Mute togglebuttons icons should reflect the volume and type of input devices

[nekohayo]

In the "Recording" and "Input Devices" tabs, you have muted speaker icons for every mute togglebutton:

However, it would be much nicer if you would use the standard microphone (un)muted status icons. Using the GNOME "Icon Library" utility app, we can see these icons available for you to use (or even bundle/embed) in the app:

Furthermore, for output devices/apps, the unmuted togglebutton's icons would also need to reflect the state. Currently, they always only show a muted speaker icon, which doesn't help reflect the actual muted/unmuted state (the libadwaita togglebutton styling is problematic in that regard, I can't easily tell toggled states apart):

The standard output volume state icons do have that level of granularity available:

This would make the app more consistent with other apps, and with GNOME Shell.

[saivert]

I'm having a problem bundling icons while also being able to use the system installed themed icons. Seems like the naming resolving for named icons is broken. If you can help figure this out that would be nice. Otherwise I can just bundle everything and put my own name on these icons with a pwvucontrol prefix. E.g pwvucontrol-speaker-2-symbolic. That will force the bundled icons and disregard any icon theme.

On the other hand the icon should reflect what the button does and currently you see the muted icon signifying that this button will mute audio. If you change the icon to reflect the current state then the icon will no longer reflect what will happen when you press it.

The button isn't a volume button as in GTK's volume control widget or in the gnome shell top bar where this does make sense.

[nekohayo]

Hmm, well what I've been hearing for months/years at this point is that if you want things to work (and to work predictably), you better bundle everything, because icon "themes" are not reliable…

[nekohayo]

On the other hand the icon should reflect what the button does and currently you see the muted icon signifying that this button will mute audio. If you change the icon to reflect the current state then the icon will no longer reflect what will happen when you press it.

Then you can update the tooltip to match the state (as shown in the videos below).

The button isn't a volume button as in GTK's volume control widget or in the gnome shell top bar where this does make sense.

The button in the GNOME Shell "quick settings" menu is a button and it behaves exactly like I'm proposing here:

audio.volume.mute.buttons.icons.behavior.-.GNOME.Shell.quick-settings.mp4

…and the same goes for the GNOME Settings app (gnome-control-center):

audio.volume.mute.buttons.icons.behavior.-.GNOME.Control.Center.mp4

…so why would pwvucontrol be different from the standard visual metaphors here? It would be great if pwvucontrol's mute/unmute buttons' visual representation became as clear as those core apps' interactive mute buttons :)

[saivert]

That is because in that case the icon isn't a mute toggle per say. More like a general volume status icon.

The icon in the top bar in GNOME shell cannot be clicked to toggle mute. You can use the scroll wheel to eventually reduce the volume until it reaches a muted state and then it will indicate that.

The one in the Settings panel is just part of the volume slider as an indicator that can be clicked to toggle mute. I could just treat the one in pwvucontrol the same way by making it a clickable icon (not have the button appearance). I think that would resolve the issue.

Toggle buttons as per GNOME HIG has always had the same text or icon in both the on and off state where just the button background changes color to indicate the state.

For the capture streams I could swap out the icon with a microphone of course and I will probably do that in version 5.0.3.