1 audiopy - a program to control the Solaris audio device.

     2 

     3 Contact: Barry Warsaw

     4 Email:   bwarsaw@python.org

     5 Version: 1.1

     6 

     7 Introduction

     8 

     9     Audiopy is a program to control the Solaris audio device, allowing

    10     you to choose both the input and output devices, and to set the

    11     output volume.  It can be run either as a standalone command-line

    12     script, or as a Tkinter based GUI application.

    13 

    14     Note that your version of Python must have been built with the

    15     sunaudiodev module enabled.  It is not enabled by default however!

    16     You will need to edit your Modules/Setup file, uncomment the

    17     sunaudiodev module spec line and rebuild Python.

    18 

    19     Using audiopy, you can select one of three possible input devices:

    20     the microphone, the line-in jack, or the CD in.  These choices are

    21     mutually exclusive; you can only have one active input device at

    22     any one time (this is enforced by the underlying device).  Some

    23     input devices may not be supported on all Solaris machines.

    24 

    25     You can also choose to enable any of the three possible output

    26     devices: the headphone jack, the speakers, or the line-out jack.

    27     You can enable any combination of these three devices.

    28 

    29     You can also set the output gain (volume) level.

    30 

    31 Running as a GUI

    32 

    33     Simply start audiopy with no arguments to start it as a Tkinter

    34     based GUI application.  It will pop up a window with two sections:

    35     the top portion contains three radio buttons indicating your

    36     selected input device; the middle portion contains three

    37     checkboxes indicating your selected output devices; the bottom

    38     portion contains a slider that changes the output gain.

    39 

    40     Note the underlined characters in the button labels.  These

    41     indicate keyboard accelerators so that pressing Alt+character you

    42     can select that device.  For example, Alt-s toggles the Speaker

    43     device.  The Alt accelerators are the same as those you'd use in

    44     as the short-form command line switches (see below).

    45 

    46     Alt-q is also an accelerator for selecting Quit from the File

    47     menu.

    48 

    49     Unsupported devices will appear dimmed out in the GUI.  When run

    50     as a GUI, audiopy monitors the audio device and automatically

    51     updates its display if the state of the device is changed by some

    52     other means.  With Python versions before 1.5.2 this is done by

    53     occasionally polling the device, but in Python 1.5.2 no polling is

    54     necessary (you don't really need to know this, but I thought I'd

    55     plug 1.5.2 :-).

    56     

    57 Running as a Command Line Program

    58 

    59     You can run audiopy from the command line to select any

    60     combination of input or output device, by using the command line

    61     options.  Actually, any option forces audiopy to run as a command

    62     line program and not display its GUI.

    63 

    64     Options have the general form

    65 

    66         --device[={0,1}]

    67         -d[-{0,1}]

    68 

    69     meaning there is both a long-form and short-form of the switch,

    70     where `device' or `d' is one of the following:

    71 

    72         (input)

    73             microphone -- m

    74             linein     -- i

    75             cd         -- c

    76 

    77         (output)

    78             headphones -- p

    79             speaker    -- s

    80             lineout    -- o

    81 

    82     When no value is given, the switch just toggles the specified

    83     device.  With a value, 0 turns the device off and 1 turns the

    84     device on.  Any other value is an error.

    85 

    86     For example, to turn the speakers off, turn the headphones on, and 

    87     toggle the cd input device, run audiopy from the command line like 

    88     so:

    89 

    90     % ./audiopy -s=0 -p=1 -c

    91 

    92     Audiopy understands these other command line options:

    93 

    94     --gain volume

    95     -g volume

    96         Sets the output volume to the specified gain level.  This must 

    97         be an integer between MIN_GAIN and MAX_GAIN (usually [0..255], 

    98         but use the -h option to find the exact values).

    99 

   100     --version

   101     -v

   102         Print the version number and exit

   103 

   104     --help

   105     -h

   106         Print a help message and exit

   107         

   108 

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