Sound Naming Specification
Version 0.2
4 June 2008
Marc-Andre
Lureau
Sound Naming Specification
marcandre.lureau@gmail.com
Lennart
Poettering
PulseAudio Project
lennart@poettering.net
Rodney
Dawes
Icon Naming Specification
dobey.pwns@gmail.com
Jon
Bold
Bango! Project
jon.wordescapes@co.uk
Overview
This specification gives direction on how to name the sounds that are
available for use by applications, when creating a sound theme. It
does so by laying out a standard naming scheme for sound creation, as
well as providing a minimal list of must have sounds, and a larger
list with many more examples to help with the creation of extended
sounds for third party applications, with different event types and
usage.
Context
The list of default contexts for the sound theme are:
Standard Contexts
Name
Description
Directory
Alerts
Sounds to alert the user of an action or event which may
have a major impact on the system or their current use,
such as dialog-error.
alert
Notifications
Sounds to notify the user that the system, or their
current use case has changed state in some way, e.g. new
email arriving, new non-critical update available...
notification
Actions
Sounds that give the user feedback on their
actions.
action
Input Feedback
Sounds that give direct response to input events from the user, such as mouse clicks or key presses.
action
Game
Sound used in games.
game
Sound Naming Guidelines
Here we define some guidelines for when creating new sounds that
extend the standardized list of sound names defined here, in
order to provide sounds for more specific events and usages.
Sound names are in the en_US.US_ASCII locale. This means
that the characters allowed in the sound names must
fall within the US-ASCII character set. As a further
restriction, all sound names may only contain lowercase
letters, numbers, underscore, dash, or period
characters. Spaces, colons, slashes, and backslashes are
not allowed. Also, sound names must be spelled as they are
in the en_US dictionary.
The dash -
character is used to separate
levels of specificity in sound names. For instance, we
use search-results
as the generic item for
all search results, and we use
search-results-empty
for an empty search
result. However, if the more specific item does not exist
in the current theme, and does exist in a parent theme,
the generic sound from the current theme is preferred, in
order to keep consistent style. From left to right the
words in a sound name become more specific. In some cases
what word in a name is more specific is
ambiguous. (i.e. "dialog-error" and "error-dialog" both
make sense, the former would ease defining the same sound
for all dialogs popping up, regardless of its context, the
latter would ease defining the same sound for all errors,
regardless of how it is presented to the user). In such
cases it is generally preferred to put the UI element noun
left -- if there is one --, however exceptions of this
rule are acceptable.
Sounds for branded applications should be named the same
as the binary executable for the application, prefixed by
the string x-
, to avoid name space clashes with future
standardized names. Example: x-openoffice-foobar
.
Please send suggestions for new standardized names to the XDG mailing list: xdg@lists.freedesktop.org
Standard Sounds Names
This section describes the standard sounds names that should be
used by artists when creating themes, and by developers when
writing applications which will use the Sound Theme
Specification.
Alerts
This is to notify the user of an action or event which may
have a major impact on the system or their current use case.
Standard Alert Sounds
Name
Description
network-connectivity-lost
The sound used when network connectivity is lost.
network-connectivity-error
The sound used when an error occurs when it is tried
to initialize the network connection of the computing
device.
dialog-error
The sound used when a dialog is opened to explain an
error condition to the user.
battery-low
The sound used when the battery is low (below 20%, for
example).
suspend-error
The machine failed to suspend.
software-update-urgent
The sound used when an urgent update is available
through the system software update program.
power-unplug-battery-low
The power cable has been unplugged and the battery level is low.
Notifications
This is to alert the user that the system, or their current
use case has changed state in some way - mew email arriving,
new non-critical update to an application available.
Standard Notifications Sounds
Name
Description
message-new-instant
The sound used when a new IM is recieved.
message-new-email
The sound used when a new email is recieved.
complete-media-burn
The sound used when an optical medium completed burning.
complete-media-rip
The sound used when an optical medium completed ripping.
complete-download
The sound used when a file completed downloading.
complete-copy
The sound used when a file completed copying.
complete-scan
The sound used when a scanner completed image acquisition and software completed image processing.
phone-incoming-call
The sound used when an phone/voip call is coming in. Usually some kind of ring sound.
phone-outgoing-busy
The sound used when a phone/voip call is dialed out and the responder is not available.
phone-hangup
The sound used when a phone/voip call is ended due to hangup.
phone-failure
The sound used when a phone/voip call is canceled due to some error.
network-connectivity-established
The sound used when network connectivity is established.
system-bootup
The sound used when the computer is being booted up, played as as early in bootup as possible.
system-ready
The sound used when the computer is booted up and shows the login screen.
system-shutdown
The sound used when the computer is being shut down.
search-results
The sound used when one or more search results are
returned.
