Hacker News Reader

Comment by pluc | Hacker News Reader

You already have a mute button.. do you really want to deal with unplanned un-muting as opposed to planned muting?

IMO mute should be the default in most meetings; plenty of apps (I know Zoom and Skype) have the spacebar as a "push to talk" button. PTT should be a standard in most meetings.

I used to play eve online, having a few hundred people in a voice channel would be impossible if push-to-talk wasn't made mandatory.

Honestly boggles my mind that software like Google Meet hides the mute button if you stop moving your mouse and PTT isn't considered a base feature.

I kinda get it if I move my mouse away as it shows more of the participant video. But if I am hovering over the mute button don't hide it!

It is very frustrating.

On GNOME I have set up a hotkey to mute my microphone (this is available but unbound by default). It is amazing as it works for all applications and doesn't matter what window is focused. The only downside is that you don't get the mute indicator.

Microsoft Teams does the same, on iOS at least.

A global keyboard shortcut to mute your mic would probably be best, but otherwise system mute is not easily accessible in MacOS. The Command+Shift+M shortcut for mute in WebEx/Team/Zoom requires focus, which you most likely won't have if you're typing something.

If you have a MacBook with a touchback you can add a mute mic button directly on it (You can an make a script that executes or use Mutify).

You do not have a hardware mute button. There is an output mute, but not an input mute. I wrote one in about 10 lines of AppleScript and associated it with a hot key. It ~mostly~ works.

If you are talking about the application-specific software mute, I had such a terrible time finding it amongst all my open tabs and latency every time I wanted to type or speak that I wrote the above hardware-ish button.

Use a keyboard shortcut. Since you only need it when typing, your fingers are there when you need it.

GP did set it up to a keyboard shortcut. The problem they're calling out is needing to do it to the global input rather than app-specific. Many people use multiple VTC apps throughout the day.

I wrote a Hammerspoon script to do the same, but Microsoft Teams unmutes the default input every time you join a call. Did you run into this/have any idea how to get around it?

I do not run into that problem, but I don’t use Teams. I “mute” by setting the input volume to 0. Not sure if that helps.

Presumably this doesn't affect muting on Teams, Zoom or whatever videoconferencing software you're using, so it couldn't unmute you.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com