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#26 2008-03-14 21:16:36

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

OMG ! MrWeatherbee you did everything I was too lazy to do ! I am sending you a 1 million dollars reward right away smile

The only changes I made to VolWheel so far are a command line mode and an icon theme for the "dynamic mode". I also have a web page almost ready to host the VolWheel project. With all those new features, I think it's time to export it to a wider community.

I have questions though :
- what the point of showing to the user that he is in real mute or SiMute ? Don't you think that is just a useless technical detail ?
- what is the license of your icons ?
- what do you think of Komodo Edit ? Isn't it too slow compared to mEdit or Geany ?

Please send the source as soon as you feel ready wink

@Perre : do you think that MrWeatherbee solved your problem ? Because I am not sure you two are speaking about the same thing.

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#27 2008-03-14 23:37:36

MrWeatherbee
Member
Registered: 2007-08-01
Posts: 277

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

oliwer wrote:

I have questions though :
- what the point of showing to the user that he is in real mute or SiMute ? Don't you think that is just a useless technical detail ?
- what is the license of your icons ?
- what do you think of Komodo Edit ? Isn't it too slow compared to mEdit or Geany ?

Please send the source as soon as you feel ready wink

@Perre : do you think that MrWeatherbee solved your problem ? Because I am not sure you two are speaking about the same thing.

- RE: Real v. siMute indicator - Hmm, well, yes it could be useless, especially for users who have sound cards incapable of real muting. However, I have a sound card that is capable of real mute on all controls except for one, and based on that experience, I thought it would be nice for users to know when they were using a control that supported real mute and one that didn't.. In any case, the user can very easily change the icon set to accommodate any indicator for either mute mode (see below);

- RE: icon set - The icon set has no license currently attached as it hasn't been published, so perhaps for now it is FFO (Free For Oliwer). In reality, I have no license preference as I really have not delved into the specific differences between the various commonly used open source ones. In other words: you can have the icons and you can apply any open license you wish (given some research, I may have more input on this later);

The icon set consists of 18 PNGs (6 volume levels each for normal, real mute and siMute):

multimedia-volume-control-l0[-5].png
multimedia-volume-control-l0[-5]-mute.png
multimedia-volume-control-l0[-5]-simute.png

The PNGs were created from an Inkscape SVG file (also to be supplied) that is set-up with various layers to facilitate quick customizations for those who would like to do so. Various layers are made visible or invisible before each export-to-PNG process to create the level + mute mode combinations. It's actually pretty quick to redo all 18 icons. The SVG can also be used as the template for more major customizations (such as changing the image shapes or what have you).

I have also created a set using the ubiquitous Gnome? volume icon (speaker with a number of sound waves coming out of it depending on volume level) modifying it for the increased number of levels and modes of my modded Volwheel. However, I hesitate to supply this as I don't know if it violates any licenses on the original. Let me know if you know. I wasn't that satisfied with it anyway.

- RE: Perre's issue: After a re-read, I do not think we are talking about the same thing ... and I even wonder why I ever thought we were.

RE: KomodoEdit - It is a little slow on start-up (not really slow ... just not instantaneous ... but I guess that depends on the PC it's running on). I tried Geany and mEdit, and Geany kept me interested for about half an hour, mEdit kept me interested for about 2 minutes before I uninstalled them. For editors like those (especially mEdit), I stick to SciTE, so I didn't need either of them. I also use Eclipse for bigger Python projects (but nothing I do is really that big).

RE: Source - I've got quite a few things going on for the next several days, so I may not get to it right away. I believe I have all the bugs out of the current code, but I would like to try to optimize memory usage a little more though I'm not sure it is possible. It only uses 10.8 MB on start, so that is no problem, but if you open the File Chooser dialogs (which shouldn't need to be done except during initial setups), the usage goes up to 19.3 MB. At any rate I'd like to give it the once or twice over to make sure I'm not leaving any scalars or arrays open when they aren't needed.

*Other code related-issues:

- use a Config module so the config file creation is more flexible, e.g., adding annotations - low priority;
- add Window identifiers (wm_class, wm_name, etc.) - high priority
- add a Window icon for task bar - low priority ??
- clean up code related to switching between mute and unmute and between disabling and enabling scroll during mute. This code became somewhat complex keeping track of status (especially at start-up and after certain preferences are changed - see note below). It works perfectly fine and has the advantage of not using any temp files. However, it may have the disadvantage of being difficult to follow when reading the code. I am now inclined to implement a temp file if it makes the code easier to follow. Otherwise, I will leave as is. - high priority
- write the text for the <<HelpInfo doc - high priority
- a few other minor code organization / optimization items

*The only other features I need to complete:

- changing / adding to the button array at the bottom of the Preferences  dialog. Originally, your code automatically closed the dialog on 'Save'; this is not really a good thing now since my code allows for some features that might cause a user to want the dialog to stay open after a save. I currently have the auto-close disabled and simply close with 'Cancel' or the Window decoration close button, but it cannot stay like that. It is a simple job, just haven't done it yet

- Adding most Recently Used Alsa Controls (or a user-defined static list?) to the pop-up menu for quick changes without having to open the Preferences dialog - low priority;

- Option to have any controls that were muted via Volwheel to be unmuted and have a specific volume set on exit. This probably will only be implemented in conjunction with the Recently Used List as I can use the same code for keeping track of which controls have been modifed by Volwheel;

*Things I'd like to do but can't because I don't have the hardware
- test this in multiple sound card environments
- more thoroughly test the siMute code on a card that doesn't support real mute at all (as I said previously, I only have one control on my card that doesn't support real mute, and it is an odd control that I never use in the real world anyway).

