[IDEA] Google Summer of Code - plasmoid mixer with phonon lib

[Aaron J. Seigo]

On Friday 13 March 2009, Albert Astals Cid wrote:
> A Divendres, 13 de març de 2009, Aaron J. Seigo va escriure:
> > On Thursday 12 March 2009, Albert Astals Cid wrote:
> > > What's the need of such plasmoid when we already have kmix?
> >
> > i assume you asked the same thing about kicker's mixer applet?
>
> No because the kicker's mixer applet is clearly an applet while that
> screenshots show me nothing but a total copy of kmix window interface.

iirc kicker's applet:

* allowed one to pick which  channels to show
* allowed one to split channels into left/right
* allowed one to mute channels
* allowed one to pick which device you were controlling

which is pretty much exactly what kmix did and does. you didn't complain then, 
and in fact seem to be defending the kicker applet. if you think kicker's 
applet was ok, it would be silly to come out against a plasmoid because they 
are the *same thing*.

now, what i see in this proposal is to create a plasmoid that is essentially 
what the kicker applet was with some new features.

to play a thought experiment: if someone had added those same features to the 
kicker applet, how many objections would there have been? my bet would be on 
"no complaints".

anyways, "it was in kicker" really isn't a good enough justification. what i'd 
expect from a plasmoid (or a kicker applet; and, btw, this is where the kicker 
applet failed miserably) would be:

* the ability to *easily* select what was being controlled

* in small spaces an icon that just controlled the main channel, and popup the 
whole mixer interface (e.g. as a Plasma::PopupAppplet does) when clicked on 
making it actually useful on small panels

* the ability to define what the main icon was, and have more than on copy of 
that applet showing so i can have a couple different mixer set ups should i so 
desire

* sensible defaults that aren't geared towards "control everything" but 
towards "control the common things, allow display of controls for everything 
if configured as such"

* good looks

the use cases are:

* quick "always on" access to your mixer from the desktop interface that 
blends nicely with other similar controls (aka "freeing it from the system 
tray")

* showing the controls in "non-desktop" places such as a media center 
containment or on the screensaver so others or even you yourself can adjust 
volumes without unlocking the system

as to "joining forces with kmix", what features does kmix need/lack in your 
opinion? the per-application controls?

-- 
Aaron J. Seigo
humru othro a kohnu se
GPG Fingerprint: 8B8B 2209 0C6F 7C47 B1EA  EE75 D6B7 2EB1 A7F1 DB43

KDE core developer sponsored by Qt Software

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