Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 3:00 AM, Iain i...@gnome.org wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. People don't use sound effects on the desktop. One of the first things many people do is turn them off. The only device I know where people don't turn them off is the iPod. We have a sound naming spec[1], yet no-one seems to care to design sound schemes for them [2] I think the reason for this is twofold: a) The sound naming spec specifies too many arbitrary sounds b) The sound naming spec defines so many sounds that it is nearly impossible to a sound designer to create meaningful sounds that differentiate between the actions The sound naming spec defines 125 sounds. That is 125 sounds for the user to learn the meaning of. Because the sounds defined are incredibly arbitrary the sounds run the risk of having their meaning overloaded. For example, We have complete-media-rip, complete-copy, complete-scan, but no complete-print, no complete-fax. What sounds should be used for those? Each time the sound is overloaded, it is a new meaning for the user to learn. With sounds like window-new, window-move-start, window-move-end, window-minimized, window-unminimized will the computer ever be silent? No wonder people turn the sounds off if they're going to make it sound like there's a hyperactive child in the room screaming for attention constantly. 8 Please remember that sounds are also a means of providing feedback to impaired users. It's true that 90% of sounds will not be used in a typical theme but it's also true that 95% of users don't need the High Contrast theme yet it's uber-useful for the remaining 5%. (Not exact numbers, statistics generated by rolling D100) -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 10:06 +, Ross Burton wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 02:00 +, Iain wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. [snip] Hear hear. I turned off sounds in GNOME when I first started using it because hearing six clicks when I change a radio button was somewhat irritating. I understand the recent work has worked towards solving this but 125 event sounds is 124 too many. I think the key with good sound effects on an operating system is being sensible about them. Firstly, I don't need a click sound when I do; * Clicking on a menu * Slipping down to a submenu and it opening * Clicking on a link in a web browser (ie I hate you for this!!!) * Clicking on a launcher * Clicking on checkbuttons, radio buttons, combo boxes * Clicking on pretty much anything... Now, sometimes a click sound might be useful, e.g. if you don't use a button on your touchpad and instead only use taps (new macbooks for instance), the click sound can confirm you clicked... This might be good. Imagine an option in the touchpad preferences to say make click sound when tapping. However where we seem to have the clicking thing a little over done, we're missing out on useful sounds; * New email arrived, sure it can be configured but this would be nice on default * Urgency hints, if an application in the background suddenly wants the users attention it would be alright if a little boing or pong (onomatopoeia you've gotta love it :) to inform you that something you haven't had in the foreground for a while wants your attention, the blinking of course is good but sound would help too. * System updates available * Download's complete (firefox, bittorrent etc...) * Copy/Move complete (nautilus) * Device inserted or ejected So killing ALL sounds is a bit silly, but there again, the ones we have are silly. Using sounds to improve the user experience is possible, we just have to think about places where sounds are useful. BR, K ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Please remember that sounds are also a means of providing feedback to impaired users. I knew someone would bring this up, and I actually meant to mention it in the original mail but it was late and I was tired (etc) I actually totally disagree. Not because i dont think impaired users are not important but because they are a very special case who's needs are met by other technologies such as screen readers and screen magnifiers much better than by sound themes and 125 arbitrary sound effects. This brings up another point that I forgot. The actual difficulty of initially working out what a sound means. Because the sounds are arbitrary there is no expectation[1] on the part of the user that a certain action should create a sound Which means that whenever a user hears a sound they need to try to work out what it means. Was that swish new email or CD burning finished? The user closes the laptop lid and hears lid-close sound, thinks what was that sound? and opens the laptop to check. iain [1] This is what the positive sound concept is trying to solve ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
* Urgency hints, if an application in the background suddenly wants the users attention it would be alright if a little boing or pong (onomatopoeia you've gotta love it :) to inform you that something you haven't had in the foreground for a while wants your attention, the blinking of course is good but sound would help too. I should have also said that the icon should probably be allowed to blink for 10 seconds or so before the first sound is emitted and then the sound to come once every 10 seconds there after. So it's not an immediately annoying thing. BR, K ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:15 AM, Karl Lattimer k...@qdh.org.uk wrote: * New email arrived, sure it can be configured but this would be nice on default * Urgency hints, if an application in the background suddenly wants the users attention it would be alright if a little boing or pong (onomatopoeia you've gotta love it :) to inform you that something you haven't had in the foreground for a while wants your attention, the blinking of course is good but sound would help too. * System updates available * Download's complete (firefox, bittorrent etc...) * Copy/Move complete (nautilus) These are all under the class of something has happened which you did not specifically ask to happen and may require your attention And so would be perfect candidates to have the sound. * Device inserted or ejected Interestingly, this is hovering between two categories Stating the obvious and something has happ. Device inserted, well, I know I've plugged the device in, I remember having to take 4 goes to line up the USB connector correctly But mounting the device is an automatic thing so it should have the sound. Its a weird and interesting edge case. So killing ALL sounds is a bit silly No-one was talking about killing ALL sounds. I was talking about replacing the myriad of sound effects that we have with one sound. A sound that is easy to learn its meaning, unlike 125 random sounds. iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 10:20 +, Iain * wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Please remember that sounds are also a means of providing feedback to impaired users. I knew someone would bring this up, and I actually meant to mention it in the original mail but it was late and I was tired (etc) I actually totally disagree. Not because i dont think impaired users are not important but because they are a very special case who's needs are met by other technologies such as screen readers and screen magnifiers much better than by sound themes and 125 arbitrary sound effects. This brings up another point that I forgot. The actual difficulty of initially working out what a sound means. Because the sounds are arbitrary there is no expectation[1] on the part of the user that a certain action should create a sound Which means that whenever a user hears a sound they need to try to work out what it means. Was that swish new email or CD burning finished? The user closes the laptop lid and hears lid-close sound, thinks what was that sound? and opens the laptop to check. lid close is a bit of a dumb place to have a sound. Lets consider though that there are useful sounds for a moment, but some sounds are relatively useless to normal users if there isn't also a visual feedback. New email arrives - sound is emitted, email icon blinks in the notification area. File transfers complete, the file transfer icon flashes for a moment before fading out in the notification area. Apple have done a good job making sounds fit with what's happening. This is what the positive sound concept is trying to solve - is this a project? are there any links? It sounds like it would be great to have a project that considers the user experience benefits of desktop sounds. BR, K ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:36 AM, Karl Lattimer k...@qdh.org.uk wrote: These are all under the class of something has happened which you did not specifically ask to happen and may require your attention And so would be perfect candidates to have the sound. Some of these things are also something has happend which you were expecting to happen but didn't know when it would happen I see these as the same class actually. I didn't specifically ask for a file transfer to finish, it was of course expected. I totally agree here. Although a single sound is probably not great, you'd need something that sounds bad (errors), something that sounds good (something you've been waiting on is done) and something that sounds inquisitive and would require attention. Well, that was pretty much the initial 3 sounds idea error, notify and something has happened... It's important to reduce the number of random noises into noises which fit with what's happening. Also I don't want to feel like I've had an electric shock when an error occurs, so the sounds can't be too obnoxious... I did mention that in the initial email. subtle sounds. I have ideas on how a subtle sound should be created but I thought I'd wait until I'd made a few examples first. iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Actually all the sounds have (almost) complete context including full text alternative for assistive technologies so you could either opt for the screen reader to read the description aloud or just ask it what was that from time to time. They have (almost) complete context for their original arbitrary purpose. The problem is with the arbitrariness and overloading the sounds to purposes which they weren't meant for. The two blind people I've seen using a computer have only one sound, it beeps and everything else is read out to them. iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Iain * iaingn...