Mouse wheel behaves inconsistently wrt volume change in indicator applet and popup

[vkareh]

Expected behaviour

I can scroll the mouse over the volume icon in the indicator applet and the volume changes: When I scroll downwards, the volume increases; when I scroll upwards, the volume decreases. I would expect this scrolling behaviour to be same if I click on the notification area and use the mouse wheel to adjust the volume slider in the resulting popup.

Actual behaviour

The slider and the volume icon behave exactly opposite of each other!

The direction of scrolling resulting in a volume increase when hovering over the icon in the notification area will decease the volume when hovering + scrolling over the volume slider in the popup.

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

1. Move mouse cursor over the sound icon in the indicator applet.
2. Scroll up, and notice change in volume.
3. Click the sound icon in the indicator applet.
4. Move the mouse cursor over the volume slider in the resulting popup.
5. Scroll up, and notice the change in volume.

On my machine, the volume changes in (2) and (5) are opposite, despite scrolling in the same direction.

MATE general version

Package version

mate-panel 1.20.3-1 amd64

Linux Distribution

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=18.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=cosmic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 18.10"

Link to downstream report of your Distribution

N/A

Note: this is a re-post from mate-desktop/mate-panel#914

[vkareh]

@karltk - I've re-posted the issue in this project and I can reproduce consistently, regardless of whether I use "natural scrolling" or not. I found this really old bug: lp:521090 that describes the issue (indicator-sound is the package that handles the volume indicator), but seems like it has been fixed for many many years.

What's funny is that since the indicator slider is sideways, when you scroll sideways, the behavior is correct (the indicator and the slider both work in the same direction). It's only when using up/down that the behavior is opposite (which, come to think of it, scrolling up/down in a sideways slider is bound to be not-intuitive).

[karltk]

Thx for checking it out.

I switched over to MATE from plain Ubuntu last autumn. In the GNOME3-based Ubuntu 18.04 and 18.10, the reported inconsistency does not occur, even though they also have an panel indicator and a separate sound volume popup.

I don't have access to a plain Ubuntu installation atm, so I'm unable to check where they made the opposite design decision compared to MATE wrt vertical mouse wheel scrolling behaviour (panel or sound applet popup).

[vkareh]

It might also be the ayatana indicator. I remember seeing a commit that fixed an issue with inverted scrolling not long ago. Either @flexiondotorg or @sunweaver might know more about this?

[sc0w]

The slider and icon works fine here, as expected for me:

mouse wheel up, more volume

mouse wheel down, less volume

debian buster/testing with mate-panel 1.20.3-1

[vkareh]

Ok, as soon as I have a chance I'll recompile and test with and without ayatana support and see if there's a difference

[sunweaver]

Hi,

On Sunday, 27 January 2019, Victor Kareh wrote: Ok, as soon as I have a chance I'll recompile and test with and without ayatana support and see if there's a difference

Ubuntu 18.10 is on Ubuntu Indicators. The scrolling is likely an issue in indicator-sound. I will do an indicators sprint at FOSDEM, to get things move forward. Will look into this issue on the Ayatana side then. Mike

…

-- Sent from my Sailfish device

[sunweaver]

Hi,

On Sunday, 27 January 2019, ZenWalker wrote: The slider and icon works fine here, as expected for me: mouse wheel up, more volume mouse wheel down, less volume debian buster/testing with mate-panel 1.20.3-1

Debian does not yet have ayatana-indicator-sound. So what you see is the sound applet from mate-media. Mike -- Sent from my Sailfish device

[yoyoma2]

I switched over to MATE from plain Ubuntu last autumn. In the GNOME3-based Ubuntu 18.04 and 18.10, the reported inconsistency does not occur, even though they also have an panel indicator and a separate sound volume popup.

I don't have access to a plain Ubuntu installation atm, so I'm unable to check where they made the opposite design decision compared to MATE wrt vertical mouse wheel scrolling behaviour (panel or sound applet popup).

I'm using ubuntu 18.04 (upgraded from 16.04 so not fresh install) and ran into this issue and google brought me here (never heard of MATE before). Log in with flashback compiz or flashback metacity and this inconsistency appears and the popup volume indicator is missing. Log in with ubuntu (default) and all is ok. Maybe flashback behavior in ubuntu gives a hint as to what's happening in this bug.

[mesov]

This is still happening in mate-panel 1.26.2-1 with mate-indicator-applet 1.26.0-1.
The popup volume indicator is also missing.

[AnterCreeper]

I will show a picture what happens.

[alfsb]

This still happens with me with mate-indicator-applet 1.26.0-1 on Ubuntu Mate 22.04.2 LTS.

If there is a way to capture X events to more easily debug this, I may try to provide a capture.

Not using imwheel (fresh install), but used previously. So I suspect this may be a per mouse problem.

[alfsb]

I got some captures with sudo libinput debug-events, so it's possible to compare with others, and see if this problem occurs at this level.

Scroll ups are recorded as:

 event3   POINTER_SCROLL_WHEEL    +6.288s	vert -15.00/-120.0* horiz 0.00/0.0 (wheel)

And scroll downs are reported as:

 event3   POINTER_SCROLL_WHEEL    +7.804s	vert 15.00/120.0* horiz 0.00/0.0 (wheel)

libinput quirks list /dev/input/event3 output no quirks applied.

lsusb list mouse as Bus 001 Device 004: ID 248a:8366 Maxxter Wireless Optical Mouse ACT-MUSW-002.

[mesov]

This is still happening with mate-indicator-applet 1.26.0-1, in addition to volume change on scrolling over the volume icon not being notified through popup volume bar nor tooltip.

The sound applet from mate-media at least has a tooltip displaying changes in volume in percents.