Aqua Taskforce

Flauchhaus wrote on September 1, 2008, 11:51pm

You could use growl with hardwaregrowler for that. I use it too (i agree it is usefull) but only with small notifications - please no sound, i mean every time you play the windows vista start sound god kills a kitten. Please think of the kittens :P
-edit- i wanted to say that sounds will get annoying

jasper wrote on September 2, 2008, 12:30am

No, not start sound, just simply a notification that the connected device is useable.

polycat33 wrote on September 2, 2008, 2:50am

I disagree, and this sounds like such a windows thing... it's got a little "device connected," "device disconnected" sound and I think it's annoying. If you're a recent switcher, don't worry, you'll get used to the lack of sound.

I mean, how long does it take for a USB device that you just plugged in to be recognized by the computer? It's practically instant, so just the fact that you plugged it in should be enough of a confirmation.

jasper wrote on September 2, 2008, 9:35am

Erm, I have been working with mac for years now. This is a usefull thing. It's not because it's Windows that it's necesarily bad. That plug-in plug-out sound in Windows is a great confirmation from the system, just like when plugging your iPhone in and it makes a sound feels equally nice.

weedmonk wrote on September 2, 2008, 6:44pm

Oh God yes! This helps so much when i switch things out my hub.,

jasper wrote on September 2, 2008, 9:51pm

Didn't even think of the Hubs. But great reminder.

"I mean, how long does it take for a USB device that you just plugged in to be recognized by the computer? It's practically instant, so just the fact that you plugged it in should be enough of a confirmation."

You know, you totally missed my point. I want confirmation that the device is recognized. So if I stick something in there that's not mac, I don't get the sound. It's a confirmation that the operating system got things up and running - and no, checking the finder untill it appears isn't the best.

Say, if you have a big hard drive and connect it to your mac it can take up to ten seconds untill the device appears. So MacOS would make the sound the moment it's connected to the USB, that way I'd know that it's coming. Also, if you USB ports are broke or not working properly, you would notice because there's no sound. Also, some devices don't just appear. Scanners and printers don't appear in the Finder, so you need to navigate through menus to verify that they are indeed connected. A simple sound would do the trick telling you that it has found a device.

And really guys, sometimes Windows can be ahead of the game too - the sound and pop-up bubbles (although way to many) really work to give the user information.

(And no, I don't even use Windows on a daily basis, I'm a graphic designer on mac for five years now)

erifneerg wrote on September 15, 2008, 9:52am

i second the growl & hardware growl. that really fixes the issue, just not build-in app but it is free

polycat33 wrote on September 17, 2008, 5:16am

I agree with erifneerg, I use growl for all kinds of things I like to have notifications for, but not everyone likes notifications for the same things, which is why growl is so useful, you can use it for just the applications you want. And if more people disagree with a suggestion like this than agree with it, it seems it's the perfect job for a third party app.

MicrowaveDave wrote on October 1, 2008, 12:03pm

Comment removed - The poster of this topic doesn't deserve an answer.

BlockadeRunner wrote on March 4, 2009, 4:51am

Maybe Apple should add an option similar to the "Play user interface sounds" checkbox, along the lines of "Notify me when a device is connected or disconnected." Sounds would be similar to iChat sounds when a buddy goes online or offline, or replies to your message. iChat sounds are completely configurable for any action, why not the OS?
I've used and liked Growl a lot, too. Doesn't it also have sound options?

My opinion is, since this is a low severity item, it should be an SysPref option, and not an irreversable, integrated standard.

Hey, Coverflow was a free iTunes add-on for a while before Apple bought and integrated it into iTunes, and later the OS. Maybe someday Growl and hardware growl will see the same glory. :)

XStylus wrote on June 1, 2009, 6:05am

Definitely necessary.

I flaky USB device that sometimes loses connectivity. Half of the time when I plug it in it'll work, the other times not. Same on a PC, but at least with a PC I can tell if it successfully hooked up or not because of that chime. There's no chime (or even a device manager menu) on the Mac, so I have to go through several extra steps to see if it successfully connected or not.

bastyani wrote on August 23, 2009, 5:58pm

Absolutely necessary! I use hardwaregrowler to solve this problem.
Some kind of audio or better visual report is necessary so you know
when you successfully mount your external devices!