[schlomie28]

It would be nice if all your running apps volumns could be controlled from a single place though, rather than having to hunt around for menus in each app.

[Cthulhu_]

There does happen to be at least one operating system that supports this: Windows. ^___^

[rhplus]

Yep, since at least Vista, I think. The UI guidelines recommend against in-app volume controls for everything except media players:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa51...

[miahi]

This doesn't work well with games. Yes, you could change the volume settings from there, but most 3D games are full screen and it's not usual to alt-tab the game just to modify the volume settings.

[andrewaylett]

On Linux (specifically Ubuntu, but I believe generally relevant) PulseAudio controls the volume of the loudest sound by default, but you can also get a panel showing each input and output from the volume menu -- two or three clicks, vs. two for Windows.

[JensenDied]

pavucontrol for pulse audio

[Dylan16807]

Pavucontrol well also let you assign apps per device. Windows has the capability of switching app output devices but sadly only uses it to make them follow the default.