Published on February 4, 2009 By ZubaZ In Personal Computing

I love Fences!

 

Fences is a one-of-a-kind program, allowing you to draw labeled shaded areas on your desktop, which become movable & resizable containers for your desktop icons. These groups can help bring organization and consistency to your computer's desktop, solving the "constant mess" problem that has plagued the desktop since its inception.

Fences also helps you finally appreciate the wallpaper you have hiding behind all of that clutter.
In addition to its organizing features, Fences offers a novel quick-hide feature (in-patenting-process). Double click your desktop, and all your icons will fade out. Double click again, and they'll return.


Comments (Page 2)
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on Feb 06, 2009

It would be awesome to be able to collapse a fence. I'm also interested... what will be included in the Fences Pro FeaturePack?

on Feb 06, 2009

I'm using dual displays and I use UltraMon to handle a bunch of dual display settings. One problem I'm facing is that UltraMon sets a different desktop background for each monitor, but installing Fences seems to disable that.

Any work-arounds?

on Feb 06, 2009

Meridianox
I'm using dual displays and I use UltraMon to handle a bunch of dual display settings. One problem I'm facing is that UltraMon sets a different desktop background for each monitor, but installing Fences seems to disable that.

Any work-arounds?

I'm having the same problem here. The moment I installed Fences the ability to set different backgrounds using UltraMon stopped working. After uninstalling Fences everything works fine again.

on Feb 06, 2009

Just remember that double-clicking on the desktop hides all the fences (and icons).

That worked flawlessly with the initial download, but the .037 update has a problem (here on XPP, anyway): the fences themselves hide with the double-click but icons within the fences remain visible on the desktop.  FYI Jeff.

Great idea & great little app.  If the suggestion box is open, though, I'd like the ability to adjust the font face & size of the fence titles.  Being able to 'skin' the fences would be even better (I know you can adjust the color & trans, etc., now).  Forgive me, but you know how we are - there are never 'enough' customization options.

on Feb 06, 2009

picardsm
I do not use my desktop either... I like to look at my Aquarium 2009

You know it's easy to hide your desktop icons (in XP at least. I don't know about Vista). All you have to do is right-click your desktop, choose the 'Arrange Icons By...' option, then choose the 'Shw Desktop Icons'. Clicking on it once will hide all your icons. A second time will show them. I've been using this method for some time.

Granted, Fences is much slicker and allows you to arrange related groups of icons into a single fence though. And double clicking is faster and easier.

on May 01, 2009

It doesn't matter when it was released. As soon as the idea is made public, anything coming after Pai Gow Poker can be considered a "clone". It doesn't necessarily mean that the developer has even seen the original software.Bumptop is a good example, there are numerous clones out there, and bumptop isn't released. All similar software (such as realdesktop) are still clones.

on May 02, 2009

Been using this since a week or two after you released this.  Will never go without it again.  Thanks!!!

on Jul 15, 2009

Just installed the update released yesterday (7-14-09) and my problem is still there - the fences themselves hide just fine with double-click on the desktop but the icons within the fences don't & stay visible on the desktop.

XPP SP2 on a Dell Vostro 1500 notebook, Core2 Duo 1.4Ghz with 2GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT with 185.85 drivers (most recent WHQL set).

There's not much unusual about my rig but here's the system info from WBConfig just in case:

WindowBlinds version : WindowBlinds 6.4 (build 73 x86)

WindowBlinds is installed correctly on this PC
WindowBlinds appears to be activated on this PC
Your machine supports per pixel borders on WindowBlinds skins.

(Plug and Play Monitor) 1 is attached to NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT  

Wblind.dll         2009/03/24 14:04:20
Wbsrv.dll         2009/02/10 15:28:58
Wbconfig.exe         2009/02/10 15:28:20
Wbload.exe         2008/04/28 11:35:14
Wbhelp.dll         2008/04/28 11:35:07
Wbui.dll         2008/04/28 11:35:05
Tray.dll              2008/04/28 11:35:21
Screen.exe         2008/06/13 11:24:09

It also happens that I have both a domain profile and a local-machine profile that I use to log on to this machine.

on Jul 15, 2009

Just installed the update released yesterday (7-14-09) and my problem is still there - the fences themselves hide just fine with double-click on the desktop but the icons within the fences don't & stay visible on the desktop.

I was under the impression that it was supposed to do that, so you can clearly see your desktop. You can exclude something from quickhide, so it stays visable when you doubleclick.

on Jul 15, 2009

The icons are supposed to 'hide' with the fence, but they don't here.  The fence itself hides but the icons within the fence are still sitting there on the desktop.

on Jul 15, 2009

Just installed the update released yesterday (7-14-09) and my problem is still there - the fences themselves hide just fine with double-click on the desktop but the icons within the fences don't & stay visible on the desktop.
There is an option ti exclude icond form being hidden.  Does this happen with some icons or all?

on Jul 15, 2009

ti exclude icond form

que?

on Jul 15, 2009

"to exclude icons from"

ZubaZ tries to wake up

on Jul 15, 2009

Happens to all icons.  I've not set any to be 'excluded from being hidden'.

on Jul 16, 2009

The "Exclude from being hidden" option shows up when you right-click on an icon.  I used it to make sure My Computer an My Documents always stay active.  You can use this option on individual icons within a fence as well. 

It's very possible that you selected the icons and clicked the option without realizing it (add another icon to test this).  It's probably equally likely that the option is somehow the default setting on your computer somehow - maybe an XP Pro issue.

Good luck.  I'd offer more specific help, but I'm at work and don't have Fences on this machine.

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