Fences is a utility for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

that helps to organize

icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...

on the

desktop A desktop traditionally refers to: * The surface of a desk (often to distinguish office appliances that fit on a desk, such as photocopiers and printers, from larger equipment covering its own area on the floor) Desktop may refer to various compu ...

. It is developed by

Stardock Stardock Corporation is a software development company founded in 1991 and incorporated in 1993 as Stardock Systems. Stardock initially developed for the OS/2 platform, but was forced to switch to Microsoft Windows due to the collapse of the OS/ ...

and distributed as part of their

Object Desktop Object Desktop (OD; previously the Object Desktop Network or ODNT) is an online software subscription service created by Stardock for OS/2 and relaunched for Windows in 1997. Object Desktop includes most graphical user interface customization and ...

suite. Version 1 was

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

after which it has become a commercial product.

Functionality

Fences defines

translucent In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions a ...

areas on the desktop that contain groups of icons. These ''fences'' can be individually created, named, moved, and resized — they will also display a

scroll bar A scrollbar is an interaction technique or widget in which continuous text, pictures, or any other content can be scrolled in a predetermined direction (up, down, left, or right) on a computer display, window, or viewport so that all of the con ...

if necessary.

Double-click A double-click is the act of pressing a computer mouse button twice quickly without moving the mouse. Double-clicking allows two different actions to be associated with the same mouse button. It was developed by Bill Atkinson of Apple Computer (n ...

ing on the desktop hides all non-excluded fences and icons, while another double-click causes them to reappear. Snapshots can restore fences to a particular configuration after use.

Reception

A ''

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...

'' 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." A preview edition was listed as TechSpot's download of the week in February 2009.

Download.com CNET Download (originally Download.com) is an Internet download directory website launched in 1996 as a part of CNET. Initially it resided on the domain ''download.com'', and then ''download.com.com'' for a while, and is now ''download.cnet.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. Some

ZDNet ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication. Hist ...

readers also noticed visual similarities to the ''Folderview'' feature introduced in

KDE KDE is an international Free software movement, free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-know ...

4.1.

References

External links

Fences homepage
{{Stardock Windows-only shareware Windows-only freeware Stardock software