Sound preferences not exposing important functionality.

[A. James Lewis]

The demo app "Pulse Audio Volume Control" has a tab "Recording" which
allows input devices to be updated on a per app basis. This is the only
way to select alternate input devices for a number of applications,
including Skype, Desktop Recorder and even the Sound Recorder.

I can't imagine being able to use the Ubuntu Sound system for recording
anything, or doing screen recording etc etc without PA Volume control in
addition to the Ubuntu Sound Preferences.

I see this as "critical" functionality, and PA Volume Control is not
supported by Canonical.

In addition, functionality to set output devices on a per app basis
would seem to be urgent functionality also... Consider this example:-

What if I want my screen recorder to record the loopback from the sound
output device, and skype to use the microphone on my headset, but the
sound recorder to record from the internal microphone for note taking?
Changing the sound input device for the entire system is simply not
granular enough... The first example with the screen recorder is
completely impossible currently (without PA Volume Control), and the
latter two mean that I would have to change the sound device manually
before using each program (Potentially while the skype call is ringing),
this is wholly unreasonable. By using the dialog provided by PA volume
control, you can set it on a per application basis in pulse audio, it is
absolutely what is required... and in my opinion, it is absolutely
required.. more so if apps such as skype, and the gnome sound recorder
etc do not have their own dialog to specify what input device to use.

As for output, another example:-

What if I want to play some background music on my speakers, but take a
call using a voip app like skype or listen to some dictation on my
headset... presently I cannot do this unless the application itself
allows me to specify the output device which neither the supplied audio
apps, nor skype do... so if I have music playing on speakers and I want
to take a skype call on a headset I have to change the output device for
the entire system to the headset while the call is ringing... and THEN
the music is coming out of my headset which means I have to stop it... 

I'd appreciate comments on this, but it seems as tho relatively basic,
and crucial functionality available in pulseaudio is not available to
users except via an un-supported app which was written as a gui demo by
the author of pulseaudio.

A. James Lewis.