At some point our communication will have to move somewhere else, but I thought others may be interested in this and may have some helpful input.

--- Note:

Part of the complexity of keeping track of the status of mute and disabling / enabling scroll when muted came about due to what I believe is a bug in Gtk2, or at least I see no value in it if it is indeed a feature. To wit, if code attempts to unblock a signal that is not currently blocked, Gtk2 gracefully throws up a message "signal not currently blocked at line ...". However, if code attempts to block a signal that is already blocked, it blocks it - again. So attempting to unblock this "double" blocked signal will not work with a single 'unblock' command ... it requires two. In other words, it seems that blocking signals is cumulative and requires the same number of unblock commands to return the signal to an active state. Very annoying. Of course, my final code is written so that each signal is tested for status before attempting to block or unblock it (no "accumulation" is allowed to occur), but during the original coding of this particular functionality, the weirdness did have me puzzled for a short while and ultimately makes testing for and tracking blocked / unblocked signal status more complex than it needs to be.

Last edited by MrWeatherbee (2008-03-15 11:36:18)

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#28 2008-04-08 17:45:08

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

VolWheel 0.2.2 is out !

2008-04-08 - v0.2.2
* Added a command line mode
* Added the possibility to configure volume incrementation
* Fixed the zombie bug when launching a mixer
   (thanx to Pablo Flouret)
* The volume before muting in now saved
* Some code clean up

As usual, get it on AUR > http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=13764

And as you can see, there is some kind of crappy website under construction.

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#29 2008-05-04 17:51:53

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

VolWheel 0.2.3 is out !

2008-05-04 - v0.2.3
* Added a volume scaling window (for times when you don't
   have a mouse on your laptop)

As usual, get it on AUR > http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=13764

New screenshot

Last edited by oliwer (2008-05-04 17:52:18)

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#30 2008-05-04 18:07:57

thayer
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From: Vancouver, BC
Registered: 2007-05-20
Posts: 1,560
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Thanks again Oliwer!

Just installed the latest and although I'll probably never need the new popup menu, I notice that it defaults to 100 no matter what the actually volume is.  Is this by design? Just curious.


thayer williams ~ cinderwick.ca

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#31 2008-05-04 18:43:11

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Oh crap ! Just one stupid typo sad

Thanks for the report thayer. Please download volwheel-0.2.3-2 on AUR, it fixes the problem.

Note to myself: do not set PCM at 100% all the time.

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#32 2008-05-04 19:09:01

thayer
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From: Vancouver, BC
Registered: 2007-05-20
Posts: 1,560
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Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

hehe no worries... *ahem* bump the md5 while nobody's lookin' too smile

Update:

Err okay, I might be dealing with a cache issue or something else... the md5sum didn't match for the latest PKGBUILD, so I generated a valid one and rebuilt the package, but the slider still shows 100% when it's actually 35% (I use the master gain if that makes a difference).

Last edited by thayer (2008-05-04 19:14:14)


thayer williams ~ cinderwick.ca

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#33 2008-05-04 20:01:54

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Weird. I can't reproduce the problem. And the PKGBUILD works.

In /usr/bin/volwheel at line 267, do you have this ?

$scale->set_value(&get_volume);

I don't have the master gain, so you're gnonna have to help me debug wink

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#34 2008-05-04 20:06:44

thayer
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From: Vancouver, BC
Registered: 2007-05-20
Posts: 1,560
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Fixed...my bad, I hadn't removed the old tarball before running makepkg on the new PKGBUILD.

Works like a charm now! smile

Last edited by thayer (2008-05-04 20:09:12)


thayer williams ~ cinderwick.ca

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#35 2008-05-04 20:16:50

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

FFS Thayer you scared me to death !

