[PATCH] Re: KMix

[Christian Esken]

On Sunday 14 December 2003 02:25, Frans Englich wrote:
> But. My patch increases the likelyness for getting blasted by so little it
> actually is ignorable. If you have a miss-behaving app, a non-normalized
> sound file or whatever the reason to increase the volume to a abnormal
> level AND then *immediately* exits your KDE session _with_ logout sound

No need for the "logout sound". I am talking about the (restored) volume on 
next boot.

> disabled you will get blasted. Does it sound likely? No, because it is
> *not* likely - one out of all the total nnumber of times you play a sound.

So I can argue, that backups are nonsense, because most likely you will not 
need them, right? And that fire polices are stupid, because the likeliness of 
my home burning down is extremely low?

> Considering how often it anyway will happen(with or without new behavior)
> the user is and must be hardened so who cares? ;-)

I do care. If it happens one time that a speaker gets blasted due to this 
behaviour, this is too much.



> > I think the ideal way is that you configure some acceptable values, save
> > it and they are always restored.
>
> In my opinion, we agree(referring to my save-on-quit suggestion). It has
> its roots in the observation that the user fails to save its changes by
> believing they're already saved. And the new behavior makes the GUI behave
> as the user expects.

It does not look like we agree. The comment above yours talks of explicitly 
saving volumes. And I also would not like auto-save.

Additionaly, besides the "blasting" problem, I also believe auto-save is 
counter-productive, because "random" values will be saved. Examples:

(a) When I look a DVD video late at night and don't want to wake my 
neighbours, I will turn the volume down. Then I go to bed. Why should this 
low volume profile be saved? Most likely I will not need low volume on next 
boot.

(b) I listen to some quiet classical music and turn the volume up. Then I quit 
the desktop and leave my home. Why should this high volume profile be saved?

(c) I listen to some MP3-File: MP3-Files tend to vary greatly in volume, so 
why should such a "random" volume be saved?

(d) A video player (or any other MM application) that has its own mixer built 
in is running while I shut down the Desktop. When quiting the desktop, I do 
not want this volume to be saved.

So when you want to start your computer *always* with proofed, good volumes, 
you do not want auto-save. With "good" I mean, that the volume should be OK 
for your normal desktop usage profile.

Chris