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    FAQnoctalia.dev

    Audio

    Set [audio].colorize_icons = true (default: false) to tint application icons in the Control Center audio mixer with [shell].app_icon_color. This toggle is available under Services → Audio → Colorize App Icons; device glyphs and media artwork keep their existing appearance.

    [audio]
    enable_overdrive           = false  # allow volume sliders above 100% (up to 150%)
    enable_sounds              = true   # master toggle for shell sounds (plugins unaffected)
    enable_volume_sounds       = true   # sound on output volume changes
    enable_notification_sounds = true   # sound on notifications
    enable_power_sounds        = true   # sound on charger connect/disconnect
    enable_screenshot_sounds   = true   # sound on screenshots
    sound_volume               = 0.5    # global sound volume (0.0 - 1.0)
    sound_theme                = "freedesktop"
    spectrum_frame_rate        = 60     # audio visualizer updates per second (30 - 240)
    • enable_overdrive = false clamps Control Center output/microphone sliders to 100%; true allows up to 150%.
    • enable_sounds = false disables all shell sound playback and skips loading the sound theme files (nothing is decoded until sounds are enabled again). Plugin sounds via noctalia.sound.play are not affected by enable_sounds or the per-event toggles.
    • While enable_sounds is true, each per-event toggle gates one shell sound: enable_volume_sounds (output volume changes), enable_notification_sounds (notifications), enable_power_sounds (charger connect or remove), and enable_screenshot_sounds (screenshots). Microphone volume and mute changes are always silent. The per-event toggles, the sound volume and the sound theme are hidden in Settings while enable_sounds is false.
    • sound_volume controls all UI sounds. A value of 1.0 plays the source at unity gain; lower values follow a perceptual volume curve. Files are decoded through libsndfile; common supported formats include WAV, FLAC, Ogg/Vorbis, Opus, MP3, and AIFF. Exact format support depends on the distribution’s libsndfile build.
    • sound_theme selects an installed sound theme. Themes inherit from their declared parents and fall back to freedesktop; shell sounds are loaded from each theme’s stereo directory. Premade themes are available on Pling; install them under ~/.local/share/sounds/<theme-name>/. To create your own, follow the freedesktop Sound Theme Specification.
    • Shell sounds use these theme events: message-new-instant (notifications), audio-volume-change (output volume changes), power-plug / power-unplug (laptop charger connected or removed; without a system battery, the lowest-charged peripheral starting or stopping charging, but not a switch to a different lowest-charged peripheral), and screen-capture (screenshots). If a theme lacks the exact event, its trailing dash components are stripped (e.g. message-new-instant, then message-new, then message) before trying parent themes.
    • Sounds play as a PipeWire stream with media.role=Notification. WirePlumber shares one saved volume, mute state, and output device across all Notification-role streams, shown as “System Sounds” in pavucontrol, GNOME, and KDE. If shell sounds are silent while other audio works, see the FAQ entry.
    • spectrum_frame_rate sets how many times per second the audio spectrum is analyzed while audio plays. It is shared by every audio visualizer. The bar, desktop, media player, and Control Center visualizers redraw at this rate rather than at the monitor’s refresh rate; the fancy desktop visualizer keeps animating every frame. Higher rates are smoother but use more CPU and GPU.

    Noctalia reconnects automatically if the PipeWire daemon restarts or is temporarily unavailable. Audio devices and controls disappear while the daemon is offline and repopulate after PipeWire and its session manager are ready again.

    Section titled “Related IPC”

    For output and microphone commands, default steps, mute behavior, and overdrive limits, see: