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Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

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Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#32
post #29

This is more exciting than half of the features in HTML5.

On a somewhat related note, while an audio indicator is a nice addition, autoplay itself should really be a user controllable browser setting.

Chrome has a click to play feature under plugins.

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#34

I wonder if this has anything to do with the Google version of Flash (called "Pepper") that Chrome now includes -- if that will be used as a special hook or something. Or if there's another way to do it.

For Flash it does. Since Pepper plugins use our system/IO stack we can handle them much the same way we do normal web content.

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#35
post #7

This is more exciting than half of the features in HTML5.

Only if it works reliably though. I wonder whether they can make it work with plugins. Maybe you'd have to get a hook with some platform specific OS API that tells you when sound is playing (does this even exist though)? You could then match this to user interactions within the browser - did the user click inside my browser window when the event started? Then it's probably happening within that tab and I'm gonna show…

Safari won't run any flash animation until you actually have the tab active and is pretty reliable. I'll be happy if they do that.

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#36

Even better would be a play/pause button... or is that not feasible? I'm not so familiar with browser development.

It's probably not feasible, because you'd have to pause the entire document, including all scripts. And since there are ways for scripts to communicate synchronously across documents, you could end up with seemingly unrelated tabs paused.

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#37

Isn't the fact that we're all so excited by this hampered by the fact that it sucks that Chrome automatically starts youtube videos when you open the tab and that's the only reason we need this.

Use Chrome's "click to play" feature or extensions such as Flashblock or "Stop Autoplay" if this is your problem. This feature is more useful generally.

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#38
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if it works reliably though. I wonder whether they can make it work with plugins. Maybe you'd have to get a hook with some platform specific OS API that tells you when sound is playing (does this even exist though)? You could then match this to user interactions within the browser - did the user click inside my browser window when the event started? Then it's probably happening within that tab and I'm gonna show…

Safari won't run any flash animation until you actually have the tab active and is pretty reliable. I'll be happy if they do that.

I've never run Safari and I find this interesting. So if the tab is say, torn apart and put on a second monitor (which is visible), but you're working on another tab, does it literally pause the animation halfway?

Re: Google Chrome may soon get audio indicators to show you noisy tabs

#39
post #12
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, on Windows you can intercept/hook the Audio API and know where the calls came from. My company has done that for multiple applications: http://www.nektra.com/products/audio-recorder-api/ Remember that on Google Chrome there is a separation of processes so you can differentiate what tab iis related to the sound.

It seems like it would be a nice feature on multiple monitors to use stereo/3D sound to locate an alert sound coming out of a window. For instance, if it's on the extreme side of the right monitor, play a sound in the right speaker.

Latest AMD video cards have independent audio device for every connected via DisplayPort display (up to 6) and support switching sound output between them depending on positions of windows in Windows drivers. So if sound comes from application with window on the right monitor it would be played in speakers connected to the right monitor.
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