Program Description
Pitaschio is an odd name and so, to tell you the truth, I am really surprised I even found it. Come to think of it, I can’t really remember how I came across this GOLD MINE of a Curious Finding. This application adds many useful and some useless (at least for me) features but all in all, I can honestly say that I am utterly perplexed as to why these features are not included in Windows by default.
Where do I begin? There really is just that much added by this amazing (and surprisingly small) program.
Prevent windows from being off the screen.
Ever open up a window on Windows only to have it so far off the screen you can no longer access it? Yea. Me too.
Well, this feature from Pitaschio allows you to prevent this from happening. Ever. That’s right, the only downside to this application is that you can no longer drag windows (any side of them) outside of the screen.
For me, this wasn’t a good thing as I enjoy my space on my screen (and often move applications like a notepad out of the way with only the text showing). but maybe you’ll find this interesting.
Snap windows together.
This feature is for those space conscious users who want to easily arrange windows in such a way that the windows don’t overlap but are side by side with as little space between them as possible.
Personally, I don’t find this a necessity but use it anyway since it applies to your monitor’s edges too.
Minimize windows to the system tray.
If you’re the kind of person that hates clutter in their taskbar, then this feature is for you. It allows you to minimize your windows to the system tray instead of the taskbar.
I’ve not been able to get this to work though, so I can’t offer advice as to how to use it just yet.
Disable certain window functions.
Always accidentally pressing that darn maximize button?
Well, I have the answer for you. Disable it! Pitaschio gives you the option of disabling the minimize button, maximize button and the close button (separately).
Keep windows proportionate.
If you’re the kind of person who constantly resizes their windows, then you might like this feature.
Where you had to previously resize each and every corner of the window, Pitaschio allows you to change this behaviour and resize the whole window proportionally as if you were holding down shift when resizing a picture in Microsoft Paint.
Quick access to window transparency.
I’ve saved the best for last. This is by far the feature I use the most. On the fly transparency adjustment for most windows (I say most because there are possibly some windows that don’t like being forced transparent but I haven’t come across any yet).
Not only is this feature useful it is also very easy to use: you simply place your mouse cursor over the title bar of a window and scroll the mouse wheel. Up for less transparent, down for more transparent. And to prevent windows getting lost, Pitaschio includes a transparency limit but even then the window is very hard to see.
Desktop icon transparency.
Not an unheard of feature since Windows XP comes with some limited support for it, but it’s here if you need it. It allows you to remove the background colour of the desktop icons which usually appears if you change the system colour scheme. If you don’t know what this is, you probably have no need for this feature
Use small icons on the desktop.
Got a lot of icons on your desktop (or Explorer)? This feature is for you as it allows you to have Explorers List View on your desktop. All your desktop icons will be listed just as they would in Explorer if you were to change the view style to List View.
Change the icon text colour on the desktop.
What more is there to say? It lets you change the text colour of icons on the desktop. I haven’t gotten this to work on my system yet not that I need it or anything.
Easy volume control.
This feature would be useful for me if I ever saw my desktop, but I never do. I usually have mIRC open up all the time (so I guess it’d be safe to call THAT my desktop) but I have it enabled anyway. This feature allows you to easily change the system volume by placing your cursor over the desktop and scrolling the mouse wheel.
Change mouse wheel behaviour.
By default, the mouse wheel sends a message to the ACTIVE window (meaning, the window that has your systems attention on the screen). This doesn’t really seem like an intuitive way to do things and Ara, Pitaschio’s developer, agrees.
So he’s included an option that allows Pitaschio to modify the message so that it is sent to the window under your mouse’s cursor. Much more intuitive and useful.
Another feature he’s included is to activate the window that is under your mouse’s cursor when you scroll the wheel. Try it, maybe you’ll like it.
Hide/show Pitaschio system tray icon.
Pitaschio comes with a system tray icon but there are some people out there who hate system tray clutter, so this allows you to disable the system tray icon. Note, however, that some functionality can only be accessed through the system try icon.
Lock the taskbar.
This allows you to lock the taskbar. Not too sure why it is here..since Windows does the same (not sure if it is in every Windows in existence though).
Virtual desktop functionality.
You’ve positioned all your windows nicely for a certain task..but then you need to open a new one or do something else. Solution? Try pitaschio’s virtual desktop functionality.
Place your cursor on the taskbar and scroll the mouse wheel to switch through two virtual desktops. One gripe I have about this feature is how it is done: all your windows are moved, minimized etc. to the position they were saved in…and this gets annoying after awhile. But you never know until you try, so go ahead and see if it suits you. 
Disable certain keys.
If you, like me, keep accidentally pressing that damn Menu key(the one beside the Windows key) or that damn insert key, then this feature is for you. Pitaschio lets you disable those keys as well as the Windows key, Alt key, Caps Lock key and the Kanji key (what is this anyway?).
