Created attachment 123570 [details] visual bugs Thank you for the software, Plasma and apps are getting better and better and quite going in a direction I like. SUMMARY Heavy user of audio volume applet here. I much frequently switch between internal-headphones-external soundcard-bluetooth speakers because I work with music. The new "Default device" introduced in Plasma 5.17 buttons under each device have some bugs: - usability: the button screw up layout height, icons become huge and widget are squeezed in a thight space: really ugly - functionality: if I plug in an external "Default device", the button looks activated, but internal device is used instead. Must click on internal "Default device" button, then click external to have external device working properly. - conceptual: user sets a device to be default only once: use cases are fixed. If user connects an external sound card it's simply because she wants to use it, she wants it to be default. So she will go to Configure Audio (_Volume_) once, or use the little and wise hamburger menu on the device widget. Moreover, there is an option to enable or disable automatic switching of streams on newly attached devices in the Configuration > Advanced tab of the applet. Please, simple revert the commit and, please, do more research/testing before making such changes. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Operating System: KDE neon 5.17 KDE Plasma Version: 5.17.1 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.63.0 Qt Version: 5.13.1
Created attachment 123573 [details] visual bug (corrected)
> - usability: the button screw up layout height, icons become huge and widget > are squeezed in a thight space: really ugly Already fixed in 5.18, sorry about that. > - functionality: if I plug in an external "Default device", the button looks > activated, but internal device is used instead. Must click on internal "Default > device" button, then click external to have external device working properly. Sounds like a bug. Let's use this bug report to track that issue. > - conceptual: user sets a device to be default only once: use cases are fixed. > If user connects an external sound card it's simply because she wants to use > it, she wants it to be default. So she will go to Configure Audio (_Volume_) > once, or use the little and wise hamburger menu on the device widget. That's not quite true. This feature is also used to switch between devices when more than one are available. For example when I have a bluetooth speaker attached to my laptop, sometimes I want to switch back to the internal speakers for whatever reason, and then back to the bluetooth speakers. This feature makes it much easier to do than it was before.
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #2) > > - usability: the button screw up layout height, icons become huge and widget > > are squeezed in a thight space: really ugly > Already fixed in 5.18, sorry about that. > > > - functionality: if I plug in an external "Default device", the button looks > > activated, but internal device is used instead. Must click on internal "Default > > device" button, then click external to have external device working properly. > Sounds like a bug. Let's use this bug report to track that issue. I can confirm I am affected, too. I use multiple external DACs (I review audio stuff for a living, so I constantly plug in and out new sound devices) and this is what I have been experiencing ever since I started using Plasma. > > - conceptual: user sets a device to be default only once: use cases are fixed. > > If user connects an external sound card it's simply because she wants to use > > it, she wants it to be default. So she will go to Configure Audio (_Volume_) > > once, or use the little and wise hamburger menu on the device widget. > That's not quite true. This feature is also used to switch between devices > when more than one are available. For example when I have a bluetooth > speaker attached to my laptop, sometimes I want to switch back to the > internal speakers for whatever reason, and then back to the bluetooth > speakers. This feature makes it much easier to do than it was before. I think he has a point in terms of language. "Default" is the one that should be used as the predefined device, but not necessarily the one you selected. "Default" is commonly used to designate the device which is used when no other device is present, or if other devices are not working; it's often synonym with "fallback". "Default" may indeed be confusing to users: "active", "current" or other similar wording may be better.
Fixed with the new layout in Plasma 5.19.