Nothing I tried worked, so I got my hands dirty and made the sound theme myself using LMMS and Audacity. Months passed and multiple versions were made with feedback from KDE's VDG, but the odyssey is finally *almost* over. There are 20 sounds in total. Check the progress here: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/issues/40
What is this about?
The sound theme is what is heard throughout Plasma when receiving alerts, like error messages or plugging in a new device. In this task we will discuss the steps we will take to have a new sound theme ready for Plasma.
Rationale:
The Oxygen sound theme is being used since Plasma 4 days and while it’s a good sound theme, it was made to go along the Oxygen style and doesn’t really fit the Breeze theme. It's also old and having a new sound theme would be good to keep Plasma feeling fresh.
Since now there’s work being done to evolve Breeze, it’s also a good time to give some thought to the sound theme as well.
Having a new iconic sound theme is an important part of branding. It’s important that people recognize a specific Plasma version not only visually, but when they hear it as well.
It can also help differentiate between new Plasma versions. Having a new sound theme for Plasma 5, even if late, and in the future for Plasma 6 can help with the expectation that new major versions should include changes. Having the sound theme stay the same between major Plasma releases breaks that expectation.
Requirements:
Implement technical details: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/issues/40
Details:
The new sound theme has 20 sounds. The list below is outdated but kept as reference.
List of sounds we need:
- Plugging device - device-added
- Unplugging device - device-removed
- Power plug - power-plug
- Power unplug - power-unplug
- Low battery warning - battery-low
- Volume change - audio-volume-change
- Emptying trash - Oxygen-Sys-Trash-Emptied.ogg - trash-empty
- Error - Oxygen-Sys-App-Error.ogg - dialog-error
- Serious error - Oxygen-Sys-App-Error-Serious
- Critical error - Oxygen-Sys-App-Error-Critical.ogg
- Login - Oxygen-Sys-Log-In.ogg - desktop-login
- Log out - Oxygen-Sys-Log-Out.ogg - desktop-logout
- Information dialog - Oxygen-Sys-App-Message.ogg - dialog-information
- Warning dialog - Oxygen-Sys-Warning.ogg - dialog-warning
- Generic sound for "negative" actions (like turning off your touchpad) - Oxygen-Sys-App-Negative.ogg
- Generic sound for "positive" actions (like turning on your touchpad) - Oxygen-Sys-App-Positive.ogg
- Update notification: Oxygen-Sys-Special.ogg
- Pressing normal key in virtual keyboard
- Pressing modifier key (like shift) in virtual keyboard
- Notification for SMS
Specifications:
The final sound format must follow the Freedesktop Sound Theme Specification and the Sound Naming Specification, so:
The sounds files must be one of the types: WAV/PCM 8-48kHz, 8/16 bits or OGG/Vorbis I. The extension must be ".wav", or ".oga" respectively (in lower case). It is not recommended to use ".ogg" extension, but it is also supported for legacy reasons.
Promotion:
There's a basic video showcasing the sound theme with some desktop footage. It could be transformed into a short promotional video. Another idea would be to use some sounds in the release video for whatever Plasma version they get shipped with.
TODO
- Define which sounds need to be replaced
- Make sound theme
- Ship sounds with Plasma - *In progress* - Track the progress here: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/plasma-workspace/-/issues/40
- Promo video (???)