better organization for custom sounds (ringtones, notifications)

[Selene ToyKeeper]

Ubuntu Touch currently allows importing ringtones from the music app. This is a good start, but ring tones should also be available from a directory outside of the music search path. Although they are audio, ringtones are not music in the typical sense.

As is, only one custom ringtone at a time can be recognized, and it must be imported from the music app. So, they must be in the music app's song directories. However, it's annoying having the ringtones come up when playing all music on random, and the app has no directory-based organization available so ignoring those files isn't as simple as putting them in a different directory.

On Android, adding a ringtone is as simple as dropping a file into a directory in the ringtone search path. Same for text message sounds and alarm sounds, which each have their own special directories. And they are all separate from the music search path. This way, many different custom sounds can be available at the same time, organized by their purpose, with no overlap with other media files.

It's still nice to be able to import files from other apps, like the music app, to allow using a normal song as a ringtone... but it shouldn't be the only option.

Could we add ~/Ringtones/ and ~/Notifications/ (and perhaps ~/Alarms/ ) as directories which will be searched to provide alert sounds? Or perhaps some other location / name, but with the goal that the user can simply copy media files via MTP and have those files show up in the ringtone list without also showing up in the music app(s)?

[Bill Filler (bfiller)]

I think that is a good suggestion and would not be difficult to implement. I believe we need a UI design for managing multiple custom ringtones and then we would be able to implement your suggestion.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

It would be inefficient and inconsistent for each app that wants to use non-music audio to have to provide its own management UI. Therefore I think this is a content hub issue, so reassigning to James. The audio picker could let you choose from a particular folder in the same way as it lets you choose from apps that offer audio.