My favourite bad volume control was in Real Player around 1997 where changing the volume in the application actually changed the global volume of Windows.
I feel like that was super common. Apart from changing the volumes of entire channels (e.g. changing the level of Line In vs. digital sound), volume was a relatively “global” thing.
And I’m not sure if that was still the case in 1997, but most likely changing the volume of digital sound meant the CPU having to process the samples in realtime. Now on one hand, that’s probably dwarfed by what the CPU had to do for decompressing the video. On the other hand, if you’re already starved for CPU time…
That was a hardware/software thing as far as I remember. If it was using something like DirectSound it would adjust the audio independently. Other media players did the same thing.
This is not an issue at all, but when ever I come across something like it, I like to poke at the frontend in dev tools a bit. You can pass most levels with `setVolume(25)` in the web console, since that function is just sitting in the document object. That feels like the ultimate volume UI puzzle heh.
Finished the game. It was fun to play. I got stuck for a while on the opposite level where the display doesn't update, but was able to go through the rest just fine
When clicking on this topic, I had anticipated it to be about GTK 3.x's messed up sliders.
This was more fun, in a dystopian kind of way. I have sure encountered the rate-limited spinner and the self-resizing slider in real UIs.
Perhaps GTK's behaviour is on a level that I have not reached.
My favourite bad volume control was in Real Player around 1997 where changing the volume in the application actually changed the global volume of Windows.
I feel like that was super common. Apart from changing the volumes of entire channels (e.g. changing the level of Line In vs. digital sound), volume was a relatively “global” thing.
And I’m not sure if that was still the case in 1997, but most likely changing the volume of digital sound meant the CPU having to process the samples in realtime. Now on one hand, that’s probably dwarfed by what the CPU had to do for decompressing the video. On the other hand, if you’re already starved for CPU time…
That was a hardware/software thing as far as I remember. If it was using something like DirectSound it would adjust the audio independently. Other media players did the same thing.
This is not an issue at all, but when ever I come across something like it, I like to poke at the frontend in dev tools a bit. You can pass most levels with `setVolume(25)` in the web console, since that function is just sitting in the document object. That feels like the ultimate volume UI puzzle heh.
somehow i'm amazed and annoyed at the same time
There are two types of volume slider I've encountered thus far, "too logarithmic", and "not logarithmic enough".
That's because one ear is logarithmic-based and the other is exponential-based. Which one differs per person.
Do you have a source, that seems unlikely at face value to me, though I've never gone and looked for perception studies myself.
I think they're joking, this is on a thread about silly volume control UX
It’s satire.
Always hard to tell.
The worst volume control UI in the world (2017): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27819384
Finished the game. It was fun to play. I got stuck for a while on the opposite level where the display doesn't update, but was able to go through the rest just fine
Got an error on Level 17, just a heads up.
Love the game, btw.
Laughed out loud but gave up at level 5
...and, of course, there's really no need for a volume control in any app, since there's already a system volume...
There are cases where you want to have 2 applications running and playing sound, and want to set the relative volume of each...
Plenty of annoyance in here for sure. Looks like 17 cannot be finished on mobile though. Switching to desktop view resets progress.
Not sure how on desktop either, I've inspected the value and set it to 25 to no avail :P
edit: ok... somehow my approach didn't work the first time, but got to 18!
When clicking on this topic, I had anticipated it to be about GTK 3.x's messed up sliders.
This was more fun, in a dystopian kind of way. I have sure encountered the rate-limited spinner and the self-resizing slider in real UIs. Perhaps GTK's behaviour is on a level that I have not reached.
Meanwhile, iPhone is still using this design https://xkcd.com/1884/