Audacity Oddity? Options

[skrwl]

I'm starting to mess around with Audacity on OS 10.2.8. Sorry this is very much a newbie question, but it still seems appropriate for the forum -- more likely I'll catch someone here who knows a little about Audacity. I've read the help file and it doesn't answer my question. So the question is: is the gain slider on an individual track supposed to be for playback only? I was assuming it was for the individual track's recording level, but when I click record it always starts recording on a newly popped-up track. Is the input volume on the main toolbar the only one I can/should use to set recording level?

Thanks,
Rob