First Look at Fences Pro

By Island Dog Posted August 20, 2009 17:15:42

Ever since Fences was released as a community preview, people have raved over it. Anyone in need of help organizing their desktop icons immediately found out how useful Fences is for cleaning up the clutter, and for making a more productive desktop environment.

Since the beginning we have stated that there will be a free and Pro version of Fences, but we really haven’t said much about Pro. Until now that is! Of course we’re not going to let all the features out of the bag, but I wanted to start off by talking about a couple that people have been recently asking about.

Skinning

In the free version of Fences, you have some basic customization options, which really consists of the ability to change the color of your Fences. Fences Pro will introduce the ability to skin your Fences. Creating themes for Fences will be skinning friendly, and the ability to upload themes to WinCustomize.com is part of the plan.

Here is one example of a themed Fence.

There will be more customization options available as well, but more on that another time.

Auto-Fences

This is a really cool feature. With the free version of Fences you have the ability to manually organize your desktop icons into a variety of ways using Fences. With the Pro version, you will be able to assign rules to create new Fences.

Examples:

Set a rule so that icons of a specific type go into a designated Fence. Need all Word or Excel files to go to a specific Fence? That’s what it can do for you!
Another possible rule is to set any new icons added to the desktop to be assigned to a Fence. Stop the clutter even before it starts!

This is something you can show off in a screenshot, but when the time comes we will have some videos showing how cool this is, and how it will help keep your desktop organized.

More info about Fences Pro will be coming soon, but for the time being be sure to download a free copy of Fences from the link below.

http://www.stardock.com/products/fences/

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This looks awesome, surely its gonna be my favorite as well of many others.

I love Fences and was kind of waiting for a Pro version with the ability for skinning it [e digicons]:thumbsup:[/e]

Thanks for the post ID [e digicons][/e]

Cool! Something new to skin, I thought I was gonna have to skin my wife...lol!!!

will this be part of OD or a separate purchase?

Very good question.

I believe the Pro version will be part of Object Desktop.

http://forums.wincustomize.com/356671/

For many, this will be a worthy investment. IT Pros, and many others who work through the day/night via their computers will probably be lured into customization through this incredible app.

I hope there won't be too long a wait, since enthusiasm seems to peak with anticipation, but then seems to become inversely proportional to wait after a certain point.

It will be a part of Object Desktop, and available as a stand-alone app.

I knew that getting Objec Desktop was a good idea. [e digicons]:sun:[/e]

Great! Looks awesome.

Nice work guys, looking forward to it.

ODNT standard or Ultimate?

[e digicons]:fox:[/e]

Ohh... Very much want[e digicons]rool:[/e] I hope it comes out soon[e digicons]out:[/e]

Sounds great, I already love Fences even before the new features are added to the Pro version

I've been using Stardock's proggies for 'a while' now....and have found Fences to be the best thing since sliced bread [Windowblinds]....

# Set a rule so that icons of a specific type go into a designated Fence. Need all Word or Excel files to go to a specific Fence? That’s what it can do for you!
# Another possible rule is to set any new icons added to the desktop to be assigned to a Fence. Stop the clutter even before it starts!

Already an avid Fences user, but this will be icing on the cake [e digicons]:thumbsup:[/e]

DethAdder

reply 14

Already an avid Fences user, but this will be icing on the cake

And we don't know yet how many more features there are yet!

Philly's got it right [e digicons]:thumbsup:[/e]

It's nice - but - it doesn't come close to ObjectBar. This application is miles more efficient in managing your desktop than Fences. I will never replace ObjectBar with Fences...! As far as I'm concerned, nothing outdoes ObjectBar - what an exceptional application...!

Really cool!

Fences is the best thing since sliced bread and tabbed Object Dock.

Just a thought... I know many skinnners are champing at the bit to have a chance at making skins for this immensely useful app, but I rather like it the way it is, but would like it even better if you just had a check box that says "skin like a standard window" that matches the currently selected WB. That way, I don't have to bother finding a Fences skin to go with every skin in my inventory. Those who still want to skin it still can if they want to. Edit: The reason I suggest this is that I have so few skins in my inventory that I would regard as "complete", because I can't find a dock, a right click, a calendar, etc. to match. In the same way, I'd like to see a similar checkbox added to RightClick and Object Dock.

I love the idea, and I think the software is nifty. However, I personally don't use my desktop for anything, simply because I almost never see it. If I'm at my computer, either I've got a window maximized and am working in it, or I'm into my start menu/quicklaunch and launching an app, which I'll run full screen.

I'll be jumping on this band wagon once it's released, I align all of my Icons on my Desktop into groups anyway - games, programs, folders - so this looks like the way to go for me!

If I used Windows as my normal desktop I would buy this, however a lot of the features found in object desktop are found standard on linux, which is what I use when I don't game.

Now, if there was a way to make a shortcut to point to a fence, that would be nice for DX authors/users. Like a folder shortcut, only for a fence.....Hey, sViz!!! [e digicons]}[/e] [e digicons]:grin:[/e]

With ObjectDock Plus together with Windows 7 I had problems. I like Fences more except it does not have the possibility to use tabs. So why not attach tabs to Fences Pro? In that case it will be a nice replacement for ObjectDock Plus. Or is it impossible?

Can't wait to get the Pro version, I love this program!