Re: [pulseaudio-discuss] module-device-restore: Volume save and restore for all ports?
ma, 2010-01-04 kello 23:10 +0100, Lennart Poettering kirjoitti: On Fri, 01.01.10 05:52, Tanu Kaskinen (ta...@iki.fi) wrote: - Track port volume and mute individually. That is, whenever the active port is switched, the previous port's volume and mute state should be saved to a database and the new port's volume and mute state should be loaded from the database. Makes sense. An easy fix could be to reuse the current m-d-r database but always store two entries each time we want to save the device settings: one for $SINKNAME and one for $sinkn...@$portname or suchlike. And when reading from the database we'd first look for $sinkn...@$portname in the db and fall back to $SINKNAME if we dont find that. Sounds good. - Don't treat the options as separate ports, but create a new concept for them: port options. Hmm, should those really be _port_ options? Not _device_ options? At least the state should be saved per-port. That is, if I select an option for some port, I possibly (and even probably) don't want to have the option selected in all the other ports also. When writing the alsa mixer config files, it may make sense to configure options in the Mapping section, but even then I suspect that there are sound cards with options that are not relevant with all ports, so I think we have two acceptable design options: make the options configurable A) in the path config only or B) both in the path and the mapping config. - Port options are things that you can switch on and off, or choose from an enumeration. This dangerously sounds like the complex ALSA mixer which I'd rather avoid. Before we approach this, could we get a more complete list of options that would be covered with this, in addition to the amplifier settings? I'm not aware of any other sensible options that exist on real hardware. I mentioned selectable EQ settings earlier, but I've not personally seen or heard about any sound card actually having such options. If you can't come up with other options either, maybe it's not worth the effort to implement the port options just for the amplification switch (UIs would have to be updated too). I still think that the concept makes perfect sense, though. Lennart, any comments? Would you accept a patch that made these changes? Yes, but let's discuss this more first ;-) Here's something more to discuss: saving stream volumes per physical output (per sink and per port, that is). I'll make a separate thread. -- Tanu Kaskinen ___ pulseaudio-discuss mailing list pulseaudio-discuss@mail.0pointer.de https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-discuss
Re: [pulseaudio-discuss] module-device-restore: Volume save and restore for all ports?
la, 2010-01-02 kello 14:40 +, Colin Guthrie kirjoitti: 'Twas brillig, and Tanu Kaskinen at 01/01/10 03:52 did gyre and gimble: Hi Colin, I got a bit confused about the term port in your mail. Apparently you used it to mean something else than pulseaudio's own device port concept. In this message I will use the word port only for the pulseaudio concept. It's certainly what I meant by port... /me worries that it wasn't clear. ke, 2009-12-30 kello 13:26 +, Colin Guthrie kirjoitti: As jack sensing will eventually be with us, it would make sense to save and restore the volume of all ports separately. Only saving the current port's volume would be a pain. I agree, although I don't really see how jack sensing is important here. AFAIK ports are currently only implemented by the alsa modules, and in that case separate ports are created for two different purposes: selecting the physical output or input, and selecting any options that the alsa mixer offers (for example, extra amplification switch). Regardless of jack sensing, volume should be saved and restored independently for each output/input. Well the reason I see jack sensing as important here is that the say the user is using the Speaker port and sets the volume to 99%. This volume is saved. Then later, they have headphones plugged in when PA starts and the port is automatically set to Headphones. In this case the volume could be restored to the 99% that was appropriate for Speaker but totally incorrect for Headphones and turn your brain into a mushy goo :p Ok, I think I see. So the difference is that when switching to Headphones, without jack sensing the user has the possibility pre-emptively decrease the volume after plugging the headphones in. With jack sensing the decreasing has to be done before plugging the headphones in. That might not be a very big difference - I think mushy goo is the probable outcome in both cases :) Now the second purpose of ports causes problems: the volume shouldn't be saved independently for the two cases of whether the extra amplification is on or off. Why not? With amplification you'd presumably set the volume lower... is it a massive problem that we would save those two volumes separately? The option could be anything - the sound card might have selectable equalization presets, for example... But no, I don't believe this would be a massive problem in practice. Certainly just storing the volume individually for each port would be a good start. But I still think that the port option concept makes sense. I may have not thought this completely through, but nevertheless I propose the following: - Track port volume and mute individually. That is, whenever the active port is switched, the previous port's volume and mute state should be saved to a database and the new port's volume and mute state should be loaded from the database. Ahh, I thought about that (didn't say it in the original mail) but there is a problem here. It's maybe too niche, but if we only save it on port switch then a volume change to Headphones levels via alsa mixers will not be saved. This will affect users who currently are able to take advantage of hardware jacksensing. e.g. The user I spoke to didn't actually change the PA port when he plugged his headphones in (it's too much hassle which I can sympathise with). When he does this, the general volume control infrastructure doesn't work (as expected) and changing volume doesn't actually affect the volume of the headphones. So if we could detect and save the volume when it's changes, then the restoration would help this use case. Of course if we could just get jack sensing working it would bypass the need for this, so it's likely a better focus. Well, I fully agree that it does make sense to store the volume whenever it changes (except for automatic changes by the flat volume logic) - just like it's done now. Regarding the use case you mentioned - it would require some modifications to the logic that handles mixer change events that are caused eg. by fiddling with alsamixer. Currently whenever something happens, the sink receives a generic callback that basically says something happened and then the sink just updates the current volume and mute state, using the currently active port. This use case would require that each port would store the current volume and mute of the relevant mixer elements, and the mixer change events would be handled by the ports instead of (or in addition to) the sinks. Device-restore would need to listen to port state change events, which do not currently exist. As you say, the need for this will probably evaporate with jack sensing support. It's still useful to think whether using alsamixer (or something like it) should be supported as well as possible - it would be nice if moving the Headphones slider would affect the device-restore database even when the headphones aren't
Re: [pulseaudio-discuss] module-device-restore: Volume save and restore for all ports?
