Use Fences to organise your icons

When the Fences download page loads, click the Download button. Do the same at the next page and then find the Download Now link and click that. If the web browser displays a warning ignore it and continue to download the file by clicking the Save button in the File Download dialogue box.

At the next dialogue box, choose a destination for the download (the Desktop’s a pertinent option) and click the Save button. When it has downloaded, find the new Fences icon and double-click it to start the installation; if Windows displays another security warning, click the Run button. Follow the instructions to install Fences, accepting all the defaults unless there is a specific reason for doing otherwise. When the Welcome screen appears, choose ‘Start using Fences’ to get going with the program straight away.

At the next screen, Fences displays a couple of options. First, it will offer to create a couple of fences, groupings where similar icons can be placed together to make the Desktop more organised. Then it will offer to sort out the Desktop automatically, creating as many fences as it thinks necessary to introduce some order to a particularly untidy Desktop. Ours isn’t too bad so we are selecting the first option and we will then populate the two fences ourselves in the next few steps.

Fences will create a couple of areas on the screen called Project 1 and Project 2. Before we can start work on them, close the Fences dialogue box by clicking the ‘x’ at the top right-hand corner. Then do the same again to close the Settings dialogue. Let’s give the first fence a proper name. Right-click anywhere inside the Project 1 fence and then choose Rename Fence from the pop-up menu. Type in a new name – ours is called ‘My Programs’ ­- and then click the OK button.

With the first fence renamed properly, we can now drag and drop any program icons into it using the mouse. Obviously, we have chosen to create a program fence but this can be anything at all: a current project, favourite websites, monthly reports, household accounts or whatever. As icons are dropped into the fence, they are automatically arranged into a neat grid. It is also possible to rearrange them manually by dragging them anywhere inside the fence with the mouse.

Here we have continued to tidy up the Desktop by dragging and dropping a whole load of untidy shortcuts into our two fences. We renamed the second fence in exactly the same way and filled it with folder shortcuts. As it fills up, Fences will add a scroll bar if there are too many icons to display at once. It is also possible to drag and drop icons between fences if it makes sense to organise them that way.

Now let’s have a look at some of Fences’ other features. Right-click anywhere inside a fence and then choose Edit Fences from the pop-up menu. When the dialogue box appears, open the dropdown menu at the top and choose a different layout by clicking on it. We have chosen Top and Bottom. Click the Apply Layout Change button at the bottom of the dialogue box and Fences will make the change. Like it? Click the ‘Looks good’ button or otherwise, click ‘Looks bad’ to return to the previous layout.

Next, click the Customize button on the left-hand side. This allows us to make some further visual changes to the way our fences appear. The three thumbnails across the top control the appearance of the label at the top of each fence and by sliding the controls underneath to the left or right it is possible to make changes to the transparency, brightness, hue and saturation of each fence. From here it is also easy to add an outline to each one, change the colour of the labels and fade the scroll bars when they are not being used.

Next, click the Tools button on the left-hand side. Notice that there are a couple of thumbnails displayed in the middle of the dialogue box. The first is the original Desktop layout and the second shows our first set of two fences. These snapshots make it easy to return to a previous Desktop layout at any time in the future. To create a new one, drag the existing fences into a new arrangement with the mouse and then click Take Snapshot. Give it a name and then click OK.

After a moment the new snapshot will appear alongside the others in the middle of the dialogue box. Before we move on, let’s change another feature. Notice that there is a ticked option here called Hide/Show Desktop icons when Desktop is double-clicked. What this means is that if we double-click anywhere on the empty Desktop all of the icons will disappear, leaving only the wallpaper displayed. Want to make sure a favourite program is always displayed? Right-click on it and choose ‘Exclude this item from quick-hide’.

In the previous step we excluded Windows Calculator from Fences’ quick-hide feature. Now we can double-click anywhere on the empty Desktop and all of our icons will disappear except for Calculator. The first time the quick-hide feature is used, Fences displays this dialogue box in case anyone thinks that something has gone horribly wrong with their copy of Windows. To suppress this dialogue in future, just put a tick next to the ‘Don’t show this message again’ option. Then click OK. Double-clicking the empty Desktop again restores all of our icons.

As well as using the predefined layouts that Fences comes with, it is also easy to create new layouts. Find an empty area of the Desktop and then, holding down the left mouse button, draw out a square with the mouse. Let go of the mouse button and then click the ‘Create new Fence here’ pop-up menu that appears. Give the new fence a name by filling in the empty box and then click the OK button to finish creating it. The new fence will then appear on the Desktop.

After creating a new fence, we can then drag it anywhere on the Desktop by hovering the mouse pointer over the title bar and then, when it is turned into a four-pointed arrow, just dragging the whole fence with the mouse. By default, fences will ‘snap’ into alignment with each other, which helps to produce a clean and tidy looking Desktop. They can also be re-sized, just like ordinary windows by dragging their outer edges in and out with the mouse pointer.

Don’t want to use a fence any more? Right-click anywhere inside it and choose Delete Fence from the pop-up menu. The program will ask for confirmation. Just click the Yes button to remove it. The beauty of this is that only the fence itself is deleted. Any program or folder icons inside are simply returned to the Desktop safe and sound so they can be used as before or added to another fence elsewhere on the Desktop.