The Controls

Documentation / Contents - System and Desktop Sounds

• Overview of System and Desktop Sounds
  • What It Is Not
  • The Window
  • The Help Button
  • Two Faces
• The Controls
  • Master Volume Control
  • Mute System
  • Enable Selected Sounds
  • Play Desktop Sounds Through
  • What Is Not Here
• Sound Schemes
  • Where Schemes Live
  • The Description File
  • Audio Formats
  • Writing Your Own
• What Makes a Sound
  • The Six Categories
  • Alerts and Status
  • Desktop Actions
  • Bell
  • Tunes
  • Accessibility
• Applying, Resetting, and Closing
  • Apply
  • Close
  • Reset ...
  • Help
  • Keyboard
  • Command Line
• Settings and Files
  • The Configuration File
  • The Accessibility Category
  • Environment Variables
  • How the Panel Reaches the Daemon
• Desktop Sounds and the Audio Panel
  • Which One Do I Want

Other cards

• Copyright Information

The Controls

Master Volume Control

A slider from 0 to 100. It sets how loud the desktop's own sounds are. The daemon applies it in software over each sound's own gain, so a sound that was recorded quietly stays relatively quiet.

The default is 60.

Dragging it to 0 silences desktop sounds. So does Mute System, and that is the better way, because it keeps the volume you chose.

Mute System

Off by default. Silences every desktop sound while preserving the volume and the category choices below. Nothing else on the machine is affected.

Enable Selected Sounds

Five checkboxes, all on by default. Each turns a whole category on or off.

Startup & Shutdown Tunes   the tunes played at login and logout
Desktop Sounds             open, close, drop, trash, and the rest
System Alerts Sounds       warnings, errors, and other alerts
Keyboard Bell              the terminal and margin bell
Key Click                  a quiet click on each key press

Startup & Shutdown Tunes is insensitive except on IRIX. On SGI hardware those tunes live in the machine's PROM, so they are not a desktop setting at all. On IRIX the control is present but needs privileges. Everywhere else it is shown greyed rather than hidden, so the panel matches the original and tells you why.

A sixth category exists, for the accessibility sounds, and has no checkbox on this panel. It is recorded in the configuration file so that the daemon and a future panel agree about it. See Settings and Files.

Play Desktop Sounds Through

One option menu with one entry, "Default Output". Desktop sounds follow the machine's default output.

Per-device routing is the Audio Panel's job, not this panel's. The menu is honest about offering only what it can deliver rather than listing devices it cannot route to. See Desktop Sounds and the Audio Panel.

Sound Scheme

The extended face carries a "Sound Scheme:" menu above the volume slider. See Sound Schemes.

What Is Not Here

There is no list of individual sound events, no file chooser, no Play button to audition a sound, and no per-event volume. The granularity of this panel is: a scheme, a master volume, a mute, and five category switches.

That is not an oversight in the reproduction; the IRIX panel had no per-event interface either. A per-event editor is planned and not built. See What Makes a Sound.

Next

• Sound Schemes
• Applying, Resetting, and Closing