[Enhancement] Allow monitoring volume and mute status of audio input devices

[Adaephon-GH]

At the moment it looks like it is only possible to monitor audio output devices. (At least for me any attempts to add an ALSA capture device or PulseAudio source failed)

It would be great if it would also be possible to monitor input devices.

[reitzig]

Definitely! Accidentally muted or tuned down microphones are a constant point of confusion in video conferences. It would be great to have "volumne" indicators (gain) for inputs in the bar!

[Stunkymonkey]

I started implementing this.

[eplanet]

@Stunkymonkey any update on this?

[Stunkymonkey]

the alsa part ist working, but the pulse part not

[nidrissi]

@Airblader The fix was only for ALSA, it doesn't work with PulseAudio.

[Airblader]

Yes, thanks!

[qguv]

This would be excellent to have; has there been any work on this for PulseAudio since 2017?

[grmat]

@orestisfl: you added the help wanted label, but there's an open PR at #345 with no further discussion. Could you elaborate on what's missing/todo?

[orestisfl]

That PR doesn't link to this issue so I think I didn't notice it

[grmat]

Alright. FWIW, I fixed an issue that I personally had with the current ALSA implementation in #423, but I'd be willing to work on Pulse integration as well if necessary.

[nitish-predera]

I wish this feature gets to breathe air.

[ulfgebhardt]

Can we have this please <3

[n-st]

As a workaround, you can use a wrapper script around i3status that queries the input device status on its own and adds it to the status line — something like this: https://gist.github.com/n-st/c91fb5a423c539f3b2cb1013384c8af2
The script is very simplistic, but will detect the current default source device and replace the "MIC placeholder" status item with a red "MIC" or a white "MUT" depending on the current mute status. Feel free to modify it for your desired format (example code for a volume meter is included as well).

(Note: https://pypi.org/project/pulsectl/ is required. If it is missing, the script will silently remove the "MIC placeholder" from the status bar.)