@gmail.com wrote: This brings up another point that I forgot. The actual difficulty of initially working out what a sound means. Because the sounds are arbitrary there is no expectation[1] on the part of the user that a certain action should create a sound Which means that whenever a user hears a sound they need to try to work out what it means. Was that swish new email or CD burning finished? The user closes the laptop lid and hears lid-close sound, thinks what was that sound? and opens the laptop to check. Actually all the sounds have (almost) complete context including full text alternative for assistive technologies so you could either opt for the screen reader to read the description aloud or just ask it what was that from time to time. -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 02:00 +, Iain wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. [snip] Hear hear. I turned off sounds in GNOME when I first started using it because hearing six clicks when I change a radio button was somewhat irritating. I understand the recent work has worked towards solving this but 125 event sounds is 124 too many. Ross -- Ross Burton mail: r...@burtonini.com jabber: r...@burtonini.com www: http://burtonini.com signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Behdad Esfahbod beh...@behdad.org wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 10:27 +, Iain * wrote: These are all under the class of something has happened which you did not specifically ask to happen and may require your attention And so would be perfect candidates to have the sound. So far we agree. But one sound can't rule them all. If I'm cooking in the kitchen, I like hearing a small beep when I get mail. I also like to hear a sound when someone sends me private message on IM. BUT, I want to be able to differentiate those. I don't run to check for every email, but there's a sense of urgency to IM. Or if my harddisk is just to die, that should really shout Your base is under attack!. Arguably, these sounds are application specific. The application should provide what sounds it needs. iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
Hi Iain, On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 4:00 AM, Iain i...@gnome.org wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. People don't use sound effects on the desktop. That is a nice way to start. Why don't you mute sound effects then? and why do you even asked for one sound later. Why do you even bother write a long mail about sounds? One of the first things many people do is turn them off. The only device I know where people don't turn them off is the iPod. We have a sound naming spec[1], yet no-one seems to care to design sound schemes for them [2] Because it's hard. Making a collection of sounds that are pleasant and kind of neutral (freedesktop) is hard. I don't know what sound synthesizer or application, or sound set can help you to achieve this goal. I think the reason for this is twofold: a) The sound naming spec specifies too many arbitrary sounds b) The sound naming spec defines so many sounds that it is nearly impossible to a sound designer to create meaningful sounds that differentiate between the actions The sound naming spec defines 125 sounds. That is 125 sounds for the user to learn the meaning of. Because the sounds defined are incredibly arbitrary the sounds run the risk of having their meaning overloaded. For example, We have complete-media-rip, complete-copy, complete-scan, but no complete-print, no complete-fax. What sounds should be used for those? Each time the sound is overloaded, it is a new meaning for the user to learn. With sounds like window-new, window-move-start, window-move-end, window-minimized, window-unminimized will the computer ever be silent? No wonder people turn the sounds off if they're going to make it sound like there's a hyperactive child in the room screaming for attention constantly. [...] From the naming spec: 'The dash - character is used to separate levels of specificity in sound names. For instance, we use search-results as the generic item for all search results, and we use search-results-empty for an empty search result. However, if the more specific item does not exist in the current theme, and does exist in a parent theme, the generic sound from the current theme is preferred, in order to keep consistent style. From left to right the words in a sound name become more specific. In some cases what word in a name is more specific is ambiguous. (i.e. dialog-error and error-dialog both make sense, the former would ease defining the same sound for all dialogs popping up, regardless of its context, the latter would ease defining the same sound for all errors, regardless of how it is presented to the user). In such cases it is generally preferred to put the UI element noun left -- if there is one --, however exceptions of this rule are acceptable. So all the complete-* can be replaced by one complete sound. And all the sound can link to the same sound, if what you want is a single sound (although I would never do that) A sound effect needs to be a subtle sound. We all agree. [...] The sound theme spec[3] defines four[see footnote 4] categories; Alert, Notification, Support and Game. I think these 125 sounds spread over the 4 categories can be reduced to a single sound [5]. How to combine all the 125 sounds defined in the naming spec into one single sound? Firstly the Game category can go. Its not really sounds for games anyway, its sounds for card games. Games are a special case and whatever sounds the game requires should be provided by them. Secondly, throughout the other 3 categories, the sounds are either a) Very application specific (i.a. the camera sounds, the phone sounds) b) State the obvious (i.a. lid-close and lid-open. I know I've closed the lid, I don't need to be told about it[7]) c) Mean that something has happened that you did not specificially ask to happen, and may require your attention Category a, the sounds can be provided by the application as they are ear candy. Not necessarily essential, but make the program nicer or cuter to use. Or in the case of the audio-channel test sounds are essential to the running of the program, but are far too rarely used to be worthy of making them themable. Right, but you still want a way to define the format, the location and the localization. We could ask Lennart why it's here, he added them here, and I could not find objections. It does not hurt to grow the sound naming list. What is annoying is the way application use them, or how the sounds sound. regards, -- Marc-André Lureau ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:27 PM, Iain * iaingn...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Behdad Esfahbod beh...@behdad.org wrote: So far we agree. But one sound can't rule them all. If I'm cooking in the kitchen, I like hearing a small beep when I get mail. I also like to hear a sound when someone sends me private message on IM. BUT, I want to be able to differentiate those. I don't run to check for every email, but there's a sense of urgency to IM. Or if my harddisk is just to die, that should really shout Your base is under attack!. Arguably, these sounds are application specific. The application should provide what sounds it needs. Isn't that exactly the opposite of the whole theme concept? I mean if user chooses a Space Odyssey she expects to have HAL all over the place, not just for error dialogs. -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 11:27 +, Iain * wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:41 AM, Behdad Esfahbod beh...@behdad.org wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 10:27 +, Iain * wrote: These are all under the class of something has happened which you did not specifically ask to happen and may require your attention And so would be perfect candidates to have the sound. So far we agree. But one sound can't rule them all. If I'm cooking in the kitchen, I like hearing a small beep when I get mail. I also like to hear a sound when someone sends me private message on IM. BUT, I want to be able to differentiate those. I don't run to check for every email, but there's a sense of urgency to IM. Or if my harddisk is just to die, that should really shout Your base is under attack!. Arguably, these sounds are application specific. The application should provide what sounds it needs. Which is why after more than 10 years of GNOME, I have 2 packages providing custom sounds, libgnome, and gossip (check your /etc/sound/events/ and prove me wrong). ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
