RFC: KDE4, KMix and a public Mixer API (possibly freedesktop.org)

[Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas]

On Tuesday, 10 October 2006 19:17, Christian Esken wrote:
> Am Dienstag, 10. Oktober 2006 07:19 schrieb Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas:
> > On Monday, 9 October 2006 21:45, Christian Esken wrote:
> > > Precisely. Also you do NOT want to use alsa-lib if it can be avoided:
> > > It is fully undocument and very complicated to use properly if you want
> > > to cover all soundcards.
> >
> > I have to disagree with the "fully undocumented" part. It is documented,
> > though I would like a deeper level of information on several areas, as
> > control and mixer interfaces:
> >
> > http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/index.html
>
> Sorry, but we have been talking about Mixers and thus Mixer interface. Here
> is the complete documentation: "Mixer interface
> Mixer interface is designed to access the abstracted mixer controls. This
> is an abstraction layer over the hcontrol layer."
>
> Look here: http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/mixer.html

It's me who has to apologize, because I was kidding a bit. Of course the  
documentation about the mixer API is ridiculous. And if you go to the 
hcontrol section trying to find a bit of light, you get another piece of the 
same cake. I have to say, though, that a large part of the ALSA library is 
much better documented.

By the way: I am an user of KMix, and I am very happy with it. You have been 
able to fight successfully with the ALSA mixer API, even with such a poor  
documentation.

On the other hand, I sympathize with your proposal of having a DBUS service 
providing easy access to the hardware mixer (if I understood you correctly). 
Of course, I can do it already in KDE apps and scripts, with KMix DCOP 
interface:
	$ dcop kmix Mixer0 setVolume 0 85
	$ dcop kmix Mixer0 setMute 0 1

I will convert some day my Kaseq (ALSA sequencer DCOP service) into a DBUS 
service.

Regards,
Pedro