I think it could be nice to have PipeWire graph/routing controls (like qpwgraph/Helvum) built right into Plasma. Linux is very fortunate to have this very powerful system for audio, but this capability is not very discoverable. You have to know to download a 3rd party routing graph GUI in order to easily reach these controls. What if we had something like an "Advanced Audio Controls" section in the applet or kcm to expose some basic native graphical control of PipeWire routing? I imagine even the most barebones routing graph (no fancy saving/loading of configurations or L/R splitting or anything) could open up a whole world for users to control their audio and devices in ways that no other OS has natively.
It's a cool idea but this is may be too niche to consider. Most people don't have a use for something like this. If someone volunteered to implement it and came up with a UI that was really great, I think we might consider it, but until and unless that happens, I think we have to consider this out of scope, sorry.
Very fair! I indeed had power users in mind (powerful when needed!). For future implementers' reference, I can think of a few simple use cases off the top of my head, although I have no idea how common/niche these are among most users: * Two people listening to the same PC with two different pairs of headphones (instead of sharing one pair of earbuds) * Playing an audio file during a voice call without having to share your entire screen * Excluding your music from a screen share/recording I do want to try to implement this myself at some point in the future, though it might prove to be too difficult for me.
I am pretty happy with qpwgraph, and I don't see why would it need to be vendor-locked specifically to Plasma? It does a pretty good job at being a standalone application.
I was just thinking about discoverability (people may not know it exists) and a more streamlined implementation built right into the interface. Could still download qpwgraph for more control either way. Or maybe we could add a small indicator saying that graph apps are available, like in https://invent.kde.org/system/dolphin/-/merge_requests/674 or the browser integration?
> discoverability There is a dark side to that, as a built-in she'll feature would only be discoverable specifically for Plasma shell users. > Or maybe we could add a small indicator saying that graph apps are available I like that idea, yeah. Such integration would be nice.