lah7
Sound icon on Debian 12, MATE 1.26.0
Describe the problem
The sound icon in the sound settings and the panel use the grey loudspeaker with the blue volume indicator:
Expected behaviour
I expect the white icon to show up, I took a screenshot in 18.04 of the sound settings;
But forgot to capture the panel, we can see the panel in this screenshot:
From the original 18.04 release post.
Affected Themes
Probably all of them, judging by the filenames.
- Ambiant-MATE
- Ambiant-MATE-Dark
- Radiant-MATE
Screenshots
See above.
Operating System / Environment
Debian 12, MATE 1.26.0.
Other information
I tried figuring out when then -panel icon should be used, but the icon-naming-spec's status icon names only lists the following:
-
audio-volume-low -
audio-volume-medium -
audio-volume-high -
audio-volume-muted
So following that list it makes sense that I got to see audio-volume-high instead of audio-volume-high-panel (the latter is not in the spec). I'm not sure if this is because the MATE panel in Debian uses the standard names and the panel available to Ubuntu uses the -panel names though. On an Ubuntu 24.04 machine I also use this repo (thank you!) and can confirm that uses the white icon in the panel.
Fixing it is as replacing the non -panel files with the -panel counterparts:
mv audio-volume-high.svg audio-volume-high.svg.bak
mv audio-volume-low.svg audio-volume-low.svg.bak
mv audio-volume-medium.svg audio-volume-medium.svg.bak
mv audio-volume-muted.svg audio-volume-muted.svg.bak
ln -s audio-volume-high-panel.svg audio-volume-high.svg
ln -s audio-volume-low-panel.svg audio-volume-low.svg
ln -s audio-volume-medium-panel.svg audio-volume-medium.svg
ln -s audio-volume-muted-panel.svg audio-volume-muted.svg
I did so in a10a8cc4e81c8c86cee873af5e81a6bd4df9b5f7 for my own use. I'm happy to file a PR with this change of course, but I'm honestly not sure if that would mean there's an unintended change elsewhere on other operating systems.
Absolutely fine if this is closed as won't do, people encountering the same issue will be able to find it and a workaround in the issues at least.
After writing this post I thought I'd at least check 24.04 to see if both icons are in use there, and they are, the panel uses the -panel variety, and the sound preferences window uses the non -panel flavour:
So I don't think this can be fixed that easily without any regressions, and it's probably best to not do anything, or put a note in the readme about this discrepancy?
Thanks for raising the issue and doing some detective work!
If I recall, the volume icons were originally the mono icons (as seen on the panel) for the OSD pop up when changing the volume too.
From history, 3207bc39cae531bdbe493ea1fb1c30c144e8098c purposefully made a change to use the colourful ones, which was 6 years ago, after 18.04's release. (I stayed with 16.04 until the end so I didn't experience this change) I guess it's not a bug, but by design. I wouldn't be against putting them back, although it would be nice to have the 'colourful' ones exclusive to the dialog, and the panel/OSD having the 'mono' ones, but I don't think that's possible with the icon theme alone.
For the incorrect icon in Debian, is it the same volume control? Does it open up like below (Ayatana Indicators, as seen in 24.04) or is a basic "slider" (original MATE)? I bet it's the latter, and probably uses the non -panel suffixed icons.
I wouldn't be against putting them back, although it would be nice to have the 'colourful' ones exclusive to the dialog, and the panel/OSD having the 'mono' ones, but I don't think that's possible with the icon theme alone.
Yeah, to be honest I prefer the color ones in the sound preferences dialog, but in the indicator panel it should be the white one. That is what I got on Noble using this theme, but I think the use of -panel is something Ubuntu did to facilitate this distinction.
For the incorrect icon in Debian, is it the same volume control? Does it open up like below (Ayatana Indicators, as seen in 24.04) or is a basic "slider" (original MATE)? I bet it's the latter, and probably uses the non -panel suffixed icons.
It is the most basic of sliders, which at least means the icon can't be wrong xD
Yep, that's the mate-volume-control, the original MATE applet which Debian uses. Ubuntu went with indicators, which now continue on as ayatana-indicator-sound.
Not a theme bug, but I'll leave the issue open for now in case anyone comes across this.