Application volume

To select quickly input/output sources just hold down 'option/alt' ket with clicking on the finder menu bar Sound icon.

One is this is NOT Windows!
Two is in OS X it's up to the developer to put into sound controls in an application. Most programs I have come across one can use the up arrow or down arrow to decrease/increase sound in the application.

Another way, like in iTunes, just hold down the 'option/alt' key while clicking the up/down arrows on the keyboard.

If you open up a program and look trough it's menu items the keyboard shortcut will appear the menu items to control sound. Look at what is right in front of your nose.

Plus I urge you to bookmark/study the Apple page OS X keyboard shortcuts.

What emended media? VLC has it's own Volume control. So does many media player others do too. They all use the keyboard shortcut of command key+up or down arrows will control volume in a media application.

Plus you can read about sound keyboard shortcuts and others starting at the Apple page for OS X keyboard shortcuts and make you own shortcuts follow the steps in the other apple post Create keyboard shortcuts for applications. This way you learn to make you own application shortcuts and I hope you have an Apple keyboard with the Volume control right on the keyboard.

Unhyper, I understand what you are looking for, being a cross-platform user I have tried to find an application with this feature for a while. Unfortunately, to my knowledge nothing like it exists. There is this: http://www.prosofteng.com/products/hear.php but it had more features than I needed and degraded the sound quality so I uninstalled it.

I can't believe that OS X doesn't have individual volume controls for applications when it is used so much for digital audio.

djtech42 said:

I can't believe that OS X doesn't have individual volume controls for applications when it is used so much for digital audio.

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Did you read all the posts? It all depends on the writers of the used application!

satcomer said:

Did you read all the posts? It all depends on the writers of the used application!

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I know, but I think it should be controlled by the system and not the apps.

djtech42 said:

I know, but I think it should be controlled by the system and not the apps.

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So you want to take away from application developers even more on OS X? That's crazy!

satcomer said:

So you want to take away from application developers even more on OS X? That's crazy!

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It's not meant to take control away, just add control to the user. Developers could still control the volume, but the user would have the option of controlling the final volume of the application in System Preferences to balance the audio across the system.

djtech42 said:

It's not meant to take control away, just add control to the user. Developers could still control the volume, but the user would have the option of controlling the final volume of the application in System Preferences to balance the audio across the system.

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That is what the System Preferences->Sound panel does plus the sound icon in the Finder menu bar. I bet you didn't even know that if you hold down the 'option/alt' ket while clicking on the Sound icon (in the Finder menu) it will change to select input/output selectors!

Lastly for total System Sound what is wrong with the Volumes buttons on your Mac keyboard?

satcomer said:

That is what the System Preferences->Sound panel does plus the sound icon in the Finder menu bar. I bet you didn't even know that if you hold down the 'option/alt' ket while clicking on the Sound icon (in the Finder menu) it will change to select input/output selectors!

Lastly for total System Sound what is wrong with the Volumes buttons on your Mac keyboard?

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I do know all of that. I know my way around every part of the Sound preferences in OS X. I'm talking about changing volume for individual applications. It could be a new part of the Sound System Preferences.

I think you are misunderstanding me. I'm talking about volume control for each application, not the total system. The way the volume works for the system is perfectly fine.

djtech42 said:

I think you are misunderstanding me. I'm talking about volume control for each application, not the total system. The way the volume works for the system is perfectly fine.

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Like I said before Apple wants the decision for that up to the developers. Plus I tried in a couple of sound applications just using the up/down arrows it would increase/decrease! So you never know unless you try it.

I for one trust developers that they know what they are generally doing. IMHO I believe if developers of sound applications would put Volume Controls inside of it or Users would tear them a new one and that developer would forever have a bad reputation and die broke.

satcomer said:

Like I said before Apple wants the decision for that up to the developers. Plus I tried in a couple of sound applications just using the up/down arrows it would increase/decrease! So you never know unless you try it.

