https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=455518
Bug ID: 455518
Summary: Usability issues in audio volume control / device
switcher
Product: plasma-pa
Version: unspecified
Platform: Ubuntu Packages
OS: Linux
Status: REPORTED
Severity: normal
Priority: NOR
Component: applet
Assignee: plasma-b...@kde.org
Reporter: lemon.head.bw+...@gmail.com
CC: m...@ratijas.tk, now...@gmail.com
Target Milestone: ---
Created attachment 149870
--> https://bugs.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=149870&action=edit
Screenshot of volume control element
I am using KDE Plasma on a laptop with multiple audio devices attached:
- Analog headphones with built-in microphone, connected through a headphone
jack.
- Jabra speak, connected through USB
- Internal laptop speakers + microphone. For some reason these appear as
"HDMI1".
- (in the screenshot you also see HDMI2, I have no idea what this is)
>From the tray area in the panel I can open the audio switcher + volume control
thingie (widget? applet? no idea).
This has some usability problems:
- It is hard to distinguish or visually separate speakers from microphones:
- The icon that could distinguish microphone from speaker is way too small.
- There is no visual separation between microphones section and speakers
section.
- It is also difficult to distinguish any devices from each other:
- Device labels are often confusing or misleading or contain details that
don't help to distinguish them. E.g. all of them are "Tiger-Lake" something,
this tells me nothing and it does not help to distinguish them. And for some
reason my laptop speaker is called "HDMI" something.
- The possible states are unclear:
- Switcher controls look like radio buttons (round), which suggests only
one can be active at a time, but...
- Because mics and speakers are visually not separate, one should think
this is one group of radios - but it is not, obviously one can select a speaker
and a microphone simultaneously.
- To make it worse, I can also sometimes select more than one speaker. But
this is not consistent, e.g. activating speaker A might deactivate speaker B,
but not vice versa.
- Overall layout and style:
- Elements are too big, while the box itself has a constrained width, so
seeing all of them requires scrolling.
- Space is wasted without increasing UX.
There are also real bugs, e.g. sometimes I see speaker A active in the
controls, but sound is coming from speaker B. I need to switch back and forth
to fix it.
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