Stardock Fences: organize your icons into floating areas on your desktop
Fences is a free windows enhancement that allows you to create folder-like, semitransparent groups that float on the desktop and allow you to organize your desktop icons within them. It also offers the option to hide all or some of your desktop icons by double clicking on an empty area.
Are your desktop icons strewn about your screen in a jumble? Wouldn’t it be great if you could arrange them into hovering, semitransparent “receptacles” that you could move about the screen at will? That’s exactly what this software allows you to do.
Is there any design or theme to how your desktop icons are arranged? For myself I notice that I arrange my desktop into topic clusters: work icons on the bottom left, freeware-related icons on the top right, and so on. This is also the concept behind “Fences”.
This is beta software: before going any further please note that this is in beta and you are very likely to encounter bugs (I have had to negotiate one specific error when testing this program, which I describe below). Also note that this beta software is set to expire in Aug 2009, when presumably the non beta will replace it. Here are more notes on this software:
- Behavior: the floating areas (or “areas” as I will call them from this point onward) can be moved, resized, and renamed at will (which includes all the icons within them, of course). They snap to grid too, which is nice.
Icons: to add icons to an area simply drag and drop. Icons magnetically float to the top until they encounter other icons, but other than that you can arrange them at will. You can add more icons than can fit the visible area, whereby a navigation bar will appear to help you scroll down (see image to the right). You do not need to place all of your desktop icons inside areas.- Quick-hide icons: double click on an empty area of your desktop and all icons (and floating areas) will disappear; doing it again afterwards will make them reappear. If you need to you can set exceptions for some icons so that they will always be visible even as the others are hidden (which can be done straight from the context menu). Just think, you could set it so that all clutter is instantly hidden except for core set of icons that you always want to see.
- Context menu integration: all of this software’s functions are accessible throught the right click menu, which is nice.
- Bugs: testing on Windows XP SP3, I found, unfortunately, that every time I would add a new “area” my system would create it for me and then would crash (this also happened when I first installed since the first thing the program does is create a bunch of areas). At first this issue seemed like a deal breaker, but once I had created my requisite 5 areas that I needed, the program worked fine provided that I did not add more areas. This sort of dedication is exactly why you should immediately click the “buy me a beer” icon in this site’s sidebar and donate money to Freewaregenius. (I hope they fix this bug sooner rather than later).
- Freeware?: free for personal use, although as mentioned this alpha version will expire in Aug 2009. It looks like there will be some sort of addon or professional version that allows for advanced customizations and skins, so I am hopeful that the basic functionality will remain free post-alpha.
The verdict: I simply love this. Another one of those ideas that should have been a built in feature in Windows (what the he*l are they paid to do over there in Redmond, Washington?)
Despite it’s beta status this is an extremely mature and well-designed product. I am confident/hopeful that the bugs and errors previously mentioned will be ironed out in coming versions.
[Via Ghacks. Thanks also to user Brockman for letting me know about this].
A video of the program in action:
Version Tested: 0.96.1533 Beta
Compatibility: Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7. On Vista and Windows 7, both 32bit and 64bit versions are supported.
Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 6.34K).
I just tried this on WinXP SP3. Was dissatisfied.
Bearing in mind your warning about the crashes you had, I decided to just install it and get around to trying it later when I had time to deal with any potential crashes.
But after installing, it automatically started itself plus wanted to reach out to its website to check for updates.
I canceled it. I checked the tray and it was not running there. However, I noticed that half the icons on my screen had changed position! Sheese.
I have a couple of apps installed to save the desktop icon positions. So I proceeded to restore the positions. Then I decided to move an icon. As soon as I did so, the icons all jumped to the position that Fences had set them to again. Say what?
I tried this again and got the same results. Fences did not appear to be running, so I don’t know what it did to my system. I uninstalled the app and was able to permanently restore my icons to their original positions.
With you report of the crashes you had and my experience, I submit that this app is definitely still in alpha phase and needs more work.
Might be a nice thing, but still i am a little bit afraid of products on beta stage.