I for one trust developers that they know what they are generally doing. IMHO I believe if developers of sound applications would put Volume Controls inside of it or Users would tear them a new one and that developer would forever have a bad reputation and die broke.

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What about something like Safari? There's no separate volume control for it. If you press up or down, it changes the whole system volume.

They could have separate volume sliders for each application in Sound in System Preferences.

djtech42 said:

What about something like Safari? There's no separate volume control for it. If you press up or down, it changes the whole system volume.

They could have separate volume sliders for each application in Sound in System Preferences.

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Most videos I come across on net in Safari have the volume controls in the video itself using HMTL video or Flash video. So I don't know what you are doing not to notice this.

satcomer said:

Most videos I come across on net in Safari have the volume controls in the video itself using HMTL video or Flash video. So I don't know what you are doing not to notice this.

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I'm not talking about just video. I mean everything. Any audio from any application. It would be very beneficial to have control over the volume at any time in separate applications. There could be a mixer that lets you raise and lower the volume of each application.

If you aren't into sound, you may not understand the need for this. But, I think this would be a great new option in OS X.

djtech42 said:

I'm not talking about just video. I mean everything. Any audio from any application. It would be very beneficial to have control over the volume at any time in separate applications. There could be a mixer that lets you raise and lower the volume of each application.

If you aren't into sound, you may not understand the need for this. But, I think this would be a great new option in OS X.

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Again I can use FStream and can control the volume with the up/down arrow. In Pianpub the volume control is slider in the app itself. In iTunes itself Apple include it's own Volume Control.


So like I said before it is up to the developers of the applications themselves to include volume control! If you don't want developers not to have that power than that's is your opinion and your opinion only!

Have anyone found a solution to this limitation yet? In my specific case, I develop games in Unity, but when I listen to music or podcasts from my Mac, and I start the game its sound blasts in my ears and that's very annoying.

My colleagues working on Windows can simply right click on the volume icon and mute the sound of Unity (and Unity only). That's a super useful system-wide feature.

Anyone found a solution yet? A third party app? A hidden OSX feature? In my case I don't even need a volume control, just a mute toggle would work.

(P.S. satcomer you can refrain from replying, you are so incredibly clueless, and arrogant about your cluelessness, it's pitiful.)

satcomer said:

Again I can use FStream and can control the volume with the up/down arrow. In Pianpub the volume control is slider in the app itself. In iTunes itself Apple include it's own Volume Control.


So like I said before it is up to the developers of the applications themselves to include volume control! If you don't want developers not to have that power than that's is your opinion and your opinion only!

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wow guy, aspergers much? Do you ever find that in social situations people do not enjoy talking to you?

Doodleshvitzer said:

wow guy, aspergers much? Do you ever find that in social situations people do not enjoy talking to you?

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What are you talking about? Maybe you just dug up this old discussion with a obvious Switcher that wanted OS X be just like his Old Windows box not realizing that in OS X developers regulate if their application will have seperate sound controls. If their game doesn't have seperate control then critique the developer, not Apple.

Besides if someone wants better OS X sound control should look at the shareware Audio Hijack Pro.

satcomer said:

What are you talking about? Maybe you just dug up this old discussion with a obvious Switcher that wanted OS X be just like his Old Windows box not realizing that in OS X developers regulate if their application will have seperate sound controls. If their game doesn't have seperate control then critique the developer, not Apple.

Besides if someone wants better OS X sound control should look at the shareware Audio Hijack Pro.

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Alright, being a Windows and Mac user, and loving both of them, i do understand the advantages of having a Mixer.
I have taken the liberty of adding this screenshot for you, that should help me in making you understand the advantages we talk about. As you don't seem to understand what Unhyper meant.



