1

Use case:

Recently I switched from a laptiop (where I would just plug/unplug headphones) to a desktop where I have always-connected headphones and speakers, so I started using the Audio Volume plasmoid to switch between the two.


Problems with this use case:

1 The output device names in the applet are not easily recognizable and they include outputs that I never use.
2 Switching audio requires mouse interaction.


Feature requests/ideas related to output device selection:

The Audio sheet in System Settings should allow to specify aliases for output devices and these aliases should be used in the plasmoid and in notifcations: my outputs are currently called "Line Out (Built-in Audio Analog Stereo)" and "Analog Output (UACDemoV1.0 Analog Stereo)" and I wish they were called just "Headphones" and "Speakers".

It should also be possible to hide output devices so that they are not shown in the Volume plasmoid: I currently have a "HDMI / DisplayPort 2 (Navi 10 HDMI Audio Digital Stereo)" that I will never use (my display has no speakers).

Keyboard shortcuts should be setup to switch output devices (maybe one shortcut per device or maybe just one generic "next output" or.. both, similar to the keyboard layouts shortcuts).

When using such shortcuts (and, possibly, also when otherwise switching output device) some sound should be played to let the user confirm which device is now active (maybe allow people to disable per-device in case people hook KDE to a PA system or for other use cases where it is undesirable).


Additional features unrelated to output device selection:

It would be nice to have 2 extra controls in the plasmoid: one to downmix audio from stereo to mono (sometimes people use stereo mics in conferences and the audio annoyingly pans from left to right as the speaker moves their head) and another to "properly" downmix 5.1 audio to stereo (for movies where just taking front-left and front-right makes audio weird).

try pauvcontrol please