Explorer modifications.
If you, like me, always find yourself moving the mouse to the “Up” one folder button, then you’ll like this feature. Once enabled, this feature allows you to simply double click a white space in Explorer to go to the parent folder (same functionality that the “Up” one folder button provides).
The reason I like this feature, though, is that it doesn’t just apply to Explorer but to a host of other applications that use Explorer’s controls (to name some: WinRAR and CuteFTP).
Another feature is the “extended rename” feature. Now this feature is a weird one and could take a while to get used to (I’m still not used to it).
Usually when you start renaming a file, the whole filename and its extension is selected for editing, with this feature turned on, only the filename is selected. I guess I could see where this could be useful, but man is it hard to get used to. Along with this feature, you can now press F2 to select either the filename, the extension or the whole thing (it cycles through it, not necessarily in that order).
Then you have the arrow key support that allows you to easily move to renaming the next or previous files which I find useful to use when managing my picture libraries.
Display a volume bar on screen.
This adds an On Screen Display that shows you your volume level. I’m not too sure how this works or when it applies though as I use a Microsoft keyboard with IntelliType and IntelliPoint and they include this functionality already. You also have the option of specifying how long you would like the volume bar to display.
Software laser pointer.
Don’t have a laser pointer handy? Not a problem. Combine your mouse with Pitaschio and you have a software version of a laser pointer. Just press Control + Shift + F9 to toggle the laser pointer on and off.
System tray icon functionality
Cleaning your keyboard or mouse? You should disable it with Pitaschio first! Pitaschio’s system tray icon gives you easy access to some features that allow you to disable your keyboard or mouse for cleaning and it works great too.
Need a secure password for something? Pitaschio includes a decent password generator that can be accessed through its system tray icon.
Mouse shortcuts.
I believe this is the most useful feature that Pitaschio provides.
This feature provides so much…I haven’t even been able to properly use all of it yet. There are a large number of actions that you can set and you can trigger them in as many ways as is feasible (for example, you can’t set an action to occur when you double click the title bar because that is used to change the Window size (max/restore) in many applications).
Here’s a list of what you can do:
- Start the Screen Saver
- Turn off the Monitor
- Standby the System
- Hibernate the System
- Log Off the System
- Restart the Computer
- Turn off the Computer
- Run the Task Manager
- Adjust the Time/Date
- Open Display Properties
- Open System Properties
- Open My Computer
- Open My Network
- Open My Documents
- Open the Recycle Bin
- Open the Control Panel
- Start Safely Remove
- Change to the other Virtual Desktop
- Open a Command Prompt
- Mute/Unmute Sound
- Show the Desktop
- …and many more
If all I wanted was for you to see a list of the things this program can do, I’d have linked you to the manual. Instead, I’ll tell you how I use this wonderfully useful feature.
The most useful feature, in my opinion, is the ability to toggle the topmost state of a window (i.e. set a window to always be on top or not) and I have the shortcut for this option set to Ctrl + Wheel click or Shift + Wheel click on the title bar. So all I have to do to make a window stay on top of all the other windows is hold down ctrl or shift and press the mouse wheel on that windows title bar and there I have it – it will stay on top of all other windows.
Another way I use this feature is to have ctrl + shift + wheel click on the taskbar open up My Computer. This saves me a lot of time as I no longer have to click on Start -> My Computer (and I *really* use My Computer a lot). Then I have it set up so that a simple right click of the title bar will close that window or program.
This is but the tip of the iceberg of what the mouse shortcuts are capable of so I invite you to try it out yourself before you pass judgment.
Autoraise support.
This feature allows you to make the window under your cursor become the active window, as with every other feature, this one also allows you to set how long you need to keep the cursor over a window to make it active. I personally don’t have a use for this feature and, in fact, would find it quite annoying but maybe you will.
Window management.
Window management allows you complete control over a window and its makeup, you can change the position, move the window, change its size and best of all, there is no transparency limit so if you want to have disappearing windows (or hide a window from someone) then you can use this to do it as they will probably not know that you can hide windows or how to undo it.
Did I mention this program is small? Yep, just 60kb zipped, 869kb uncompressed at the time of posting.
Thanks Ara, this is one program I just can’t use Windows without anymore!
License Type
I’m really happy to say this application is completely free! If you do like this application, I encourage you to donate to Ara by clicking the Paypal on this page.
System Requirements
Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows Vista is required for this program to function.
Installation
- Download Pitaschio.
- Extract the ZIP.
- Run Pitaschio.exe and configure it to your liking
Uninstallation
- End the pitaschio.exe process after right clicking on its tray icon (if you set it to have one) and clicking on disable.
- Delete all the Pitaschio related files.
Download: Pitaschio.
Info: Check out Pitaschio’s website.
Info: Check out Pitaschio’s manual (semi-outdated but really useful).
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