Group your desktop icons

Stardock Fences is a free program that allows you to draw “fences” around groups of desktop icons which then become movable and resizable containers for your desktop icons. The fenced area becomes shaded in color and can be resized and moved around easily.

To use the program, simply hold down the right mouse button and draw a box around the icons you want to group. Once you release the button you will get an option to create a Fence and label it. The label either appears at the top of the Fence, always visible, or you can make it show up as a tooltip. The colors and transparency of the shaded area can be customized.

Additionally, when you double click on the desktop all the icons vanish. Double click again to reveal them. This “helps you finally appreciate the wallpaper you have hiding behind all that clutter.” Fences integrate with the context menu allowing you edit, rename and lock a Fence directly by right clicking on it. You can also exclude a fence and individual icons from the hide feature.

StarDock says, “We think this feature is so useful, we’re applying for a patent on it.” OK StarDock, we appreciate you for developing a nice tool but patenting an idea is plain evil. It’s like patenting a story, patenting music. You are stifling competition, you are stifling freedom and you are the kind of corporate who are dangerous to the software community.