Marc-André Lureau wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 4:00 AM, Iain i...@gnome.org wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. People don't use sound effects on the desktop. That is a nice way to start. Why don't you mute sound effects then? and why do you even asked for one sound later. Why do you even bother write a long mail about sounds? Because he has a secret crush on them? /me runs ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Behdad Esfahbod beh...@behdad.org wrote: Oh right, that was my other point. Now that's like sayin the applications should ship their icons, we don't need an icon theme. Applications do ship their icons. We need an icon theme for the common icons that are shared between applications. I'm arguing that there is only one common sound required to share between applications. Note that last word, it's a sound *theme*. How do you get a Startrek sound theme if it's up to applications to ship their sounds?! How do you get a tango icon theme if its up to applications to ship their own icons? Most applications now ship tango icons, and they look somewhat out of place if my icon theme isn't tango How do you get a star trek theme that has a printer has finished printing sound effect that fits in? iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:09 PM, Iain * iaingn...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Actually all the sounds have (almost) complete context including full text alternative for assistive technologies so you could either opt for the screen reader to read the description aloud or just ask it what was that from time to time. They have (almost) complete context for their original arbitrary purpose. Actually no, each libcanberra call includes a full text description of the _current_ event. It can be as specific as a new email from John regarding whatchamacallit. -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 02:00 +, Iain wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. People don't use sound effects on the desktop. One of the first things many people do is turn them off. The only device I know where people don't turn them off is the iPod. I turn them off on my iPod, and I turn them off on other people's phones We have a sound naming spec[1], yet no-one seems to care to design sound schemes for them [2] I think the reason for this is twofold: a) The sound naming spec specifies too many arbitrary sounds I agree, which is why the GNOME sound capplet only shows a limited number of those sounds. b) The sound naming spec defines so many sounds that it is nearly impossible to a sound designer to create meaningful sounds that differentiate between the actions The sound naming spec is a freedesktop project, so wrong list. Cheers ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Bastien Nocera had...@hadess.net wrote: Arguably, these sounds are application specific. The application should provide what sounds it needs. Which is why after more than 10 years of GNOME, I have 2 packages providing custom sounds, libgnome, and gossip (check your /etc/sound/events/ and prove me wrong). And this is proof that the sound theme works, or that people don't use the sounds? iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:38 AM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:09 PM, Iain * iaingn...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:38 AM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Actually all the sounds have (almost) complete context including full text alternative for assistive technologies so you could either opt for the screen reader to read the description aloud or just ask it what was that from time to time. They have (almost) complete context for their original arbitrary purpose. Actually no, each libcanberra call includes a full text description of the _current_ event. It can be as specific as a new email from John regarding whatchamacallit. Ah, I misunderstood. You said all the sounds have ... complete context you meant all the sounds can have ... Sorry, my misunderstanding. iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:44 PM, Iain * iaingn...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Bastien Nocera had...@hadess.net wrote: Arguably, these sounds are application specific. The application should provide what sounds it needs. Which is why after more than 10 years of GNOME, I have 2 packages providing custom sounds, libgnome, and gossip (check your /etc/sound/events/ and prove me wrong). And this is proof that the sound theme works, or that people don't use the sounds? This is the proof that programmers are not skilled enough to record sounds (or draw icons or even knit for that matter). -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 12:51 +0100, Patryk Zawadzki wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:44 PM, Iain * iaingn...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:37 AM, Bastien Nocera had...@hadess.net wrote: Arguably, these sounds are application specific. The application should provide what sounds it needs. Which is why after more than 10 years of GNOME, I have 2 packages providing custom sounds, libgnome, and gossip (check your /etc/sound/events/ and prove me wrong). And this is proof that the sound theme works, or that people don't use the sounds? This is the proof that programmers are not skilled enough to record sounds (or draw icons or even knit for that matter). I can knit! it's like knit one drop one knit one pearl one... I can also draw icons and write code... so ner ner :) Doubt I could create decent sounds though. BR, K ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:34 AM, Marc-André Lureau marcandre.lur...@gmail.com wrote: And all the sound can link to the same sound, if what you want is a single sound (although I would never do that) Sorry, I didn't notice this... No, I wouldn't want to do that either Because the sound would not be emitted at a good time If you think that is what I wanted then you misunderstood me. I want sound emitting to mean something predictable. Currently it means multiple different things. It can mean you did something, something succeeded, something failed, something unexpected happened, you're required to do something, something expected happened...and the occurances of these sounds is arbitrary and at the whim of the people who came up with the naming spec. I want a single meaning for when sound is emitted. To be honest, I don't really care what that sound sounds like it could be a duck or frog (like the mac has) for all I care[1]. iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
Hi, Iain * wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Please remember that sounds are also a means of providing feedback to impaired users. I actually totally disagree. Not because i dont think impaired users are not important but because they are a very special case who's needs are met by other technologies such as screen readers and screen magnifiers much better than by sound themes and 125 arbitrary sound effects. I just want to point out that there is one other class of sounds which is useful (in particular to blind users) and is not in your list of one: A time-consuming operation which you requested has completed. This covers things like file transfers, booting to a log-in screen, ripping a CD, downloading something, and a range of other operations. Thinking about accessible sounds reminded me of this one - the sound we play when GDM starts is an accessibility feature. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:55 PM, Iain * iaingn...@gmail.com wrote: I want sound emitting to mean something predictable. Currently it means multiple different things. It can mean you did something, something succeeded, something failed, something unexpected happened, you're required to do something, something expected happened...and the occurances of these sounds is arbitrary and at the whim of the people who came up with the naming spec. The whole point of having different sounds is to be able to differentiate between them... I want a single meaning for when sound is emitted. To be honest, I don't really care what that sound sounds like it could be a duck or frog (like the mac has) for all I care[1]. ...yet you are arguing against your previous paragraph by claiming one sound is enough. -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
Iain * wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:32 AM, Behdad Esfahbod beh...@behdad.org wrote: Oh right, that was my other point. Now that's like sayin the applications should ship their icons, we don't need an icon theme. Applications do ship their icons. We need an icon theme for the common icons that are shared between applications. Right. Common as in character-map, terminal, text-editor? Those are shared between GNOME and KDE, not shared between applications... I'm arguing that there is only one common sound required to share between applications. And your argument is whatever that doesn't fit is not common. Which really makes me ask the same question: why did you even bother writing such a long email. Just don't use the theme. Note that last word, it's a sound *theme*. How do you get a Startrek sound theme if it's up to applications to ship their sounds?! How do you get a tango icon theme if its up to applications to ship their own icons? No. How do you get tango icon theme, and funky icon them, and klunky icon theme, and bluesie icon theme. A theme is not a theme if you can't change it :). Most applications now ship tango icons, and they look somewhat out of place if my icon theme isn't tango Ehem. Which is exactly the problem of the approach you preach. You're removing the question. You're saying don't want to change themes. You are NOT proposing a solution. How do you get a star trek theme that has a printer has finished printing sound effect that fits in? Have William Shatner record it :P. behdad iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 11:38 +0100, Patryk Zawadzki wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:20 AM, Iain * iaingn...