Fences is a free for personal use application by Stardock that helps unclutter the desktop with minimal user interaction and some clever ideas. The basic idea behind Fences is to provide areas on the desktop that can be filled with all the program shortcuts and files on the computer desktop.
While that alone would not be really spectacular Fences comes with one of the easiest ways to hide all or specific fences. Hiding and unhiding the fences can be done by a simple double-click on the desktop. This means that you can work with a icon free desktop for most of the day. If you need any shortcuts you simply double-click the desktop, the fences containing the icons appear and you can launch them normally.
Fences does come with the possibility to exclude areas from being hidden by the double-click which is great if you need some shortcuts visible all the time.
The program offers the ability to group all icons on the computer system automatically after installation. The alternative would be to create empty fences and move the shortcuts in those fences manually.
A new fence can be easily created by right-clicking on the computer desktop and drawing a rectangle on the screen. New icons places on the computer desktop will not automatically be moved into fences. It is up to the user to perform that operation.
Another interesting feature of the software program is that it will automatically scale if the screen resolution changes. Fences can be downloaded at the Stardock website. The software is compatible with the 32-bit editions of Windows XP as well as both 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.
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Haven’t tried it yet but it seems that it can be sized to have scroll bars. That can be useful to basically ‘hide’ some icons from view.
This is what many of us have been doing manually for years…but this looks like much more flexible.
KDE 4 comes with something very similar built in, with the exception that icons by default are in their “fences” or in KDE terms “folder view”. Another nice feature of the KDE implementation is that there can be “fences” or “folder views” of any folder on the computer, not just the Desktop!
You should be aware that this software is released as a “free community beta” and will expire on August 31,2009 per the download page.
Whether it will still be “free for personal use” after that remains to be seen.
after expiration date, either they keep it free and I keep it, either I’ll find something else.
But I like the idea: having a box where to throw all the temp files and shortcuts.
I read about it here, downloaded it and tried it out.
To tell you the truth, I am loving it. Have been looking for something like this for a long time and I am loving a clean desktop window. :)
Thanks for the heads up.
looks interesting. i’m grateful for the hide feature, i wouldn’t consider using it otherwise.
at work and can’t try it though. can anyone tell me if you can put the recycle bin into one of these and hide it?
A long time ago I have used such a program ones (on win 98), but it didn’t add any value and it was distracting. Now I have just installed Fences and I already see that this is a keeper. It does not distract you from doing the tasks you have to do. It’s just simple and does what it should do and nothing more and that is perfect. I have only made it a little more transparent and formed my own structure on the desktop and I think I will keep it that way. Great tip and a great piece of software again, of course from Stardock. These guys have an interesting company.
Thanks!
Kudos on that wallpaper photo… simply awesome. :)
>> Kudos on that wallpaper photo
Ya! Forget Fences. Auto racing just peaked my interest.
I’ve tried various products of Stardocks, an most were just a flash in the pan for me. But Fences IS the one!!!! I promote this one to ALL my friends Geek or not!!! The biggest reason I like it is because it’s already a windows function, Fences is not a program wasting valuable memory.
Am so so trying this! I downloaded and icon hider before but wasn’t too happy with it, and recently I’ve got into the habit of just throwing temporary files onto the desktop so it looks terribly cluttered and I can’t see the (admittedly) plain wallpaper anymore.
Anyone know the memory usage?
Just to add to the discussion again… I remember when firing up ‘Fences.exe’, memory usage was around 30k. However, now that my desktop is all tidy and the customisation interface has been closed, I can’t find ‘fences.exe’ anymore. Does anyone know the name of the process please? :)
As Far as I can tell just by observation. I believe it’s a Windows sys function using “rundll32.exe” because an new rundll32 appeared in my processes after I installed it.
I had fences, but it stopped working, probably because of this expiration date :( and even after reinstall its not working :( i want fences back :( is there something else like this?
So … who is that chick in the desktop wallpaper? Why is she at an Indy/formula 1 race? Why are they racing in the rain? But most importantly why is she standing on the track why they are racing?