TV mode switcher

[strycore]

As someone using a TV as a 3rd monitor, I'm experiencing a lof of issues with this:

• It's not possible to detect whether the TV is turned on or in sleep mode (either by poking the video or sound output), the solutions will require some sort of manual intervention, likely a keyboard, which is acceptable.
• The switcher should toggle between TV on / TV off, it would maybe be appropriate to have TV on / TV focused / TV off or have 2 different switchers. The TV focused mode would make the TV HDMI audio output the default and force new windows to appear on the TV.
• TV on should activate the display, its position should be remembered which isn't the case now. TV off disables the display.
• The TV uses the Digital Stereo (HDMI 3) Output Pulseaudio profile but this profile often switches back to HDMI 2. Switching to TV mode should make sure that this profile is used (it should be configurable of course)
• A desktop notification should appear when modes are switched.
• A GUI to configure all this would be nice to have but not a necessity.
• If TV focus is not used, new windows should appear on the current primary monitor, even when the TV is the left most display.

Techs used: xrandr, pulseaudio, twinview, nvidia-settings, xorg

[strycore]

Might be worth a look: https://github.com/mk-fg/python-pulse-control

[strycore]

I was thinking about a Gnome Shell extension for this one. There are already a few ones that manage displays such as this one: https://github.com/bodedejavu/gnome-shell-extensions

@ikeydoherty would this work for Budgie as well?

[ikeydoherty]

Budgie isn't compatible with GNOME Shell, it has a native C API/ABI.

[shellkr]

You should probably have a look at xset as it should be able to do what you want... if I understand the issue correct. At least when it comes to normal monitors. Not sure when it comes to TV's. I don't know how one would do this on Wayland though.

[strycore]

@ikeydoherty that kinda rules out the Javascript option (but the pulsectl python module already ruled it out before that and Pulseaudio doesn't have gi bindings). I got pretty much everything I need to use sorted out, now I have to put the pieces together.

@shellkr A few weeks back, I've looked at a bunch of tools that could detect if my TV was turned on or if it was in sleep mode and apparently, my TV doesn't support that feature (my main monitor does). I'll be using libgnomedesktop which is what the Gnome Control Panel uses for display configuration (+ some Pulseaudio stuff). Also, anything Wayland related is currently excluded from any Shellac related project. I consider Wayland to be experimental, incomplete and not ready for general use.