SFOS Default Sound Design

Design
#1

Ok i know these kind of topics are not popular to the “fix the bugs first/” crowd but along with the visual design of SFOS the sounds feel kind of dated after all these years.

Don’t know jollas priorities and kind of doubt its a top one (the visual also) but i feel like we need a change.

Discuss (if you feel like).

3 Likes
#2

If they’ll ever decide to redo the sounds, old ones should still be there

I’ll be honest, i love default sounds and this is the only operating system i had where sounds are good. I ended up also using them in my brief period with android

This is just my opinion of course and maybe someone else will say they sound dated :slight_smile:

7 Likes
#3

How the sounds are perceived can be quite subjective. Do you have some specific cases in mind that feel ‘old’? More of the UI feedbacks (e.g. pulley menu) or different alarm tones? For latter there are multiple options to choose from.

#4

…and you can make your own.

#5

Sound design?, I’d rather the browser got some more love.

3 Likes
#6

You can also load additional sound themes, there are quiet a few available on openrepos, here some examples:
https://openrepos.net/content/nephros/lomiri-sound-theme-ringtones
https://openrepos.net/content/nephros/freedesktop-sound-theme
https://openrepos.net/content/nephros/enchanted-sound-theme

3 Likes
#7

As you said it is subjective. But i cant help feel that it feels dated. Maybe it is from all the years i’ve been using it.

A refresh once in a while never hurts i think.

#8

For hackers:

The ringtones are in
/usr/share/sounds/jolla-ringtones/stereo/
in .ogg format.
One can store own ringtones in this directory.

The index of the ringtones is:
/usr/share/sounds/jolla-ringtones/stereo.index

In this index file there’s an entry for each tone, this way:

, {
            "displayName"   : "jolla-ringtones-the-first-one-alert-2",
            "fileName"      : "the-first-one-alert-2.ogg"
        }

This can be added for new ringtones, or existing entries of unwanted tones can be edited to the new filenames and displaynames. Deleting old or unwanted sound files not necessary, they are small size.

TLDR:
I made a lot of tones out of cat and pet videos using Audacity, so I now have a cock for alarm clock, a cat meow for ringtone and hen cackle for SMS and messenger alarm.

2 Likes
#9

That’s how it works, but um, you can also just use the file picker in the sound settings and get your own tones from the UI? :slight_smile:

1 Like
#10

Yes, that is possible without problem. But path to user soundfile is a stored setting and SFOS is famous for sometimes mess up or forget user settings. Therefore i prefer hard coding.

#11

That’s a fame I’m not aware of. Sure with the ambience overrides it’s easy to mess up sound settings settings but we haven’t done those by default in long time.

2 Likes