Created attachment 152731 [details] [review]
Set default scroll-wheel delta to 5%

Attachment 152731 [details] pushed as bc1135f - Set default scroll-wheel delta to 5%

I don't think this is an improvement. In the previous version, one scroll increased the volume by 1 %. Now, it's 5 %, which is way too much and doesn't allow fine-tuning of the volume. On most computers I work with, a 5 % increase in volume is significant. Also, scrolling a few times will now sometimes turn the volume from very quiet to VERY loud.
Please restore the scroll-wheel delta to 1%!

@Wolf-Jakob: does your volume really change only 5% per mouse wheel step? 5% should not change very quiet into very loud.

Please check further if your volume changes are very big in the load range but very small in the quiet range (or vice-versa). Perhaps certain sound card drivers have a linear volume range whereas others have a logarithmic one. This should be standardized and wrong drivers must be fixed then.

Oliver: No, the volume does not change to very loud with one step. It changes by 5% (which is too much for one step). However, if you make a quick 'swoosh' with your mousewheel (about 4 steps), the sound level has improved by ~50%. Which is loud.
I think this feature is called "mouse wheel" acceleration, meaning you get a small scrolling effect with one or two steps, but if you scroll faster, the effect is greater, so you don't have to use the scroll wheel too excessively for long lists.
This acceleration has already been in effect in previous versions of GNOME. In v2.28, for example, you could enhance the volume slighty by 1%, but if you wanted to turn it to 100%, you obviously didn't have to scroll a 100 times, but just (only a guess) 10 times quickly. In my opinion this behaviour was better than the new one, as it allowed both finetuning AND quick, drastic changes in volume.

@Wolf-Jakob: sorry, now I understand your issue. I just checked my mouse under Gnome 2.28 (by scrolling text) and did not find any mouse wheel acceleration. Did you tweak your xorg.conf for that? Or could it be a hardware feature of your mouse?

With my standard wireless Logitech mouse 1 full scroll makes 6 steps at best. Now with 5% per step I need 3 full scrolls to change volume by 90%. With 1% per step about 15 full scrolls were needed! (for more affected people see https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/358131)

If mouse wheel acceleration is quite common, we could lower it to 3% per step as compromise. Or what do you think?

I have always assumed that Gnome has an acceleration feature, like in Windows and Mac OS, as well as KDE, but I couldn't find one. There is not even an option to change the speed/sensitivity of the wheel itself. Odd.
Still, I think a fine 1% volume increase is better. Maybe it's a better idea to revert this change in the volume applet and instead implement a wheel speed slider in the Gnome mouse preferences?

(as suggested here: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=341096 )
Jens Granseuer notes this would probably be difficult to implement. It's still an important setting for any desktop and probably the most complete solution. Oliver, do you think your mouse wheel is too slow in other applications?

Right now, the scroll wheel delta for this applet is hardcoded in gvc-channel-bar.c (from the package gnome-media) If it was a variable instead (either in the audio settings gui or in some configuration file), it would be at least a small improvement.

Oliver Oh, and about your suggestion to change it to 3%: Yes, that would be okay, of course. But having an option to change the scroll speed or even scroll acceleration would be the most complete solution.

@Wolf-Jakob: sorry for the delayed answer: the scroll wheels of the mice I own are not too slow in other apps, although there is no acceleration. And I don't like "Smart Scrolling" where scroll speed is lowered slowly after the mouse wheel stopped moving. I'm fine with volume changes of 5% or 3% per wheel step, whereas 1% was far too slow to be useful.