Audio volume widget: Am I the only one who struggled on figuring out how to mute an application?

Brainstorm
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I wanted to mute an application, and I was trying clicking the big icon (the one that the red icon is pointing to) for several seconds before realizing that it didn’t work as I expected it to be. Then as a workaround I though “let’s bring down the volume to zero instead” and after doing that I realized that I should have clicked the small icon instead (the one that the green arrow is pointing to).

I just though I had to mention it, but unfortunately I’m not sure I can propose some alternative design. In any case I now know how to do it! It’s just the first time I guess that it might be confusing.

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Well what is your distro ? Are you using systemd ?

This works fine on my Arch system.

Normally processes are regrouped into applications, thanks to systemd startup, namespacing and cgroups.

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The big icon is dragable and can be used to select a specific output for a specific application.

I concur with you the mute button is not obvious enough.
Suggestions welcome.

3 Likes
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I’m pointing out a possible UI design issue: I struggled in figuring what button to press! I was trying to click on the large icon (the one that the red arrow is pointing)! ie it wasn’t apparent to me that I had to click the small icon.

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Oh! I just realized that! I wonder how many users are aware of that! :\

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Your system isn’t lookin’ quite right there. You might’ve had an easier time if it were! Those speaker icons are a fallback, it should be showing something app-specific there.

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(Yes this is an ad and you want to watch Fall of Civilisations now :grinning_face: )

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Umm… I’m on KDE Neon. Wayland if that makes any difference.

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Replying to my own comment: same icons in X, and in my laptop as well (also running KDE Neon).

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I know previous Plasma releases did show the appropriate app icons here, in KDE neon. never noticed the change tbh.

I also have been confused by this, even with the correct icons in place. I never considered the small icon at all for the longest time.

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Here in neon, it is only Firefox showing a fallback icon.

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I can confirm that! firefox and also steam games. Eliza is showing an icon as well. Might be less confusing with application icon, but I can’t tell now. I cannot unsee it :slight_smile:

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Looks like you guys might have found a firefox packaging bug in Neon!

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A Firefox packaging bug from Mozilla, you mean?
There was at least one other music or video player that had the fallback, but now I can’t remember, and I don’t feel like going through the list (how many of each of these do I need, lol!)

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No, I mean in Neon. Mozilla don’t package the app.

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It’s not just the icons that are wrong. Steam is showing up as ‘Chromium’.

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can confirm that steam games show up with generic icon for me on kubuntu LTS

and that i too have tried clicking on the generic icon to mute an app stream.

it didn’t take long to discover the smaller speaker icon actually lights up upon hover to indicate that it is clickable, but the bigger icon drew my eye to it at first, because it’s bigger.

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Mozilla do package firefox. It is the source neon uses for it.

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Is this really a problem? 1st try did not work, tried the other icon, bingo. Now want 2nd icon to be bigger so can get it right on first try. I do not think anybody get stuck in there for more than 2 seconds b4 they find the damn mute icon. c’mon folks.

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No, it’s not! It’s just a first time confusion only. I mentioned it for brainstorming. I believe you agree that it would be better to not confuse new users.

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ok sorry. my bad, i might misunderstood a little.

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