even Bluetooth headsets integration. Speaker testing is also on the cards.

I haz 5.1!

Yay for the desktop with a modern sound system.