KMix and KEnvy24

[Christian Esken]

Am Mittwoch, 31. Dezember 2008 schrieb Valentin Rusu:
> 
> On Tue, 2008-12-30 at 00:34 +0100, Christian Esken wrote:
> > Am Freitag, 26. Dezember 2008 schrieb Valentin Rusu:
> > > Hello,
> > > 
> >  This chip
> > > has it's ALSA driver and it's configuration is quite special. It also
> > > has way more controls than simple "SoundBlaster" cards. Just take a look
> > > to this screenshot :
> 
> > Hello Valentin,
> > 
> > could you please detail a bit more what is so special about that card?
> > 
> > The screenshot shows peak meters, which would be nice to integrate. 
> > 
> > 
> 
> Hello Christian,
> 
> This chip have a special way to handle stereo streams and to route
> signals from inputs to the outputs. It contains a digital mixer, but one
> can route an input signal directly to an output, bypassing the mixer. 
> [...]
> Confusing, isn't it ?

Not really. These route controls sound like to be similar to those found in other cards (Audigy, afaik).
I have not yet bothered with this interface. Probably I would, but couldn't find any routing API in http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/alsa-lib/group___simple_mixer.html .
 
> There is a tool called envy24control which handles all these details,
> but it's still confusing. That's why I started a little tool to help
> thing get easier to understand. For example, KEnvy24 does like Terratec
> Windows mixer application : it automatically configures the card to send
> inputs through the mixer. This might upset some advanced users, but the
> mean user will be happy. The former ones may go with envy24control.

Yes. A setup/auto-setup would be helpful for other cards as well. When and where that could be placed, is an interesting discussion point. For example it could be in a configuration dialog, or when opening the mixer for the first time.

> > The preferred solution would be to tune the GUI via the built-in GUI-Profile engine. KMix selects the Profile by looking at various aspects, as card name and soundcard driver version. You can define which controls to show by default, and define the order. See KDE4DIR/share/apps/kmix/profiles/ALSA.default.xml for the default GUI profile. 
> Ok  I'll take a look and keep you posted.

I am pretty sure, that extensions will be neccesary in several places (especially XML, profile and views). But nothing to worry about.

  Christian

-- 
Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler. 
  - Albert Einstein