Hi,
this is a question about a certain pet peeve of mine... When I see a full-screen flash video, and I try to adjust the volume using the multimedia keys, the volume bar appears and takes the "focus", because (I assume) the volume bar has requested to be on top of all other windows, and because the Flash plugin has this very annoying behavior to exit the full screen mode at the slightest disturbance of this kind. Since the Flash plugin can't be changed since it's closed source (unless there's a way to make it "believe" it's always in full screen), I'd like to prevent the volume bar from appearing. I don't really need a percentage, I can hear how loud the volume is just fine so I know if it's too loud or not; thus I can deal away with a volume bar.
But there might be another solution... See, when a full-screen flash video is playing, and some other event happens (contacts comes online, etc), the notification window appears (in its transparent glory) but Flash doesn't change back to non-fullscreen mode. This only happens when I use the Ayatana notifications in the system tray preferences; I guess the Ayatana notifications aren't displayed using the same method. So it would be sweet if the volume bar used that same method in order not to disrupt Flash.
Edit: Or better yet: Use the Ayatana notification system when changing the volume, like Ubuntu does (this would only happen if the user has chosen Ayatana notifications of course)

And while we're on the topic on the volume bar, I have two other pet peeves about it: 1) Could it be semi-transparent? / 2) Can the increment be 5% by 5% or 2.5% by 2.5%? I hate seeing non-round numbers like 39% and stuff. It drives me mad for some reason and I just "have" to go to KMix and adjust manually with the mouse. I bet I wouldn't notice that if the volume bar was hidden though

Using Kubuntu 9.10 64-bit

The volume bar is now Plasma themed in KDE 4.4, and looks integrated with the desktop. It no longer displays the percentage as well. It is also lower in the screen now ( 3/4 of the way down now I think ) which is much nicer.

It is not possible to disable it at this point in time unfortunately. Please make a feature request at bugs.kde.org.
It still auto de-fullscreens flash as well.

Your description of the problem is a little confusing, to me. What distribution do you use? What version of KDE? What are you doing when you get that dialog about adding the icon to the taskbar?

There may be more questions to follow, but until we understand your problem we are unlikely to have the answer for you

Open systemsettings> keyboard & mouse> global keyboard shortcuts>kmix, for Decrease Volume, Master assign the decrease volume button (in my case, I obviously move the volume knob to the left), the same for Increase Volume, Master. That should control the sound but no volume bar will be displayed.

You can do the same for Toggle Mute - Master. (You can choose the channel you want, e.g. Front).

medo3891 wrote:Open systemsettings> keyboard & mouse> global keyboard shortcuts>kmix, for Decrease Volume, Master assign the decrease volume button (in my case, I obviously move the volume knob to the left), the same for Increase Volume, Master. That should control the sound but no volume bar will be displayed.

You can do the same for Toggle Mute - Master. (You can choose the channel you want, e.g. Front).

Thank you, it works, but... it still de-fullscreens Flash for some reason

Hey!

The problem still exists. Fullscreen flash video disappears when changing the volume.

Try it yourself, if you have some multimedia hotkeys and flash installed: open a youtube video in fullscreen and then change the volume with the keyboard. The KDE volume bar apeears and the fullscreen video disappears.

Fullscreen does NOT disappear when KDE notifications appear.

At least, this happens to me here. I have KDE 4.4.5, distro aptosid (formerly known as sidux, Debian sid) and propiretary nvidia drivers installed.

Do you have the same problem? Shall I open a bug report?

Greetz

The issue with Flash is a known bug, in Flash itself, that occurs whenever any window is displayed on top of it.

ok, thanks!