Take Control of Your Treo s Volume


Take Control of Your Treo's Volume

You've probably already figured out that the Volume button on the left of your Treo provides a quick way to adjust the device volume. If you haven't used this button yet, try pressing the top and bottom of it to adjust the device volume up and down, as shown in Figure 3.27. Press the Side button just below the Volume button to accept the volume change.

Figure 3.27. The Volume button on the left side of your Treo allows you to adjust the device volume quickly.


Note

I didn't cover the topic of creating your own MIDI tones because it's a fairly involved process that requires some knowledge of music. If you're interested in learning how to create MIDI music, you'll want to look into MIDI-composing software for your PC, such as Myriad's Melody Assistant. To learn more about Melody Assistant, visit the Myriad website at http://www.myriad-online.com/.


Although the Volume button provides a relatively fine degree of control over your device's volume, another hardware control affects the volume more dramatically. I'm referring to the ringer switch located on the top of the device just to the right of the infrared port. The ringer switch acts as a mute button, allowing you to completely turn the device's speaker on and off with the flip of a switch. The ringer switch is an easy way to mute your Treo quickly when you're in a movie or some other place where a noisy device would be an unwelcome nuisance.

Although the Volume button and ringer switch are certainly useful, I don't consider them to be Treo customizations. There are some volume customizations that you can make, however. To do so, you must revisit the familiar Sound & Alerts Preferences screen from the previous section. Follow these steps to tweak the volume settings of your Treo:

1.

Press the Phone/Send button to launch the Phone application.

2.

Press the Menu button and scroll over twice to the Options menu. Navigate down to the second menu item, Sound Preferences, and press the Center button to issue the menu command and view the Sound & Alerts Preferences screen.

3.

Tap the Application option and select General from the pick list. The general sound preferences appear, as shown in Figure 3.28. These preferences distinguish between the overall system volume level and the volume level of games, with the idea being that you might not want game sounds to be as loud as normal system sounds.

Figure 3.28. Using the general sound preferences, you can alter the volume level of the system separately from the volume level of games.


Note

The Calendar and Messaging applications have the same volume and vibration options as the Phone application. The values of these settings vary from application to application. To access the volume and vibration settings for the Calendar and Messaging applications, just select each application from the Application pick list in the Sound & Alerts Preferences screen.

4.

If you'd like to change the relative volume level of the system and games, change the values for the System Volume and Game Volume settings. The possible values for these settings can range from Off (minimum volume) to 4 (maximum volume).

5.

When you're finished with the general sound preferences, tap the Application option and select Phone as the application. Then make sure the Volume box is highlighted, not Tones. You'll notice a few settings related to the ringer switch, as shown in Figure 3.29. More specifically, the Sound Mode On settings go into effect when the ringer switch is on, and the Sound Mode Off settings apply when the switch is off (device muted). The main thing to note about these settings is how the default values result in the device vibrating only when the sound is off. You can easily change these settings so that the device never vibrates or always vibrates. You can also change the Alert Volume setting to raise or lower the volume of all alerts when the sound is on.

Figure 3.29. With the phone volume settings, you can specify the volume level and vibration settings for your device based on the ringer switch.


6.

When you're finished altering the phone volume settings, tap the Done button to finish and exit the preferences.

Note

The Calendar and Messaging applications have the same volume and vibration options as the Phone application. The values of these settings vary from application to application. To access the volume and vibration settings for the Calendar and Messaging applications, just select each application from the Application pick list in the Sound & Alerts Preferences screen.


You probably didn't realize you have so much flexibility in adjusting and customizing the volume for your Treo. The good news is that the default settings might work well for you if you aren't sure about making changes. You can always return to this discussion and change the settings later if you decide that you don't like the volume and vibration settings for a certain application.



    TREO essentials
    Treo Essentials
    ISBN: 0789733285
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2005
    Pages: 189

    flylib.com © 2008-2017.
    If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net