@gmail.com wrote: This brings up another point that I forgot. The actual difficulty of initially working out what a sound means. Because the sounds are arbitrary there is no expectation[1] on the part of the user that a certain action should create a sound Which means that whenever a user hears a sound they need to try to work out what it means. Was that swish new email or CD burning finished? The user closes the laptop lid and hears lid-close sound, thinks what was that sound? and opens the laptop to check. Actually all the sounds have (almost) complete context including full text alternative for assistive technologies so you could either opt for the screen reader to read the description aloud or just ask it what was that from time to time. On OSX you can have dialog boxes announced to you which is pretty good. For instance Excuse me, your computer needs your attention, system updates are available the announcement happens after a delay, the basic timeline works like this; * Update icon bounces * After a short delay a sound is emitted * After a longer delay the announcement comes This is useful even to people who don't require assistive technologies BR, K ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:30 AM, Karl Lattimer k...@qdh.org.uk wrote: Apple have done a good job making sounds fit with what's happening. You mean by providing a single System sound[1] like I'm advocating and leaving the rest up to application authors? iain [1]http://c.skype.com/i/legacy/images/soundsetup/macosx_sound_pref.png (Actually, I have no idea how up to date this is) ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:08 PM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: I just want to point out that there is one other class of sounds which is useful (in particular to blind users) and is not in your list of one: A time-consuming operation which you requested has completed. I covered that in a previous email. Thinking about accessible sounds reminded me of this one - the sound we play when GDM starts is an accessibility feature. I know. And is an application specific sound so would be provided by the application. iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 10:27 +, Iain * wrote: These are all under the class of something has happened which you did not specifically ask to happen and may require your attention And so would be perfect candidates to have the sound. So far we agree. But one sound can't rule them all. If I'm cooking in the kitchen, I like hearing a small beep when I get mail. I also like to hear a sound when someone sends me private message on IM. BUT, I want to be able to differentiate those. I don't run to check for every email, but there's a sense of urgency to IM. Or if my harddisk is just to die, that should really shout Your base is under attack!. behdad ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 10:27 +, Iain * wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:15 AM, Karl Lattimer k...@qdh.org.uk wrote: * New email arrived, sure it can be configured but this would be nice on default * Urgency hints, if an application in the background suddenly wants the users attention it would be alright if a little boing or pong (onomatopoeia you've gotta love it :) to inform you that something you haven't had in the foreground for a while wants your attention, the blinking of course is good but sound would help too. * System updates available * Download's complete (firefox, bittorrent etc...) * Copy/Move complete (nautilus) These are all under the class of something has happened which you did not specifically ask to happen and may require your attention And so would be perfect candidates to have the sound. Some of these things are also something has happend which you were expecting to happen but didn't know when it would happen * Device inserted or ejected Interestingly, this is hovering between two categories Stating the obvious and something has happ. Device inserted, well, I know I've plugged the device in, I remember having to take 4 goes to line up the USB connector correctly But mounting the device is an automatic thing so it should have the sound. Its a weird and interesting edge case. Device insertion came to my mind because I have a dodgy USB port and also because some devices don't show up in nautilus. For instance if I insert my 3G dongle for internet access I have to click on the network manager icon 3 or 4 times until it's ready to use. This time delay is annoying but would be much less so if I didn't have to keep clicking to see if it's ready to use. If I plug it in wait until I hear the sound and then click the network manager icon to connect I'd feel much happier. So killing ALL sounds is a bit silly No-one was talking about killing ALL sounds. I was talking about replacing the myriad of sound effects that we have with one sound. A sound that is easy to learn its meaning, unlike 125 random sounds. I totally agree here. Although a single sound is probably not great, you'd need something that sounds bad (errors), something that sounds good (something you've been waiting on is done) and something that sounds inquisitive and would require attention. It's important to reduce the number of random noises into noises which fit with what's happening. Also I don't want to feel like I've had an electric shock when an error occurs, so the sounds can't be too obnoxious... BR, K ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
Il giorno ven, 12/12/2008 alle 02.00 +, Iain ha scritto: Some thoughts on sounds. The sound naming spec defines 125 sounds. That is 125 sounds for the user to learn the meaning of. Because the sounds defined are incredibly arbitrary the sounds run the risk of having their meaning overloaded. Having 105 keys on your keyboard doesn't mean you've to use all of them, and you can have more than one key to do the same thing. What I'm saying is that, having defined one sound which is a clicking sound like the iPod one, you can symlink other 20 sounds to it. The icon themes frequently do it. Why not sound? m. signature.asc Description: Questa è una parte del messaggio firmata digitalmente ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
Il giorno ven, 12/12/2008 alle 11.27 +, Iain * ha scritto: Arguably, these sounds are application specific. The application should provide what sounds it needs. iain So, instead of ~120 sounds, we get thousands the user has to learn the meaning of? You want to use the sound spec? Fine, you're a well-behaving app. You're more on the skype side? Who's keeping you to do whatever it pleases you more, if not concerns about users' mental sanity? Of the two, please choose one. m. signature.asc Description: Questa è una parte del messaggio firmata digitalmente ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 10:20, Iain * (iaingn...@gmail.com) wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 8:18 AM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Please remember that sounds are also a means of providing feedback to impaired users. I knew someone would bring this up, and I actually meant to mention it in the original mail but it was late and I was tired (etc) I actually totally disagree. Not because i dont think impaired users are not important but because they are a very special case who's needs are met by other technologies such as screen readers and screen magnifiers much better than by sound themes and 125 arbitrary sound effects. This brings up another point that I forgot. The actual difficulty of initially working out what a sound means. Because the sounds are arbitrary there is no expectation[1] on the part of the user that a certain action should create a sound Which means that whenever a user hears a sound they need to try to work out what it means. Was that swish new email or CD burning finished? The user closes the laptop lid and hears lid-close sound, thinks what was that sound? and opens the laptop to check. You know, carefully chosen event sounds should of course be able to tell the user what is going on. Just because it is possible to design shitty sound themes it doesn't mean they have to be shitty. And again check the MacOS sound theme. it is pretty good. Also, the spec supports translated event sounds. i.e. that would allow you to define a theme where a nice girl's voice tells you You've got mail. It's pretty hard to misunderstand that, right? Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 11:33, Iain * (iaingn...@gmail.com) wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:30 AM, Karl Lattimer k...@qdh.org.uk wrote: Apple have done a good job making sounds fit with what's happening. You mean by providing a single System sound[1] like I'm advocating and leaving the rest up to application authors? That screenshot is misleading. MacOS defines at least 15 standard sounds. But they allow you to change only one of them. Google should help you find what the list of sounds is. There ar sounds for emptying trash and things, which are not documented in the API for some reasons but nonetheless available. Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 10:06, Ross Burton (r...@burtonini.com) wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 02:00 +, Iain wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. [snip] Hear hear. I turned off sounds in GNOME when I first started using it because hearing six clicks when I change a radio button was somewhat irritating. I understand the recent work has worked towards solving this but 125 event sounds is 124 too many. You are aware that in the new sound themes dialog we explicitly have a check box to disable input feedback sounds and leave everything else on? input feedback sounds are those which are the immediatey result of things like clicking on buttons. Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 10:15, Karl Lattimer (k...