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#36 2008-05-04 23:56:52

bslagowski
Member
Registered: 2008-02-23
Posts: 102

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

The one thing that really bugs me about this is that you have to scroll to get an update! I use my multimedia keys a bit so it's really annoying to adjust the volume, and then have it be wrong on volwheel. So I added something that I think fixes it. Please note that I have no coding experience so this may be ugly, dirty, or downright wrong. But it works for me. I changed the EventBox so that when the mouse enters the area it calls the "focus_handler" event (function? sub? hell if I know!) which then calls update_tooltip. This is probably redundant ... anyways, here's the modified EventBox:

    my $eventbox = Gtk2::EventBox->new;
       $eventbox->signal_connect('button_release_event', \&click_handler);
       $eventbox->signal_connect('scroll_event', \&scroll_handler);
       $eventbox->signal_connect('enter_notify_event', \&focus_handler);

And here's the "focus_handler":

sub focus_handler {
    my ($check, $event) = @_;
    &update_tooltip;
}

Great program! I really love it .. lightweight but functional. smile

Last edited by bslagowski (2008-05-04 23:58:17)

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#37 2008-05-05 08:06:28

_Marco_
Member
Registered: 2008-04-21
Posts: 242

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Thanks oliwer you application is fantastic (gnome volume applet was really stressing me), keep up the good work!

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#38 2008-05-05 13:46:50

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Thank you both smile

Great idea bslagowski ! I just added "$eventbox->signal_connect('enter_notify_event', \&update_tooltip);" and removed two other "&update_tooltip" that became useless. I won't make a new release for that but the svn version is up to date.

Now I think I'm gonna work on a dynamic icon system like MrWeatherbee did, but a little more lightweight.

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#39 2008-05-11 02:25:11

bladdo
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From: Blacksburg, VA
Registered: 2008-05-05
Posts: 111
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

awesome, thanks smile


bladdo / mil / Miles
userbound.com - blog and projects

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#40 2008-05-28 04:24:58

droog
Member
Registered: 2004-11-18
Posts: 877

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Just thought i would suggest including the icon with your package and installing it to /usr/share/pixmaps, instead of requiring the whole gnome iconset that brings in another couple dependencies, just for 1 24x24 icon.
I'm doing this myself and figured most people would prefer it that way.

oh ya thanks I've been looking for something like this for awhile and finally found it smile

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#41 2008-06-17 02:34:21

dedhart
Member
Registered: 2006-07-02
Posts: 123

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Thanks for building this app. I was using wmsmixer with openbox before I found this sweet app, always wanted something a little more portable & this fit the bill nicely.

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#42 2008-06-17 21:58:19

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Thank you all for the cheering smile

I can tell you know that the dynamic icon feature of the next version is working. All that left to do is to update/rewrite the configuration window. I'm afraid I'm ganna have to use Glade this time.

Also, let's pray that bug 409435 gets fixed before GTK 3.0. GTK devs are so afraid of new features. They piss me of mad

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#43 2008-06-22 18:36:54

grandmasterb
Member
From: Poland
Registered: 2008-03-12
Posts: 26

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Just what i was looking for:) thanks for this great app:) my pypanel looks much better now;]

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#44 2008-07-01 12:00:54

ilpianista
Fellow developer
Registered: 2007-10-06
Posts: 568
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Hi oliwer,
volwheel require gnome-icon-theme but it need only an icon: multimedia-volume-control.png
can you add a volwheel icon?

I opened a feature request for the package in community but the maintainer think is better if you add an icon for volwheel directly in the project.

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#45 2008-07-02 02:35:02

magnum_opus
Member
Registered: 2005-01-26
Posts: 132

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Hey I just wanna say this freaked me out, I just spent all day looking for something that didn't require python. had given up and just sat down to write my own. login here and wham first topic even.

works great. thanks

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#46 2008-07-03 18:54:46

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

That's surprising. Usually, everybody loves python and everybody hates perl smile

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#47 2008-07-06 16:44:09

czar
Member
Registered: 2008-03-08
Posts: 115

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

I have an interesting issue. I'm using openbox. when i open up the mixer my system lags for a second before somehow switching my theme to somthing very dark. Everything on my windows which was gray is then black. When i reboot its switched back to normal but i can recreate this problem everytime. I didn't even know i could get a dark theme like that in openbox. It looks a lot like an xfce4 theme called Terrabrite (thats not actually the name..but thats as close as i can remember. I know it started with a T). anyway whats going on here??

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#48 2008-07-08 11:38:39

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

My theory : when you open you mixer (which I believe is xfce4-mixer) it launchs xfce-mcs-daemon at the same time, which overrides your current gtk configuration.

Could you give more infos about your desktop ? What do you use to set your gtk theme usualy ?

Anyway, I suggest you configure VolWheel to use gnome-alsamixer instead of xfce4-mixer.

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#49 2008-07-08 17:59:16

czar
Member
Registered: 2008-03-08
Posts: 115

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

yea i just uninstalled xfce and it fixed the problem, should have realized that myself. Thanks for pointing it out.

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#50 2008-08-20 18:25:02

oliwer
Member
From: Paris
Registered: 2007-06-30
Posts: 153
Website

Re: VolWheel - easy volume control

Alright, VolWheel 0.2.5 is out !

I finally included the dynamic icon feature (the icon change with the volume). I also included several new static icons.

It would be great if you could test it before I make an official release. I'd like to avoid stupid bugs.

Download : http://olwtools.googlecode.com/files/vo … 2.5.tar.gz

Tell me what you think smile

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