The macosxhints Rating:
[0 to 10 lights; 10 = perfect!]
- Developer/Download: Blacktree, Inc.
- Price: Free / donation
After spending some time with Pith this last week, I felt it deserved some attention as the PotW, even though it's got a few issues -- the concept is quite good, and seems to be a nearly perfect potential solution to Safari's lack of tab support.
Pith has a few preferences that allow you to change the sort order for displayed windows (by name, by age, or by window order), auto-hide other Safari windows when switching, whether windows use the same "frame" (screen location), a couple of minor visibility settings, and a slider for how often Pith updates its information. I have enabled both the "same frame" and "auto-hide" options, which basically allows me to forget that Safari is running all of the open pages in separate windows. When I click a page in Pith, it appears in the same spot every time, and the others are smoothly hidden.
Why only a 7 out of 10? Pith has some issues with CPU usage, auto-hide can cause oddities, and sometimes the wrong window is activated when you close the open window and you're using auto-hide. In addition to these known glitches (all listed on the Pith website), the biggest 'bug' I have with it is actually a feature request. Currently, the Pith window hides unless Pith or Safari is the active application. I'd like to tuck Pith into an open corner of the screen and have it available from any application -- ie an "always visible" preference setting (not always on top, just always visible). With that, I'd probably use Pith even more than I do now!