@qdh.org.uk) wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 10:06 +, Ross Burton wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 02:00 +, Iain wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. [snip] Hear hear. I turned off sounds in GNOME when I first started using it because hearing six clicks when I change a radio button was somewhat irritating. I understand the recent work has worked towards solving this but 125 event sounds is 124 too many. I think the key with good sound effects on an operating system is being sensible about them. Firstly, I don't need a click sound when I do; * Clicking on a menu * Slipping down to a submenu and it opening * Clicking on a link in a web browser (ie I hate you for this!!!) * Clicking on a launcher * Clicking on checkbuttons, radio buttons, combo boxes * Clicking on pretty much anything... Now, sometimes a click sound might be useful, e.g. if you don't use a button on your touchpad and instead only use taps (new macbooks for instance), the click sound can confirm you clicked... This might be good. Imagine an option in the touchpad preferences to say make click sound when tapping. However where we seem to have the clicking thing a little over done, we're missing out on useful sounds; * New email arrived, sure it can be configured but this would be nice on default * Urgency hints, if an application in the background suddenly wants the users attention it would be alright if a little boing or pong (onomatopoeia you've gotta love it :) to inform you that something you haven't had in the foreground for a while wants your attention, the blinking of course is good but sound would help too. * System updates available * Download's complete (firefox, bittorrent etc...) * Copy/Move complete (nautilus) * Device inserted or ejected So killing ALL sounds is a bit silly, but there again, the ones we have are silly. Using sounds to improve the user experience is possible, we just have to think about places where sounds are useful. This is such a pointless discussion. You know, you are not the first one having thoughts like this. And the result of those elders who had them before you is that the sound theme dialog has a checkbox for disabling input feedback and leave everything else enabled which is called play sound effects when buttons are clicked. What do you say now? It's totally wow, isn't it? Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 02:00, Iain (i...@gnome.org) wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. Here's my response as one of the guys who wrote the specs and as the one who implemented them. I'll probably repeat a lot of stuff other people said. Sorry for that. 1. This should be discussed on the xdg mailing list. 2. I think you underestimate how many people use event sounds. Since I started to hack in this area I am actively noticing that surprisingly many people enable them, including the input feedback stuff. And not just crazy people but also hackers at conferences (i.e. tech people!). Please note that I don't use event sounds that much myself, and a year or so or two I didn't think *anyone* would. But I was wrong, people use them, although the ones we used to ship are quite annoying. While most sounds are used only by a minority, sounds for email, IM and suchlike are used by huge majority of people, especially when they use non-Linux OSes. On Operating Systems like MacOS where the shipped sounds are high quality a lot more people leave them enabled. In Windows this is similar, although the sounds are worse quality. Heck, some sounds (like the Windows startup sound) even entered pop culture in a way. Finally, don't forget things like the venerable MS Plus! which included theme sets which included sound themes. Also, don't forget accessibility. Just because you don't use them you should not assume nobody does. Because that is simnply wrong. 3. I know of at least 3 sound themes right now. Our upstream version, a Mandriva theme and some Ubuntu Human stuff. 4. You can easily coalesce multiple event sound files using the dash notation, as pointed out by Marc-Andre. Even if we list 125 sounds, that doesn't mean you'd have to define them all seperately. Also note that the new sound theme dialog coalesces quite a few of those events into one. And it is intended that way: the set of event sounds generated should be extensive and the meta information about each event should be verbose. However, only a subset of these sounds should be exposed in the config UI or defined in the themes. How fine grained this is chosen is left to the UI or theme designer. 5. libcanberra support slipped in in the last GNOME version as blessed dependency very very late. Only a minority of programs use it right now. Don't expect an adoption from zero to 100 in no time. 6. The 125 sound names don't come from nowhere. We looked around on the Internet for sounds that are already in use. i.e. the sounds Windows defines, GNOME defines, MacOS defines, KDE defines. The sounds different applications define, and sounds people have publicly requested. For almost all sounds listed in the spec there is at least one pre-existing example where it is used or available. Please note however, that we only included sound names that made sense to us. So if you do the full survey again, you might end up with substantially more than 125 sounds. And again, just because we list 125 sound, it doesn't mean you have to actually define them all. You can easily coalesce them due to the aforementioned dash notation. Also note that some people mentioned that they thought the icon naming spec was handled too conservatively. We explicitly want to be a bit more liberal about what we include in the sound spec and what not. (Of course we won't include *any* random bullshit people ask for...) 7. You claim the list is too large but incomplete at the same time. Sure it is incomplete . We are happy to add more entries when they make sense. The barrier is low for new additions. 8. In contrast to what you claim it is dead easy to create a sound theme. Simply base your work on the fdo theme and replace the wave files. A monkey on a donkey could do that. Of course you can do it more elaborately than that if you wish, but you don't have to. With sounds like window-new, window-move-start, window-move-end, window-minimized, window-unminimized will the computer ever be silent? You can disable any sounds or subset of sounds you wish. The KDE sounds for these specific events are very subtle btw. w-m-s for example is both very low in volume and frequency and actually pretty good. There is a principle applied to dialog boxes, called the butler principle[10]. When there is a knock at the door, the butler doesn't ask if he should answer the door, he goes and does it. He also doesn't tell you that he's going to do it, he just does it. I think this should be applied to sounds as well as dialogs. If the butler requires the master's attention, he does it subtley, making a discrete *Ahem* not by screaming HEY I NEED TO TALK TO YOU! And so? Of course it's fine to define themes that are subtle. However, if your hardware is breaking or suspending failed while you closed your laptop an annoying sound is more adequate. The sound
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 14:22 +0100, Lennart Poettering wrote: On Fri, 12.12.08 10:06, Ross Burton (r...@burtonini.com) wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 02:00 +, Iain wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. [snip] Hear hear. I turned off sounds in GNOME when I first started using it because hearing six clicks when I change a radio button was somewhat irritating. I understand the recent work has worked towards solving this but 125 event sounds is 124 too many. You are aware that in the new sound themes dialog we explicitly have a check box to disable input feedback sounds and leave everything else on? input feedback sounds are those which are the immediatey result of things like clicking on buttons. There's still a number of bugs in the old libgnome code to hook sound events to widgets. For example, if you had a sound connected to the combobox popping up, changing between folders in Evolution (some with filters and some not) would trigger the sound. It obviously shouldn't. Which is why I mentioned that I'd rather have the sound emitting code directly in the GTK+ widgets, so we know when the widgets have been activated programatically or by hand. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
