Bug 471637

Summary: Way to control the volume of all streams from a single app all at once
Product: [Plasma] plasmashell Reporter: quackdoctech
Component: Audio Volume widgetAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status: CONFIRMED ---    
Severity: wishlist CC: 89q1r14hd, goo, isma.af, janbidler00, nate, nowrep
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 6.2.4   
Target Milestone: 1.0   
Platform: Other   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description quackdoctech 2023-06-29 16:14:03 UTC 
SUMMARY
Currently each application, if they produce multiple audio streams, has independent control over each audio stream, this UX is not particularly great for a lot of folk, since it means adjusting the volume of the browser can sometimes mean adjusting 5+ sliders depending on how many audio streams a browser has, this also negatively effects apps that produce multiple audio streams through other means.


STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open firefox
2. Open two tabs
3. Play audio from both

OBSERVED RESULT
2 separate audio stream controls

EXPECTED RESULT
Single control for the entire browser

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
Windows:  N/A
macOS: N/A
Linux/KDE Plasma: Arch
(available in About System)
KDE Plasma Version: 5.27.6
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.107.0
Qt Version: 5.15.10

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

It would be greatly appreciated, even if this was just a toggle in the sound settings.
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2023-09-14 19:19:17 UTC 
Apps' streams are already grouped by app, but it sounds like you want isn't grouping, but rather a new UI element to adjust all the streams of a single app in unison. Seems reasonable.
Comment 2 Jan Bidler 2025-05-26 09:43:02 UTC 
Isn't this a duplicate of 385485?
Comment 3 Niklāvs Koļesņikovs 2025-05-27 23:50:29 UTC 
This does not go as far, or perhaps it goes further. However, yes, bug 385485 might be relevant here, too.

Essentially the complaint here is that clients such as Firefox create streams with different volumes, which is probably unfixable, since applications can just do software volume control internally and I'm not sure what could possible stop them from doing that...

The idea of having some kind of multi-tier audio volume control and associated GUI has some up before but it felt to me like people on the other side for reasons which were highly inexplicable to me did not want to let go of the per-role volumes. Of course, one could just keep the per role volumes as a tier between the device and per-app, too but for whatever reason it felt like just suggesting to have something else in addition to role based volumes was not appreciated.