"Sound settings" changes for Precise

[David Henningsson]

(Sorry if you get this message twice; it was suggested to bring this to 
the ubuntu-desktop mailinglist)

Hi!

The jack detection stuff I've been working with [1] during the Oneiric 
cycle is currently somewhat half-baked. What's missing is some UI 
changes to make this more user friendly.

For me it's important to get this done during the Precise cycle, and 
preferably as early as possible to get some feedback. For me personally 
I consider this to be the second highest thing on my priority list (the 
highest one will always be taking care of HWE bugs when they come up) 
I'm happy to spend my cycles on it as necessary. I know a lot about 
PulseAudio and how that part is supposed to work, but I'm not a trained 
designer.

As it stands, PulseAudio now provides sufficient information [2] for us 
to have the possibility to revamp the Sound Settings UI to make it more 
user friendly. This change was first discussed with Matthew Paul Thomas 
in June (IIRC), then Harry von Haaren - a summer worker - took on first 
making some mockups and later, started on an implementation. The 
implementation was never finished, and I'm not sure how much of it can 
be reused for "the real thing".

Also, there is no reason as I see it to not trying to upstream it into 
GNOME. I don't know exactly how to do that or who to contact about it.

We should definitely have a UDS session about this, but I'm not sure 
whether HWE or DX (or someone else) is the better driver here. So this 
is mostly an outreach to - hopefully! - relevant people to help me out 
to finish off jack detection and make it a success in Precise!

-- 
David Henningsson, Canonical Ltd.
http://launchpad.net/~diwic

[1] 
http://voices.canonical.com/david.henningsson/2011/09/06/pulseaudio-with-jack-detection/

[2] TBH, there are some PulseAudio patches as well, but that's the easy 
part.