Problems with Retrovol volume slider in system tray

[Beret Gascon]

I have just installed Precise Puppy 5.7.1 on a brand new laptop for a lady who did have a Windows XP PC and was unprepared to upgrade to Windows 7 or 8.

I'm pretty much a Linux noob and for the moment I haven't figured out why PP won't boot from the HDD and only from the CD, even if the save file is on the HDD, but that's a subject for another thread and I'm sure I'll find the answer on these pages (brilliant forum, thank you to all). I think I have to delve into GRUB...

My main problem was that on the laptop, an MSI CR70, ALSA detected two audio cards/chips, a HDMI and an Analog. Using a topic in this forum I have fixed that problem - thank you very much.

This left me with an unexpected problem, the volume control in the system tray was at 100% and didn't respond to the mouse. Here is how I fixed it:

1. Open a terminal window and type

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amixer controls

this displays the slider number of all the available volume controls

2. Make a note of the slider for the Master Volume. For me it was

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numid=14, iface=MIXER, name='Master Playback Volume'

so the number to remember was 14.

3. Now open /root/.retrovolrc. This is a hidden file by default, so you have to click on the "eye" icon in ROX-Filer to display it.

4. With the file open in a text editor, scroll down to where it says

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#tray_control=37

and either remove the hash or add a new line underneath it without the hash

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#tray_control=37
tray_control=14

5. Save /root/.retrovolrc and, if you haven't already done so, quit Retrovol by right-clicking on it and selecting Quit

6. Go to the Puppy menu and, in the Multimedia fly-out, select Retrovol to re-start it

Your volume control should now actually work! Shame it doesn't have a mute control but that's hardly a major problem

[disciple]

Middle click to mute. And you can select the control to use in the tray from the retrovol gui, too.

[MochiMoppel]

Middle click to mute

Not an option for users of 2-button trackballs (Logitech Marble Mouse)...

[disciple]

It wouldn't be too hard to add something like a mute/unmute entry in the right-click menu. Maybe you should suggest it.
I guess there's no real reason why a checkbox couldn't be shown with the main slider, either, but using the main slider is really no better than using the "full window" (which already has mute checkboxes), if you disable the "enable tray menu" option