Le vendredi 12 décembre 2008 à 14:29 +0100, Lennart Poettering a écrit : On Fri, 12.12.08 11:37, Iain * (iaingn...@gmail.com) wrote: Note that last word, it's a sound *theme*. How do you get a Startrek sound theme if it's up to applications to ship their sounds?! How do you get a tango icon theme if its up to applications to ship their own icons? Most applications now ship tango icons, and they look somewhat out of place if my icon theme isn't tango How do you get a star trek theme that has a printer has finished printing sound effect that fits in? This problem has been solved as good as possible for both the icon and the sound theme: a theme can specify another theme it wants to inherit from which might be the most applicable for fallback sounds. And the dash notation allows coalescing of sounds: i.e. you just need to stick a sound complete in the theme and if complete-print-job is not available it will fall back to complete and you will still get some kind of generic completion sound. Woot! That's made of awesome, isn't it? I think the main problem with current theme (ie fd.o one) is that it is not supposed to be used by default, since it features all sound events as enabled, and many people dislike this. I guess GNOME should probably have its own theme which could be just fd.o theme, but with a lot of events disabled by default. This is mostly what I did for Mandriva theme, using fd.o theme as a basis and providing some Mandriva sounds for some events. -- Frederic Crozat fcro...@mandriva.com Mandriva ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 11:55, Iain * (iaingn...@gmail.com) wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 11:34 AM, Marc-André Lureau marcandre.lur...@gmail.com wrote: And all the sound can link to the same sound, if what you want is a single sound (although I would never do that) Sorry, I didn't notice this... No, I wouldn't want to do that either Because the sound would not be emitted at a good time If you think that is what I wanted then you misunderstood me. I want sound emitting to mean something predictable. Currently it means multiple different things. It can mean you did something, something succeeded, something failed, something unexpected happened, you're required to do something, something expected happened...and the occurances of these sounds is arbitrary and at the whim of the people who came up with the naming spec. I want a single meaning for when sound is emitted. To be honest, I don't really care what that sound sounds like it could be a duck or frog (like the mac has) for all I care[1]. Come one. First you claim the list of defined names is too large. Then you claim it is incomplete. Then you want only a single sound for all. Now you want to distuingish the events. Hey, make up your mind! You know, we define 125 sounds. It's up to you which ones you link to the same file and which ones you don't define at all. We already give you the power to do whatever you want. Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 11:40, Bastien Nocera (had...@hadess.net) wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 02:00 +, Iain wrote: Some thoughts on sounds. People don't use sound effects on the desktop. One of the first things many people do is turn them off. The only device I know where people don't turn them off is the iPod. I turn them off on my iPod, and I turn them off on other people's phones I actually tend to leave the so called ring sound on on my phone. And I would be pretty pissed off if people would just turn all ringing off on all my phones. ;-) Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 11:37, Iain * (iaingn...@gmail.com) wrote: Note that last word, it's a sound *theme*. How do you get a Startrek sound theme if it's up to applications to ship their sounds?! How do you get a tango icon theme if its up to applications to ship their own icons? Most applications now ship tango icons, and they look somewhat out of place if my icon theme isn't tango How do you get a star trek theme that has a printer has finished printing sound effect that fits in? This problem has been solved as good as possible for both the icon and the sound theme: a theme can specify another theme it wants to inherit from which might be the most applicable for fallback sounds. And the dash notation allows coalescing of sounds: i.e. you just need to stick a sound complete in the theme and if complete-print-job is not available it will fall back to complete and you will still get some kind of generic completion sound. Woot! That's made of awesome, isn't it? Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 11:43, Iain * (iaingn...@gmail.com) wrote: Category a, the sounds can be provided by the application as they are ear candy. Not necessarily essential, but make the program nicer or cuter to use. Or in the case of the audio-channel test sounds are essential to the running of the program, but are far too rarely used to be worthy of making them themable. Right, but you still want a way to define the format, the location and the localization. The application knows where the sound goes, it installed it. I'm failing to see what localisation is required for sounds except in the case where the audio-channel test sounds are speech. Just think of these sounds: You've got mail! Your CD finished burning! Warning! Your battery is running low! You just clicked a button [1] I think it would be immensly useful to have speech sounds for some notification-related sounds. Heck, I even thought of doing a very special sound theme, particularly for you called Lennart where I record each and every single sound of the 125 defined in my voice. And I'll add a very special gimmick for you: each time when you click your mouse button you'll hear me saying Mouse click!. And if you press them twice I will say Double Click!. And if you press them thrice I will say Mumumumumulticlick! And then -- I guess you are already expecting it -- after the fourth time I will say Rrrrampage!. And if then still you don't get what sound themes are all about, I can't help you anymore, but at least I can say I really really and honestly tried. Lennart [1] In case you didn't get it: this isn't meant seriously. -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 1:45 PM, Lennart Poettering mzta...@0pointer.de wrote: Come one. First you claim the list of defined names is too large. Then you claim it is incomplete. Then you want only a single sound for all. Now you want to distuingish the events. Hey, make up your mind! Thats not what i've said at all. Nicely twisted into a meaningless strawman. I think the list of defined names is too long. If you are attempted to define a list of all possible different things that may have different sounds then the the list is incomplete. I was highlighting this to show that it is impossible to define all possibilties before hand in some spec, not to claim that I want more sounds. I want a single meaning for why a sound has happened. I want a simple answer to the question should my application make a sound in this situation? I don't want to distinguish events. I want the user to be able to know that when they hear a sound that there is something that may need their attention. You know, we define 125 sounds. It's up to you which ones you link to the same file and which ones you don't define at all. We already give you the power to do whatever you want. And thats completely NOT what I want and has missed the point. But I see that no-one else cares So I shall stop caring as well. And this is my last mail on the subject Enjoy iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
Iain * wrote: But I see that no-one else cares Or, you are not effectively communicating what you mean. So I shall stop caring as well. And this is my last mail on the subject Mine too. behdad Enjoy iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 09:29, Ronald S. Bultje (rsbul...@gmail.com) wrote: [..] You know, we define 125 sounds. It's up to you which ones you link to the same file and which ones you don't define at all. We already give you the power to do whatever you want. And thats completely NOT what I want and has missed the point. But I see that no-one else cares So I shall stop caring as well. Lennart, how about you stop taking constructive criticism personally? Uh? Did I? How did you come to that conclusion? Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 13:30, Bastien Nocera (had...@hadess.net) wrote: I turned off sounds in GNOME when I first started using it because hearing six clicks when I change a radio button was somewhat irritating. I understand the recent work has worked towards solving this but 125 event sounds is 124 too many. You are aware that in the new sound themes dialog we explicitly have a check box to disable input feedback sounds and leave everything else on? input feedback sounds are those which are the immediatey result of things like clicking on buttons. There's still a number of bugs in the old libgnome code to hook sound events to widgets. For example, if you had a sound connected to the combobox popping up, changing between folders in Evolution (some with filters and some not) would trigger the sound. It obviously shouldn't. The code in libgnome has been fully obsoleted by code in canberra-gtk-module. And there we have no explicit sound for combo boxes. Just one for menu popup/popdown. Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 12.12.08 14:06, Iain * (iaingn...@gmail.com) wrote: Come one. First you claim the list of defined names is too large. Then you claim it is incomplete. Then you want only a single sound for all. Now you want to distuingish the events. Hey, make up your mind! Thats not what i've said at all. Nicely twisted into a meaningless strawman. Do you want me to compile the list of quotes of your that show that you said exactly the things I mentioned above? Maybe you didn't mean them, but you did *write* them. I think the list of defined names is too long. If you are attempted to define a list of all possible different things that may have different sounds then the the list is incomplete. That was never the intention of the naming spec. The intention is to provide a good set for the beginning and then to add all sounds people have a valid need for. And we jump started it by looking around us and compiling the list from all the sounds that are currently in use. Which I still think is a good way to handle this, possibly even the only good way. I was highlighting this to show that it is impossible to define all possibilties before hand in some spec, not to claim that I want more sounds. I repeatedly tried to make clear that we are happy to update the list when people want to add or change something, if there is a valid reason. Nobody said the spec would be set in stone and already be complete for all eternity. I want a single meaning for why a sound has happened. Yes, that's why the spec tries to explain in which context a specific sound should be used. I want a simple answer to the question should my application make a sound in this situation? Uh? I don't want to distinguish events. I am increasingly getting more confused by what you say and what exactly it is what you want. To me this last sentence and I want a single meaning for why a sound has happened appear to be directly contradicting. And I am sorry, I am pretty sure that if you feel misunderstood by everyone it is not just the audience's fault, but simply that you apparently failed to explain properly what you really want. I want the user to be able to know that when they hear a sound that there is something that may need their attention. Isn't that the whole point of notification sounds? You know, we define 125 sounds. It's up to you which ones you link to the same file and which ones you don't define at all. We already give you the power to do whatever you want. And thats completely NOT what I want and has missed the point. Then enlighten me! But I see that no-one else cares. So I shall stop caring as well. Apparently Ronald cares. It's difficult for me to care if I don't understand what exactly it is what you want. And this is my last mail on the subject Aha! Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
