14 DAY TRIAL // One of the things to look forward to in Leopard is Stacks. Now stack are admittedly not the most innovative features out there, but they sure look a lot better than the current contextual menus that the dock uses. They may not be much of an improvement in terms of raw functionality but they are far more visually-orientated than any contextual menu system. Unless you happen to be a developer registered with Apple, you will have to wait a while before you can actually take the Stacks out for a ride, but in the mean time, you can use some third party alternative such as TabMeister.
What it does TabMeister is a little utility that adds tabs to the sides of your screen, which you can use to store applications, files and folders for easy access. Easy to manipulate, the tabs show and hide automatically and the icons and large onscreen preview make it much easier to work with than any text-based alternative.
Working with it The first time you launch TabMeister it will present you with its preferences. There's not that many of them, the program letting you choose whether you want it to launch at login, how many clicks are needed to launch an item and if you want sounds or not. Regardless of the other options, you might want to turn off the sounds, as they are quite distinctive and will pull at your attention every time. The tab open and close sound is particularly annoying if you happen to miss the mark with the mouse and you have the tab open close and then open again all in a very short time.
The program will automatically create a new tab for you if you don't have one already, and it will be patiently waiting to be populated. Getting items inside the tabs is quite easy, being little more than an issue of drag and drop. Similarly, reorganizing tabs is simple as you can just drag items around to rearrange them. In terms of the tab itself, you can change its name, color and opacity as well as the side of the screen you want it on. You can have as many tabs as you like, and if it gets messy, the program can align them nicely on either corner of the display.
Bling bling Besides regular tabs, there is also one special tab called the 'Bling Tab.' This tab cannot be populated with your items, and comes pre populated by the developer. Inside you will find no less than five items, each one doing a little something. From the fire particle trail on the mouse to the bullet holes on mouse clicks, and the virtual panoramas, the bling items have little functionality being designed more to amuse you or spend some of your spare time. The only real exception is the one that will display the weather image, which can be configured to display any image whatsoever.
Half baked Pangea Software, the developer of TabMeister is a very old and respected Mac developer, so it surprises me that this program is so disappointing.
In terms of the tabs themselves, you cannot resize it in any way and as such, the number of items that any tab can hold is always the same. This can be particularly frustrating if you have a tab that only holds 3 items, or one that only needs three more slots where you can store all your internet-related programs. Furthermore, if you have tabs close to one another so that when one opens, it covers the adjacent tab, you will get quirky behavior when mousing over the bottom items. Sometimes, you interact with the items, and at other times, it will open that tab that is supposed to be 'behind' the one that is currently open. TabMeister is erratic and alternates between these two behaviors so you can't predict what will happen. Also frustrating is the fact that the window will close the second your mouse is one pixel outside it, so you need to be careful not to over extend with that pointer.
The previews of the item currently under the mouse are very nice, and make it easier to identify what you are looking for. Considering that there is no way to change the size of items in the tabs, and that they are crammed so close together, this feature is a must really. The only issue is that the developer scales the icons to twice the size, making them look ugly and pixilated; also, because of the lack of a background to that preview, it can often be hard to distinguish the preview from the background of your screen.
The Good
Icons are easier to see than the contextual menus are, and the large screen preview makes it even easier. Tabs can be placed anywhere and moved around, and they can hold any item whatsoever.
The Bad
Tabs are very inflexible forcing you into a set number of items and a set shape. Other aspects of the program that are haphazard also become annoying after repeated exposure.
The Truth
Programs that hold items in tabs can be very nice for keeping things in, far better than the dock. Unfortunately, TabMeister is a bad example of such a program with many shortcomings and little to write home about. The only remotely interesting thing it offers is the bling tab, and that doesn't say much.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
