Modernflyouts: Feature Request: Add Mic Mute and Camera Disable Notifications

[Samuel12321]

Store feedback:

"I really like the app. It adds a layer of sophistication to the bland default Microsoft pop ups. I really hope that the developers can add notifications for the microphone muting button and the camera disabling button. Whenever typing my fingers occasionally over shoot my intended key and I hit one of those by accident and being notified about it would be very great especially when on web conference calls. Otherwise, it's a very solid, straightforward application. Great Job!"

[ShankarBUS]

Mic mute button?

Is there one for this?

Camera disabling button?

I have never heard of those!

How should we detect those things?

[Stealnoob]

On some keyboards, yes but they are mostly firmware implemented. I don't think there's something on Windows Universal Control handling them as the media keys

[ShankarBUS]

@Stealnoob

yes but they are mostly firmware implemented

After a little bit digging into this, I can confirm this is true. These keys are just like the Fn key. They are just passed as hardware signal and not as keys.

@Samuel12321,

There could be some messages to intercept and receive these signals. But I'm not going to do this.
I guess this request is specific just to OP's device. We can't invest our work and time just for specific users.
We have much things to focus on.
Currently our app is only accessible well in laptops. We have poor support for desktop PCs (tray icon is not much useful, no hotkey support). We should focus on these first.
We can come back to this once we finish all other important tasks first 😅.

What do you think?

[ShankarBUS]

After binging /s, I found out that there are literally more than a dozen of firmware keys like these on some laptops.
Some of them are (only major keys are listed):

• Disable touchpad/trackpad key (I have it on my old laptop)
• Change projection mode key (I have it on my main laptop)
• Brightness keys
• Volume keys (up, down & mute)
• Media keys (previous, play/pause & next)
• Airplane mode key (Toggle wireless mode on some laptops)
• Toggle Camera key (Just realised it is on my old laptop 🤦‍♂️)
• Microphone mute key (Same as prev 😅)
• Sleep mode key (Literally why would any one need it? Just press the power button once or close lid!)
• Keyboard brightness key (??? #64 confirmed???)
• Turn off display key (close the lid, duh!)

and some other misc keys (like caps, scroll & num lock, search?, action center???).

As of now, we support

• Brightness keys
• Volume keys (up, down & mute)
• Media keys (previous, play/pause & next)
• Airplane mode key (Toggle wireless mode on some laptops)
• Lock keys (caps, num, scroll & insert)

Could be supported? (need some feedback)

• Disable touchpad/trackpad key (😳)
• Change projection mode key (not necessary as it pops up the project flyout [Win + P])
• Toggle Camera key (😶)
• Microphone mute key (🙄)
• Sleep mode key (😑)
• Keyboard brightness key (😫)
• Turn off display key (🙃)

[Hymian7]

@ShankarBUS The reactions do not provide all of the emojis you used for feedback.

Here are my thoughts about the usefulness of the features:

Change projection mode key --> As you said not necessary, as you have the windows flyout with options
Toggle Camera key and Microphone mute key --> Might be useful, but I personally don't have these keys
Sleep mode key --> Why should you need it? When pressed your Latop goes to sleep so you wouldn't neet a notification
Keyboard brightness key --> Would be a gimmick, but not my first priority
Turn off display key --> Same as with Sleep mode

Disable touchpad/trackpad key --> Is the only one that makes sense to me, e.g. when you accidetially disable the trackpad

[Samuel12321]

Toggle Camera key and Microphone mute key in the age of COVID - increased conference calling and concerns over user privacy might actually be quite useful

[ShankarBUS]

Isn't there an effective PowerToys module for this?

Why would we need to do this?

[Hymian7]

But the PowerToys Module uses a virtual camera driver instead of turning off the real camera.
Wouldn't it be useful to get notified if your real camera is turned off or on by the hardware keys?

[ShankarBUS]

But it hard to detect camera disable notifications (mic is relatively easy). My old laptop is unreachable in its current state.
So, I can't test or don't know how to detect the signals. Give me a little more time.

[yume-chan]

I think these can differ between device vendors? I think they all use different drivers (some even uses BIOS) to achieve these.