I like your idea for what sounds should be played, but I don't understand how it isn't solved by creating a butler sound and putting it in place of all of the sounds you think it would make sense for. I suppose this does make it harder to change the sound, but you can just make a configuration app that lets you set what that sound is and creates a theme on the fly. I was gonna comment about how I like having a separate sound for the gdm login screen, but then I realized that could be the butler sound too. However, I think that I only want the butler to tell me when gdm login is ready and when I get an IM and not make any other noises at all. This would be impossible for me to set up with your scheme. The brunt of this email is, why not make a sound theme that does exactly what you've requested? Chris On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 9:06 AM, Iain * iaingn...@gmail.com wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 1:45 PM, Lennart Poettering mzta...@0pointer.de wrote: Come one. First you claim the list of defined names is too large. Then you claim it is incomplete. Then you want only a single sound for all. Now you want to distuingish the events. Hey, make up your mind! Thats not what i've said at all. Nicely twisted into a meaningless strawman. I think the list of defined names is too long. If you are attempted to define a list of all possible different things that may have different sounds then the the list is incomplete. I was highlighting this to show that it is impossible to define all possibilties before hand in some spec, not to claim that I want more sounds. I want a single meaning for why a sound has happened. I want a simple answer to the question should my application make a sound in this situation? I don't want to distinguish events. I want the user to be able to know that when they hear a sound that there is something that may need their attention. You know, we define 125 sounds. It's up to you which ones you link to the same file and which ones you don't define at all. We already give you the power to do whatever you want. And thats completely NOT what I want and has missed the point. But I see that no-one else cares So I shall stop caring as well. And this is my last mail on the subject Enjoy iain ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 14:42 +0100, Lennart Poettering wrote: Just think of these sounds: You've got mail! Your CD finished burning! Warning! Your battery is running low! You just clicked a button [1] I think it would be immensly useful to have speech sounds for some notification-related sounds. Heck, I even thought of doing a very special sound theme, particularly for you called Lennart where I record each and every single sound of the 125 defined in my voice. And I'll add a very special gimmick for you: each time when you click your mouse button you'll hear me saying Mouse click!. And if you press them twice I will say Double Click!. And if you press them thrice I will say Mumumumumulticlick! And then -- I guess you are already expecting it -- after the fourth time I will say Rrrrampage!. I'd install that sound theme in an instant. Where can I get it? :D Philip And if then still you don't get what sound themes are all about, I can't help you anymore, but at least I can say I really really and honestly tried. Lennart [1] In case you didn't get it: this isn't meant seriously. signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
2008/12/12 Philip Withnall philip.withn...@gmail.com: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 14:42 +0100, Lennart Poettering wrote: I think it would be immensly useful to have speech sounds for some notification-related sounds. Heck, I even thought of doing a very special sound theme, particularly for you called Lennart where I record each and every single sound of the 125 defined in my voice. And I'll add a very special gimmick for you: each time when you click your mouse button you'll hear me saying Mouse click!. And if you press them twice I will say Double Click!. And if you press them thrice I will say Mumumumumulticlick! And then -- I guess you are already expecting it -- after the fourth time I will say Rrrrampage!. I'd install that sound theme in an instant. Where can I get it? :D I second that call, it would be Godlike! to hear such a Clicking Spree! -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Sound effects
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 17:28 +0100, Patryk Zawadzki wrote: 2008/12/12 Philip Withnall philip.withn...@gmail.com: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 14:42 +0100, Lennart Poettering wrote: I think it would be immensly useful to have speech sounds for some notification-related sounds. Heck, I even thought of doing a very special sound theme, particularly for you called Lennart where I record each and every single sound of the 125 defined in my voice. And I'll add a very special gimmick for you: each time when you click your mouse button you'll hear me saying Mouse click!. And if you press them twice I will say Double Click!. And if you press them thrice I will say Mumumumumulticlick! And then -- I guess you are already expecting it -- after the fourth time I will say Rrrrampage!. I'd install that sound theme in an instant. Where can I get it? :D I second that call, it would be Godlike! to hear such a Clicking Spree! Hmm, where would wicket sick fit into this sound theme? Or am I the only one that knows of the wicked sick? :D BR, K ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Pleasantness [was: Re: Sound effects]
Hello, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: Iain * wrote: But I see that no-one else cares Or, you are not effectively communicating what you mean. Actually, I understand Iain getting annoyed here. He makes a proposal which has its merits, and likely has counter-points that have merit. But it's very quickly descended into a completely unproductive flamewar because of some aggressive emailing. Thus guaranteeing the end of all useful discussion and an Ignore thread from, I'm sure, more than one person. I would like to see more pleasantness on GNOME's email lists in general, and in this case specifically. Let me summarise what's happening here: Iain wonders why there are 125 user-configurable system sounds in GNOME. He sees that most of the sounds are application-specific, not system-general, and suggests doing away with most of them, and letting applications handle application-specific sounds, and having the system configuration only be used for system-level sounds. This is a perfectly reasonable starting principle. And for a while there was lively, useful discussion. Lennart didn't respond to that argument by responding to the principle, and explaining the reasoning behind theming in the first place, he started arguing against the details of the proposal of Iain. In my opinion, what would have been more productive would have been to explain the principles behind sound theming and why those principles are useful. If I understand correctly, sound theming came about for the same reason as icon theming - to prevent every application doing its own thing and defining its own set of sound files and filenames, instead of maintaining consistency across the system. This is an admirable goal, and doesn't necessarily go counter to Iain's goal, which is to symplify configuration of system sounds and make them really useful to people who don't have the time to decide which of the 125 available sounds they want turned on and which they want turned off. Instead, Lennart's been talking about shipping as few, or as many, sound files as you like - this is a lower layer of abstraction that Iain has been looking at. This entire discussion has been symptomatic of a malaise in GNOME discussion lists, where obstreperousness has consistently put an end to interesting debate and turned it into flamewars. The project is better served by people arguing principles than attacking either the messenger or the grammar of the message. Cheers, Dave. -- Dave Neary GNOME Foundation member dne...@gnome.org ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Pleasantness [was: Re: Sound effects]
