Earcandy: Sound level manager that nicely fades applications in and out

Earcandy is sound level manager for Linux that changes the volume of your applications based on their profile. It’s a sound level manager that nicely fades applications in and out based on their profile and window focus. Following are the features of EarCandy:

Features

• All volume adjustments are fades
• Fade out music/video players on skype call
• Fade to music player with focus when more than one
• Fade out music player when video playing
• Push sound to USB headsets on plugin
• Categories to assign to clients
• Sniffs desktop files to guess application category … music/video/VoIP
• Simplified pref UI for creating rules
• Volume sniffing to fix youtube video issue
• PID matching
• Reset volumes for streams on exit (so streams dont get stuck at a low level)

Installation

Installation of EarCandy is fairly simple.

Adding the PPA to the software sources

1. In order to add the EarCandy PPA to software sources list open software sources by going to System > Administration > Software Sources

2. Go to Third-Party Software tab and click the add botton and add the following lines one by one

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/earcandy-devel/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/earcandy-devel/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

Adding the OpenPGP keys

1. To add the OpenPGP keys of EarCandy, go to the OpnePGP signing key page (link in the link sections).

2. Copy the key (looks like the one below) on to gedit and save the file as EarCandy.

3. Go to the Authentication tab in Software Sources window and click Import Key File to import the EarCandy signing key you just created.

Installing EarCandy

We are now left with installing the application. To do so drop to terminal and type the following command.

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install earcandy

This should install EarCandy. Once started it’ll run unobtrusively in the system tray.

Note: You’ll get an error like the one below once you start earcandy.

There’s a small bug and earcandy won’t launch as it’s path by default is /usr/bin/earcandy. However, the correct path is /usr/bin/ear_candy. You’ll have to change the path in the startup application menu to /usr/bin/ear_candy.

Links

PPA Page

https://launchpad.net/~earcandy-devel/+archive/ppa

Signing key

http://keyserver.ubuntu.com:11371/pks/lookup?search=0xE03A1B636105AA6F2002C0482D01D614E00F07B5&op=index

About the Bug

http://www.mail-archive.com/universe-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com/msg115858.html