Automatically switch controlled device to match active window

Submitted by Michał Górny

Assigned to Andrzej

Link to original bug (#14033)

Description

I'm not sure if it's technically possible and how hard would it be but I would find it quite useful if xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin was able to follow the currently selected (focused) window and automatically switch the volume control to the output device that is used by the relevant application.

Rationale: I have two output devices (sound card with hifi + HDMI output). Normally I prefer using the former but for Chromium I usually use the latter. I find the ability to easily control this via PulseAudio a great feature. However, I find it quite cumbersome having to explicitly switch the device in xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin every time. I would therefore find it really cool if it was able to follow my focus (or at least monitor device activity) somehow and have an option to automatically switch to the card I'm currently using.

Example: I start playing some video in Chromium which uses HDMI output -> xfce4-pulseaudio switches to controlling volume of HDMI output. I start playing some music via player which uses sound card output -> xfce4-pulseaudio-plugin switches to controlling volume of sound card.