search-results-empty
The sound used when no search results are returned.
desktop-login
The sound used when a user logs into the system, played as a welcome sound immediately after the login screen disappeared.
desktop-logout
The sound used when a user logs out of the system.
desktop-screen-lock
The sound used when the user locks their current
session.
service-login
The sound used when a user logs into a service
(i.e. Gaim login)
service-logout
The sound used when a user logs out of a service
(i.e. Gaim logout)
battery-caution
The sound used when the battery is nearing exhaustion (below 40%, for
example)
battery-full
The sound used when the battery is fully loaded up.
dialog-warning
The sound used when a dialog is opened to give
information to the user that may be pertinent to the
requested action.
dialog-information
The sound used when a dialog is opened to give
information to the user that may be pertinent to the
requested action.
dialog-question
The sound used when a dialog is opened to ask the user a question.
software-update-available
The sound used when an update is available for
software installed on the computing device, through
the system software update program.
device-added
The sound used when a device has become available to the desktop, i.e. due to USB plugging.
device-removed
The sound used when a device has become unavailable to the desktop, i.e. due to USB unplug.
window-new
The sound used when a new window or dialog is opened.
power-plug
The power cable has been plugged in.
power-unplug
The power cable has been unplugged.
suspend-start
The machine is about to suspend.
suspend-resume
The machine has returned from suspended state.
lid-open
The lid has been opened (for laptops, mobile devices)
lid-close
The lid has been closed (for laptops, mobile devices)
alarm-clock-elapsed
A user configured alarm elapsed.
window-attention-active
An active/visible window demands attention.
window-attention-inactive
An inactive/invisible window demands attention.
Actions
Action sounds are used as feedback for user operations.
Standard Action Sounds
Name
Description
phone-outgoing-calling
The sound used when a phone/voip call is dialed out.
message-sent-instant
The sound used when a new IM is sent.
message-sent-email
The sound used when a new email is sent.
bell-terminal
The sound to use as a terminal bell.
bell-window-system
The sound to use as a generic bell for X11 or other window systems.
trash-empty
The sound used when the user empties the trash.
item-deleted
The sound used when a item is deleted.
file-trash
The sound used when a file or folder is sent to the
trash.
camera-shutter
A photo has been shot.
camera-focus
A camera has the focus.
screen-capture
A screenshot was made.
count-down
A countdown (e.g. for a photo shooting) sound that is repeated each second.
completion-sucess
A text completion was attempted and was successful.
completion-fail
A text completion was attempted and was not successful.
completion-partial
A text completion was attempted and was partially successful.
completion-rotation
A text completion was attempted and the list of available options reached the end and completion started from the beginning.
audio-volume-change
The test sound that is used to make volume changes noticeable by the user when he uses a volume slider.
audio-channel-left
The test sound for identifying the left speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "left".
audio-channel-right
The test sound for identifying the right speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "right".
audio-channel-front-left
The test sound for identifying the front-left speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "front left".
audio-channel-front-right
The test sound for identifying the front-right speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "front right".
audio-channel-front-center
The test sound for identifying the front-center speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "front center".
audio-channel-rear-left
The test sound for identifying the front-left speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "rear left".
audio-channel-rear-right
The test sound for identifying the front-right speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "rear right".
audio-channel-rear-center
The test sound for identifying the front-center speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "rear center".
audio-channel-lfe
The test sound for identifying the lfe/subwoofer speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "subwoofer", alternatively a low frequency noise.
audio-channel-side-left
The test sound for identifying the side-left speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "side left".
audio-channel-side-right
The test sound for identifying the side-right speaker. A mono file with a voice saying "side right".
audio-test-signal
The test sound for testing audio.
Input Feedback
Actions sounds are used as feedback for user input events,
such as mouse clicks, or key presses. In contrast to the
sounds listed as "Actions" these sounds contain much less
context information are are solely used to give the user
audible feedback to input events the user himself directly
caused.
Game
Sounds for usage in games.
Standard Games Sounds
Name
Description
game-over-winner
Guess what...!
game-over-loser
Guess what...!
game-card-shuffle
In card games, when the cards are shuffled.
game-human-move
When the user makes a move.
game-computer-move
When the a computer makes a move.
Background
The sound naming specification is heavily based on the "Icon
Naming Specification" by Rodney Dawes and the "Bango Project"
started by Jon Bolt.
Change History
Version 0.3, 25 July 2008, Lennart Poettering
Split out section about "Input Feedback" sounds.
Document the logic behind choosing "dialog-error" instead of "error-dialog".
Version 0.2, 4 June 2008, Marc-Andre Lureau and Lennart Poettering
Naming changes.
Version 0.1, February 12 2008, Marc-Andre Lureau
Created initial draft.