Oh, wow. I was bracing myself for trouble, but things are going smoothly so far on my laptop with Vista Home Edition. It’s already making a huge difference in how I arrange and use my desktop icons&folders. Now I can enjoy my desktop wallpapers while still getting quick access to my usual programs and folders!!
very well built and usefull stuff..
but do the programmers have to use Net Framework..
i hate installing net framework.. i do anything to get rid of net framework…
hopefully i will find similar another app without framework..
Wow! Thanks for this incredible find! In the space of about five minutes this has revolutionized the way I manage my desktop.
It took a desktop with 153 icons and turned it into a neat, tidy, easily managed set of icons!
Thanks!
Oh, and I haven’t had any problems with stability so far. maybe there was another program that was interfering during your testing.
Does not work for me… I get constant crashes of explorer… Do you know if there is a specific .NET deployment required?
What is the latest version of fences?
@Igor: Had the same. With XPpro SP3 & .NET 2.0
Sent the bug-report to the developers.
http://forums.stardock.com/338831/page/2/#replies
Am running XP SP3 with .NET 2.0 and it’s working fine.
I have also tested across 2 monitors using ultramon, without any problems.
This is a brilliant app, but I would like to see a couple of features I feel are missing –
1) A “To do” area, to create and display tasks. Perhaps integration with Outlook or other PIM software might work well.
2) The ability to arrange icons alphabetically (or by type etc.) on the desktop or in areas, which has apparently been removed when I installed Fences.
For beta freeware though, it’s very very good.
@Richard: Have you tried deleting something with right-click menu? Or cut-paste files with CTRL-X?
This produces a sure crash on my system…
Love the program – simple, works well EXCEPT – it messes with my dual monitor setup something awful and bit sus about some explorer crashes I’m getting. Pity. Uninstall.
Is it me, or does that make your desktop look a lot like Windows 3.1 with it’s program groups?
A little harsh, however as someone who run a zero tollerance for desktop icons it’s not for me. Looks nice though.
Nice little app, but it doesn’t play very with multiple monitors. It kind of screwed up my wallpapers and non-fences icon positions. Since it’s in beta I’ll try reporting the problem. Maybe they’ll fix it.
I’ve been wanting something like this for years, but I don’t have the time or skills to deal with some of the potential problems I’ve read about here and elsewhere. I agree this is definitely alphaware, not beta. I plan on downloading it after it stabilizes.
I’ve installed Fences on two XP SP3 PCs (non-standard, point-of-sale computers) and an HP Athlon Dual-Core with SP3. Works like a charm! Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work at all on my home computer (AMD SP1 using .NET 2.0). The program doesn’t clearly define what the error or problem is, and suggests reinstalling the program (which I tried numerous times and shutting down all other apps).
Overall, this program is a computing dream come true for me. Generally, I hate the desktop due to all of its clutter-prone-ness.
Maybe to avoid the “Windows 3.1 revisited” look, they could make the fences zoom in/out an animated fashion (it’s all about the eye-candy, right?) This would take up far less desktop real estate.
For me, I’d like to see an automatic/simplified means of categorizing the Start Menu (using color-coding). What do you say Stardock?
In any case, Fences is a worthwhile download, and we can only hope it gets better with each version release.
The way I use my own desktop, this might come in handy.
A great idea and seemed to work well. However, I had to uninstall due to it making my sys tray icons disappear. Pity.
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LOL its Program Manager for The desktop! How innovative LOL
Seriously, looks cool though.
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Nothing against this, it sounds like a great idea, but it does remind me a lot of the way Windows used to work way back when (around version 3.0). It was certainly a shock when that interface disappeared with the introduction of Windows 95 and Windows NT version 4.
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Installed and working find on XP SP3 Desktop, Vista 64 desktop and laptop, but crashes explorer on Windows 7 (64) desktop whenever I rename an icon and occasionally at other times. Uninstalled on the Win 7 machine.
It worked for a week and yesterday stopped and I saw a window…
“”fences does not appear to be loaded. you may need to reinstall fences.”"
I delated, installed again, also installed older version and still this info
:(
Hi the latest version need ie7 and impulse , as I dont have or want ie7 or there crapeware sadly I will have to look for an alternative
Deserves #1 placement on this list !
Functions flawlessly on my Vista 64-bit machine, my Vista 32-bit machine, and my XP netbook.
~Nothing~ beats it for organizing the icons on your desktop !
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