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The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

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Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#461

Post by twic »

I think the worst volume UI is the one on the Ubuntu machine i'm using right now. It's exactly like the volume UI on every other Linux desktop you've used, except that it doesn't actually change the volume.

You spin the wheel on the keyboard, and the overlay appears on screen to let you know the volume has changed. Or you pop open the menu and adjust it there. Everything looks good. But the volume doesn't change.

Because sometimes, the sound is coming out of the speakers, but the volume control is somehow attached to the monitor port on my microphone. So when you're adjusting the volume, you're adjusting the volume of that.

This is a corporate build of Ubuntu 18, so it's pretty ancient. If i boot into current Fedora - same hardware, same desktop environment - it works fine.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#462

Post by RubberbandSoul »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #435
RubberbandSoul wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My Nissan has a center console that cedes ALL controls to the rear camera app when the car is put in reverse. So if you have music playing you can twist the physical volume knob all you like while in reverse and nothing will happen! If you parallel park daily you'll probably experience this every time: You jump in the car, start it and put it in reverse. The music will start playing after a couple of seconds at the l…

Does the power button work, or is it also locked out?

I just checked. The power button is locked out but the volume knob works now.

Now I feel stupid, but it's quite possible that it has been patched during a yearly service.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#463

Post by goodpoint »

morsch wrote: post #429
goodpoint wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could keep the vertical "out-of-box" dragging but use a little vertical bar to show the current level. Humans are terrible at reading angles quickly.

Humans may be terrible at reading pie charts quickly, but I think we do fine with visualizations such as clocks, gauges and circular controls. I wouldn't even be surprised if a circular gauge can be read more quickly or with less attention than a linear one (size/area being equal).

When staring at a mixer with 60 or more knobs you can see the difference in reading speed very quickly:

◐◑◒◓◐◐◒◒◓◐◓◓◐◐◑◐◒◓◓◐◐◑◒◓

(oops, HN is not showing the unicode rectangles but you can imagine that they look like a barchart and you can easily spot the highest and lowest)

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#464

Post by kazinator »

pragmatic8 wrote: post #414
baalimago wrote: post #341

This is the new volume control in windows 11 (some insider version they've randomly thrown at me): https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/786/aIfxKh.png It's atrocious. No slider, clicking on it "blips" the speakers so you can hear how loud it is. You have to hover pointer on top of it which enlarges the green circle by about 10% to show "Hey, you're hovering me, in case you missed it!" and then scroll so the the tin…

It’s a plain bug expected of beta quality software. No need for any drama. https://www.reddit.com/r/Windows11/comments/ogchx7/volume_ba...

The thing is, nobody needs a beta quality volume control (or anything else) in a legacy desktop OS in 2021.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#465

Post by namdnay »

ptx wrote: post #458
namdnay wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So without defending Lotus Notes in any way, there was a meaning to the symbols: they were defined by some oneway function from what you were typing. So you would get used to the little symbol dance, and know if and when you’d mistyped

Wouldn't it also allow any onlookers, if they are able to memorize the symbol dance, to derive your password one character at a time by trial and error?

No because it also depended on your computer . I remember when you switched computers it would change

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#466

Post by stefan_ »

hackthememes wrote: post #142
HelixEndeavor wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers stubbornly refusing to utilize the tools provided by the operating system because they think they can do it better (90% of the time they can't) is one of my greatest pet peeves. You should ONLY ever use your own engine for things like notifications if the particular OS doesn't support them (pre-10 Windows)

I believe that in this case it's simply convenience/laziness to have a single notifications codebase across both operating systems? That and Windows didn't have native notifications when it was first developed. Not that it excuses a big chat application from MS behaving this way, just saying that they probably didn't deliberately choose to re-implement notifications just because they didn't like the OS ones.

This is what happens in an Electron world. Lots of experts around to make some JS+CSS notification boxes because they keep reinventing those for every SPA anyway, but.. integrate with the native system notifications? They don't even know how Electron works so how would they begin to do any of that.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#467

Post by fuzzmz »

globular-toast wrote: post #456
unethical_ban wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a valid workaround that shouldn't be needed. FWIW I turn off all contact apps (email, chat) entirely if it's important.

Is that easier than just switching user account? Essentially all we're talking about is having a separate environment. Maybe desktop environments could support multiple environments per user more easily, but it's not too bad to set it up with a separate user account.

That doesn't really work when the app you're presenting with is actually MS Teams, as for whatever reason, during a call when you're screen sharing, Teams still shows notification pop-ups.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#468

Post by liketochill »

throwdbaaway wrote: post #350
lights0123 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Circular knobs in audio contexts that don't support circular mouse movement need to not exist. If you want to have the user drag their mouse up and down, just use a vertical slider .

Back in the kde 3 days, there was this applet called "knob" for volume control. For me personally, its circular knob UI is actually the best. Firstly, you can place the applet at a corner of the panel, e.g. at the bottom right, such that you now have an infinitely large target [1] to hit. Then, once you have the mouse pointer hovering above it, you can: - scroll up/down to increase/decrease the volume - middle click…

And for those of us on laptops with no mousewheel abs no middle button? Trying to make the mouse move in an arc …

Knobs are great in the physical world, never met one on a screen that wasn’t hard to use.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#469

Post by AussieWog93 »

frosted-flakes wrote: post #410
AussieWog93 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still use my BB Classic as a daily driver. Really not looking forward to next April when 3G is switched off in Australia...

The Classic supports 4G, you know.

I know, mate. But no VoLTE. You still need 3g for voice.

Re: The worst volume control UI in the world (2017)

#470

Post by nyanpasu64 »

thrdbndndn wrote: post #209
nyanpasu64 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 99.9% of volume controls scale the output linearly. Wrong. Windows's volume output is the percentage squared, and Linux PulseAudio's volume output is the percentage cubed. Nonetheless I would prefer that the volume output was exponential (2^(slider position / constant)). This way, pressing the "volume up" key 3 times always increases the volume by a constant factor, regardless if you're on loud or quiet speaker/hea…

Pretty sure Android's volume control isn't linear either. At least perceptively I find the steps relatively even (which implies it's not linear).

When probing my Android phone's output in an oscilloscope, I also saw that it was not linear, and the volume increased more per level when louder. However I have not attempted to compute the exact curve. And I suspect it also differs between different versions of Android or different phones (my Android 11 phones has more volume levels than older phones), or with different audio APIs (some phones use tinyalsa, some use XML files to configure hardware volume gain, some don't).
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