Gvtray: A volume control for your system tray

Blog
About

Gvtray: A volume control for your system tray

August 15, 2007 at 12:39 pm | In programs, tips and tricks | 12 Comments
Tags: gvtray, mixer, plugin, system tray, volume, xfce, xfce4, xubuntu

UPDATE:

this guide is no longer necessary IMO. I’ve solved my volume control problems by dragging the Volume Control plugin from the item list to the panel. Simple, but it works.

I have problems with the default Volume Control plugin in Xubuntu, so this is a useful solution. It displays the volume percent, and can be turned up or down using the mousewheel.

1) First, open up the terminal and get the necessary programs:

sudo apt-get install python-alsaaudio python-gnome2-extras wget http://gtk-tray-utils.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/gvtray-1.1.tar.gz

2) Extract gvtray-1.1.tar.gz and go into the newly created directory:

tar -xvf gvtray-1.1.tar.gz cd gvtray-1.1

3) Run all of the following commands:

sudo mkdir /usr/share/gvtray sudo cp gvtray /usr/bin sudo cp gvtray.py /usr/share/gvtray/ sudo cp -r gvtray_about/ /usr/share/gvtray/gvtray_about

4) Now test it out:

gvtray

And there it is, a volume control in the system tray. You will get an error message in the terminal; just ignore it.

Hope this program is useful!

12 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Could you tell us what was wrong with the default Volume Control panel item?
What are gvtray’s advantages?

Comment by StrangeQuark — August 17, 2007 #

Reply
I have a detailed Launchpad report of it all here:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/xfce4-mixer/+bug/90261

Quite simply, it doesn’t load. And every time it does, it never does again. The advantage to gvtray is that it…well, loads.

Comment by xubuntu — August 17, 2007 #

Reply
I see.
Well, I guess I don’t need it then.

Comment by StrangeQuark — August 18, 2007 #

Reply
You may not, but another advantage is that it can be used in IceWM/Openbox

Comment by xubuntu — August 18, 2007 #

Reply
nice

Comment by lubuntu — August 19, 2007 #

Reply
I am very underwhelmed by gvtray. It took me a while to get it installed (because I was missing the python-gnome2-extras package), and the interface is pretty ugly.

I have my Thinkpad’s media keys mapped to amixer set Master x+/- and gvtray does not recognize that the volume has changed when I press the media keys (but at least it does change volume on mouse wheel).

I ended up installing Gnome’s volume control applet via xfapplet. It’s still not great, because I can’t see fine grained volume level information (how do Gnome users even begin to put up with this stuff?), but it’s still a step above gvtray.

Comment by min.huang@alumni.usc.edu — August 22, 2007 #

Reply
It’s slick, but sound still doesn’t work.

:’(

Comment by Iain Cheyne — August 24, 2007 #

Reply
Just what I needed — and very easy to follow instructions! Appreciated!

Comment by ET — August 27, 2007 #

Reply
I’m trying it, as I have trouble with sound on my ThinkPad R60 and it might help to try something new – sometimes my sound works poorly, sometimes not at all. And I wondered where the heck the volume control was.

But 27.6 MB extra space required? (first step). Seems a lot for a volume control…?

Comment by Chriswaterguy — August 31, 2007 #

Reply
27.6? Mine comes to about 4. Maybe you should try it without python-gnome2-extras?

Comment by xubuntu — August 31, 2007 #

Reply
I did everything described above for my Xubuntu but I don’t see any Volume Control icon or console.. And I get this error message in the Terminal:
“you need the alsaaudio python module”
Where do I Get that?
and/or do I just need to reboot or find the icon somewhere (else)?

Comment by Nathan — December 28, 2007 #

Reply
Nice Application!
Use in Fluxbox.

Comment by Ren — March 31, 2008 #

Reply