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 5:43 PM, Dave Neary dne...@gnome.org wrote: Hello, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: Iain * wrote: But I see that no-one else cares Or, you are not effectively communicating what you mean. Actually, I understand Iain getting annoyed here. He makes a proposal which has its merits, and likely has counter-points that have merit. Actually as it was pointed out his proposal is perfectly achievable as a theme with oen sound and 3-4 symlinks for the main notification categories (and no sounds for the rest of them). Let me summarise what's happening here: Iain wonders why there are 125 user-configurable system sounds in GNOME. He sees that most of the sounds are application-specific, not system-general, and suggests doing away with most of them, and letting applications handle application-specific sounds, and having the system configuration only be used for system-level sounds. [...] This is an admirable goal, and doesn't necessarily go counter to Iain's goal, which is to symplify configuration of system sounds and make them really useful to people who don't have the time to decide which of the 125 available sounds they want turned on and which they want turned off. There are only 16 options in the GNOME sound preferences capplet. They handle all these 125 sounds. Futhermore it's really much easier to open one capplet and be able to mute half of the system sounds in just one click when preparing to give a presentation (before someone proposes pressing mute please think about the concept of watching videos without sound). -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Pleasantness [was: Re: Sound effects]
Hi, On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Futhermore it's really much easier to open one capplet and be able to mute half of the system sounds in just one click when preparing to give a presentation Like for power-management, this should be automated. Ronald PS for this kind of stuff, someone could make bug reports so this actually gets done instead of forgotten. ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Pleasantness [was: Re: Sound effects]
Hi, [separate reply, because separate issue] On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Actually as it was pointed out his proposal is perfectly achievable as a theme with oen sound and 3-4 symlinks for the main notification categories (and no sounds for the rest of them). So you're now agreeing that that current sound theme might be suboptimal. Whether that is by design or by implementation is irrelevant for an end user. As a 2nd feature request, will such a theme be created and shipped as default in GNOME 2.next? Ronald ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Pleasantness [was: Re: Sound effects]
On Fri, 12.12.08 17:43, Dave Neary (dne...@gnome.org) wrote: Iain wonders why there are 125 user-configurable system sounds in GNOME. He sees that most of the sounds are application-specific, not system-general, and suggests doing away with most of them, and letting applications handle application-specific sounds, and having the system configuration only be used for system-level sounds. I am sorry: As already pointed out in a personal email to you: this is not the correct premise. We don't expose 125 user-configurable system sounds in GNOME. We never did. It's about 16 or so. Also, stuff like input feedback sounds have their own checkbox you can easily disable them with at once. I mentioned both of these facts during the thread. This is a perfectly reasonable starting principle. And for a while there was lively, useful discussion. Lennart didn't respond to that argument by responding to the principle, and explaining the reasoning behind theming in the first place, he started arguing against the details of the proposal of Iain. He. Why should I respond to that on principle? I have nothing against the idea of having a minimal sound theme consisting of a single sound only. The technology for defining such a theme is already there. It's just a matter of putting it together and getting it into the distributions. You know, it would probably even make sense to ship such a theme within the s-t-fdo tarball since it is very generic. (Before we do that we however need to check how much this overlaps with the checkboxes we already provide) What I was responding to is the premises and conclusions. Because most of them were invalid and incorrect. (Also note that I still havent' entirely understood what exactly iaian was asking for which makes it impossible to respond to a principle.) This entire discussion has been symptomatic of a malaise in GNOME discussion lists, where obstreperousness has consistently put an end to interesting debate and turned it into flamewars. The project is better served by people arguing principles than attacking either the messenger or the grammar of the message. Not so sure that this thread is really a good example for your case. My response was solely based on technical reasoning. Maybe it appeared a bit aggressive or unfriendly. But in the end technical reasoning is what matters. Lennart ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Pleasantness [was: Re: Sound effects]
On Fri, 12.12.08 12:20, Ronald S. Bultje (rsbul...@gmail.com) wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Actually as it was pointed out his proposal is perfectly achievable as a theme with oen sound and 3-4 symlinks for the main notification categories (and no sounds for the rest of them). So you're now agreeing that that current sound theme might be suboptimal. Whether that is by design or by implementation is irrelevant for an end user. As a 2nd feature request, will such a theme be created and shipped as default in GNOME 2.next? As already pointed out: you are welcome to put such a theme together and it is very likely we would even include it in the same tarball as s-t-fd. Patches always welcome! Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Pleasantness [was: Re: Sound effects]
On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 6:34 PM, Lennart Poettering mzta...@0pointer.de wrote: On Fri, 12.12.08 12:19, Ronald S. Bultje (rsbul...@gmail.com) wrote: On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Futhermore it's really much easier to open one capplet and be able to mute half of the system sounds in just one click when preparing to give a presentation Like for power-management, this should be automated. There's not much to automate. All a presentation program needs to do is to toggle the GConf key /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds or the XSETTING gtk-enable-event-sounds. I don't think we need a daemon for managing that key, do we? I actually don't agree here. We need something like system usage profiles (normal use, stealth mode for public areas, presentation etc.) so we don't run into a heap of race conditions where multiple applications try to change and restore the same bunch of GConf keys. Ideally there would just be an fd.o standard with a corresponding GConf key and XSETTING so applications can monitor the changes and act along (in this case canberra-gtk might decide to mute all sounds for some of the profiles). Then we can build on top of that to provide locations so you can switch the usage profile, the proxy configuration, VPN settings and other stuff basing on where you sit (and get bonus points for detecting locations basing on stuff like current wireless network). Anyway that's a whole different story and does not belong in this thread. -- Patryk Zawadzki ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Pleasantness [was: Re: Sound effects]
On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 18:34 +0100, Lennart Poettering wrote: On Fri, 12.12.08 12:19, Ronald S. Bultje (rsbul...@gmail.com) wrote: Hi, Heya! On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Futhermore it's really much easier to open one capplet and be able to mute half of the system sounds in just one click when preparing to give a presentation Like for power-management, this should be automated. There's not much to automate. All a presentation program needs to do is to toggle the GConf key /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds or the XSETTING gtk-enable-event-sounds. I don't think we need a daemon for managing that key, do we? We probably do, because it's the same problem as the Inhibit APIs in the screensaver. What if your app crashes, how does it reset the old value, what was the old value? Should be easy enough to add to a gnome-settings-daemon plugin though. Other apps could also use it. See http://tinyurl.com/5s5an8 [1]. Cheers [1]: And if you're worried about patents, see http://www.redhat.com/legal/patent_policy.html ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
Re: Pleasantness [was: Re: Sound effects]
On Fri, 12.12.08 18:42, Bastien Nocera (had...@hadess.net) wrote: On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 18:34 +0100, Lennart Poettering wrote: On Fri, 12.12.08 12:19, Ronald S. Bultje (rsbul...@gmail.com) wrote: Hi, Heya! On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 12:06 PM, Patryk Zawadzki pat...@pld-linux.org wrote: Futhermore it's really much easier to open one capplet and be able to mute half of the system sounds in just one click when preparing to give a presentation Like for power-management, this should be automated. There's not much to automate. All a presentation program needs to do is to toggle the GConf key /desktop/gnome/sound/event_sounds or the XSETTING gtk-enable-event-sounds. I don't think we need a daemon for managing that key, do we? We probably do, because it's the same problem as the Inhibit APIs in the screensaver. What if your app crashes, how does it reset the old value, what was the old value? Should be easy enough to add to a gnome-settings-daemon plugin though. Hmm, maybe GConf (or DConf) should know the notion of temporary change that is automatically reversed if the app responsible terminates the connection? Somehow I got the feeling that this might be useful for more than this case. Lennart -- Lennart PoetteringRed Hat, Inc. lennart [at] poettering [dot] net ICQ# 11060553 http://0pointer.net/lennart/ GnuPG 0x1A015CC4 ___ desktop-devel-list mailing list desktop-devel-list@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/desktop-devel-list