Hi Colin, I got a bit confused about the term port in your mail. Apparently you used it to mean something else than pulseaudio's own device port concept. In this message I will use the word port only for the pulseaudio concept. ke, 2009-12-30 kello 13:26 +, Colin Guthrie kirjoitti: As jack sensing will eventually be with us, it would make sense to save and restore the volume of all ports separately. Only saving the current port's volume would be a pain. I agree, although I don't really see how jack sensing is important here. AFAIK ports are currently only implemented by the alsa modules, and in that case separate ports are created for two different purposes: selecting the physical output or input, and selecting any options that the alsa mixer offers (for example, extra amplification switch). Regardless of jack sensing, volume should be saved and restored independently for each output/input. Now the second purpose of ports causes problems: the volume shouldn't be saved independently for the two cases of whether the extra amplification is on or off. I may have not thought this completely through, but nevertheless I propose the following: - Track port volume and mute individually. That is, whenever the active port is switched, the previous port's volume and mute state should be saved to a database and the new port's volume and mute state should be loaded from the database. - Don't treat the options as separate ports, but create a new concept for them: port options. - Thereby a port equals a physical route (port might be renamed to route, although I think port is a good enough name for the concept). - Port options are things that you can switch on and off, or choose from an enumeration. - Obviously port options are specific to ports. module-device-restore tracks the option states along with port volume and mute. Lennart, any comments? Would you accept a patch that made these changes? I'm not saying that I would definitely write the patch, but it's not impossible either. -- Tanu Kaskinen ___ pulseaudio-discuss mailing list pulseaudio-discuss@mail.0pointer.de https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-discuss
[pulseaudio-discuss] module-device-restore: Volume save and restore for all ports?
Hi, I was chatting with Baughn on IRC last night and he mentioned something that made me think about a deficiency in module-device-restore. As jack sensing will eventually be with us, it would make sense to save and restore the volume of all ports separately. Only saving the current port's volume would be a pain. At present, the jack sensing does not work too well, but some h/w (incl. Baughn's) has internal jack sensing and thus when he plugs in his headphones he adjusts the speaker volume (in a raw alsa mixer - although the same problem would be present if he switched ports, adjusted volume and then switched back). After rebooting, his Speaker volume is not restored (unsurprisingly) as module-device-restore will only save the volume for a single (i.e. the active) port, not all ports. When jack sensing comes in, I presume we would want to save the volume of the speaker port separately from the volume of the amplifier port. (is this a valid assumption?) In which case, would it make sense to make module-device-restore automatically save the volume of each port on shutdown and restore them all on startup? This approach would mean that even if we use a raw alsa mixer to adjust the speaker slider, the value would be saved when PA exists. Does this seem valid or is there another approach here that should be used? Col -- Colin Guthrie gmane(at)colin.guthr.ie http://colin.guthr.ie/ Day Job: Tribalogic Limited [http://www.tribalogic.net/] Open Source: Mandriva Linux Contributor [http://www.mandriva.com/] PulseAudio Hacker [http://www.pulseaudio.org/] Trac Hacker [http://trac.edgewall.org/] ___ pulseaudio-discuss mailing list pulseaudio-discuss@mail.0pointer.de https://tango.0pointer.de/mailman/listinfo/pulseaudio-discuss
