Fences is a utility for Windows that helps to organize icons on the desktop. It is developed by Stardock and distributed as part of their Object Desktop suite.[1] Version 1 was freeware[2] after which it has become a commercial product.
Functionality
Fences defines translucent areas on the desktop that contain groups of icons.[3] These fences can be individually created, named, moved, and resized — they will also display a scroll bar if necessary.[4]
Double-clicking on the desktop hides all non-excluded fences and icons, while another double-click causes them to reappear.[4] Snapshots can restore fences to a particular configuration after use.[4]
Reception
A PC World reviewer praised the free edition of Fences, saying that "it wasn't five minutes after installing this program that I realized I'll be using it for the rest of my computing life. It's that good."[5] A preview edition was listed as TechSpot's download of the week in February 2009.[6]
Download.com approved of the snapshots, and the ability to change colour schemes, but criticized the process of fence creation and the inability to sort icons into fences by type — a feature added in the Pro edition.[2] Some ZDNet readers also noticed visual similarities to the Folderview feature introduced in KDE 4.1.[7]
