Please make plugging an HDMI cable into TV more user-friendly

I asked on AskUbuntu how to get video and audio working on my TV when I plugged it into the HDMI port of my Ubuntu 18.04 laptop.

In Windows I just plug the HDMI cable into the laptop and TV ports and – thanks to the wonders of plug’n’play – it all just works. The TV displays the video. The laptop speakers mute and the much superior sound comes out of the TV.

In Ubuntu, thanks to the novice-unfriendly configuration, when you plug the HDMI cable into the laptop port it doesn’t even recognise it. No, you have to switch off the laptop, plug in the cable, and then boot the laptop. Then you see only the laptop wallpaper on the TV while the video merrily plays on the laptop. But the sound still comes out of the laptop!

Why is using HDMI on Ubuntu so hard?

Can transferring sound and video to the TV just automatically happen? I did find out the answer but it took a lot of googling and a post on AskUbuntu to get the correct procedure. Surely a Windows solution can be added to the next release?

If people want to direct video to one sink and audio to another, they can resort to the existing controls.