kmix PulseAudio support

Helio Chissini de Castro helio at kde.org
Wed Jan 6 11:56:57 GMT 2010


On Wednesday 06 January 2010 09:40:10 Sebastian Kügler wrote:
> On Wednesday 06 January 2010 11:24:04 Colin Guthrie wrote:
> > After improving Phonon integration I've been digging through the kmix
> > code to try and add proper PulseAudio support.
> >
> > I now have a set of patches that add this support and can commit it to
> > trunk anytime people approve. I'm not 100% sure of trunk status due to
> > 4.4 being ready soon.
> >
> > So can I commit?
> 
> We're in feature freeze, since somewhen in November. That means no new
>  features, no new strings for 4.4.x. Translation updates and bugfixes are
>  OK to go into the (soon- to-be-created) 4.4 branch, anything else has to
>  wait until trunk reopens for development again (which should also be
>  shortly). You'll hear about it if you read this list.
> 
> > I have two remaining issues that I do not think are show stoppers:
> >  1. Everytime a new device shows up a new Global Shortcut dialog
> > appears. I don't think this is any different to ALSA but.... as I now
> > have per-app volume control, this dialog is also shown everytime a new
> > application plays sound. It only happens once, but it could still be
> > considered annoying by some.
> >  2. If there are no capture streams running at startup the tab for that
> > will never be displayed - likewise if the stream restore module in PA is
> > not loaded the "Playback Streams" tab will never be displayed.
> >
> > I'll work on the latter issue for sure.
> 
> How do we get the first one fixed, then? :)
> 
> > Obviously if PA is not running, this whole patchset should amount to a
> > NOOP. Also even if PA is running you can export
> > KMIX_PULSEAUDIO_DISABLE=1 to disable the integration.
> 
> Thanks for keeping sanity for those whose setups don't work with
>  pulseaudio.
> 
> > I'll write a more detailed blog post shortly (wish screenies, so you can
> > ask about features there!). It should appear on planetkde.
> >
> > There are various things that could be more efficient (e.g. redraw
> > current redraws all tabs, not just the one that has changed when a new
> > application appears or disappears)
> >
> >
> > Now, I know Helio was quite keen to squeeze this into the 4.4 release.
> > I've just put it into Mandriva Cooker package for somewhat wider testing
> > but it seems fine so far.
> >
> > My main concern with squeezing it in is that there are some i18n changes
> > (about 5 or 6 strings).
> 
> As explained above, it's way too late for such an intrusive change at this
>  point as we won't get enough testing to make sure it's good enough to be
>  shipped with a stable KDE, especially not given that there are known bugs.
>  It'll have to wait for being released with KDE SC 4.5.
> 
> > Anyway, that's the crux of it all.
> >
> > Take care
> 
> Cheers!

Ok, my input

Feature is stabled ? Yes ( been testing for a while )
Could be integrated ? Yes
Should we do now ? Well, no, and i explain why.

Colin's work is completly right, and is another backend for kmix, as we 
expected and we both discussed. But he did the top of what kmix can serve in 
his interface.
For a end user, now is time to completly redesign because this interface not 
supports anymore any of our new tendencies bring from plasma, so we're behind 
in terms of user interaction, visual appearance and  even system interaction.

So i say, lets integrate for 4.4.x with minor modifications to enable user 
decide to alsa x pulse mixer ( not using env var ), and in the sprint 
multimedia will be a ground zero point to new mixer interface and integration 
code planning, possibly keeping all current engine code separated, since this 
already works  very well. And for 4.5.

[]'s

-- 
Helio Chissini de Castro
South America and Brazil Primary Contact
KDE Developer since 2002




More information about the kde-core-devel mailing list