592293 - Feature Request: Visual indicator of audio playback on browser tabs

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 334987

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[jason]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100722 Firefox/3.6.8

Feature Request:

When a page generates audio output, but you have a dozen or more tabs open, it is often impossible to determine which page/tab is generating the audio. You have to cycle through all tabs, closing them in order, to determine the guilty party.

Instead, it would be wonderful to use a visual indicator (a pulsing musical note icon or speaker icon) on any tab that is generating audio output. Users could then quick switch to that tab to stop the audio playback or close the tab.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Quickly open a few tabs in the background.
2. When one starts audio playback, try to find which tab is responsible.
3. Become frustrated, and close all tabs indiscriminately.

Comment 1

[Ben Tremblay]

I'm surely not alone in finding that auto-play behaviour irritating. This would be a nice fix.

Comment 2

[drx512]

I jump back and fourth between browsers - but I would be a permanent user of FF if it implemented this feature!

Comment 4

[Jonas Nordlund]

I don't think bug 334987 is a duplicate of this one.

Fixing this bug wouldn't interfer with a user for example playing web radio in another tab, and intentionally not bringing that tab up. It's not uncommon practice to have a tab dedicated for playing some music.

Fixing bug 334987 is more risky in my opinion, since it would force a user to let a tab be active for as long as the user want to listen to whatever he/she is listening to, or otherwise only be able to avoid that inconvenience by opening another Firefox window.

Also, I'm not even sure the same programming challenges are involved in detecting sound output vs actively disabling it on a per-tab basis.

Comment 5

[jason]

As the original submitter, I too disagree with the duplicate resolution.

The bug to which this was duplicated is not a bug, but a very important feature. I often will open a tab to a music site (Slacker.com, Pandora.com) for playing of music, then place that tab in the background and go about my work. Were that capability removed, I would have no choice but to use another browser.

So in keeping with the idea behind this feature request - please reconsider. I want to know WHERE the audio is coming from. I do not want my browser to decide where it CAN come from. The browser should inform the use, not restrict the user.

Comment 6

[Kevin Brosnan]

This is a dupe of bug 556969 which has been marked a dupe of 334987. The exact nature of how plugin sound is to be controlled is undetermined at this time.