Now lets take a look at this from my point of view.
I am the kind of guy who enjoys listening to his music with a set of 5.1 surround speakers, and i do love it loud. Now nothing disrupts the moment of pure awesome, as a painfully loud "PLING" sound notification from Steam/Skype/Facebook. So how do you fix that? On windows it is quite easy, open the mixer from your volume icon, and simply reduce the volume of the target application in this case Steam.

Lets try the same on mac, still the same guy, still the very same loud and beautiful music making my day. It so happens that people still talk to me, and I get the very same incredibly loud "PLING" disrupting the moment. Now what do I do to fix it? Right, Volume mixer, and. It doesn't exist. Huh, so whats next? Check out Steam/Skype/Facebook settings, but it so happens they don't have a volume rocker for set noise, and disabling it entirely wouldn't serve me very well, as I do enjoy the notification sound getting my attention. I just don't enjoy it tearing my ears to pieces.

Now you might ask yourself why I added the Witcher 2 screenshot, Simple. To show you, YOU can have both, and you should. As we can see, the volume from Witcher 2 (30-50%) is not controlled by the Mixer in Windows (100%). Bottom line being, the developer does not lose any control over their applications. Windows simply adds or subtracts "dB" accordingly, just after the game sent it and just before it finally reaches your speakers. And paying a whooping 32$ for something that only does mixing as a side thing is stupid. And i would therefore go with "SoundBunny" instead, but even that one still is 9.99$ which if you take it into context is quite a loot compared to the Windows mixer costing absolutely nothing and being default. Besides, I quite like to have my Mac be pristine and i'd rather not have too many 3rd party softwares messing with my sound. I'll just go ahead and say, I'm not a fan of it. But if essential things are missing, you gotta fill it yourself.

Best Solution I know:
http://www.prosofteng.com/products/soundbunny_awards.php

Cheers!

Now if you read the reviews of SoundBunny then you see it looks like abandonware! It barely works in 10.9 and absent in 10.10.

Now in Windows one has to Right Click on the bottom bar select the Sound icon (after finding it in the dizzying array of icons). The Application I linked to does this and even a lot more. Sure you want it to act actually like Windows and it is not setup like that.

Plus I bet you don't even know if you hold down the 'option' key while clicking the sound icon while turn it into a sound slider. I bet you never open System Preferences->Sound panel either.

satcomer said:

Now if you read the reviews of SoundBunny then you see it looks like abandonware! It barely works in 10.9 and absent in 10.10.

Now in Windows one has to Right Click on the bottom bar select the Sound icon (after finding it in the dizzying array of icons). The Application I linked to does this and even a lot more. Sure you want it to act actually like Windows and it is not setup like that.

Plus I bet you don't even know if you hold down the 'option' key while clicking the sound icon while turn it into a sound slider. I bet you never open System Preferences->Sound panel either.

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Dude... Why do you have such an agressive attitude towards these people? They are not trying to start an OS' war, they are just trying to get matching functionality that they are used to and need, to optimise their computing experience.

Sound preferences has no options for what they are looking for, and as a long time mac user myself, and one who prefers macs big time, i agree with them that this is useful functionality to have.

Why shouldn't they be able to have their cake and eat it?

I'm not looking to argue with you, just chill out a bit man!

dannyg86 said:

Dude... Why do you have such an agressive attitude towards these people? They are not trying to start an OS' war, they are just trying to get matching functionality that they are used to and need, to optimise their computing experience.

Sound preferences has no options for what they are looking for, and as a long time mac user myself, and one who prefers macs big time, i agree with them that this is useful functionality to have.

Why shouldn't they be able to have their cake and eat it?

I'm not looking to argue with you, just chill out a bit man!

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What I seeing today is a lot of switchers wishing OS X was exactly like Windows but don't realize that Windows GUI got it's GUI after Steve gave them a preproduction Mac for software development.

I am trying to make them understand is OS X is not Windows! Things work differently besides is OS X is more related to BSD Unix! That Apple a long tie ago gave sound control to developers and it probably will never change.