As we work on the next version of Fences, we are interested in getting your feedback on what you'd like to see.
We are particularly interested in features that will make Fences more useful in your work and enterprise environment.
Please comment below with any ideas and suggestions you might have.
Thanks!
As always, your concerns and constructive criticisms are welcomed and have been noted. That said, this thread - one where we are collecting feedback for Fences 4 - cannot spiral into something not focused on that goal.
With that, please keep posts on topic. Henceforth, any that are not germane will be pruned or the thread locked should it become unmanageable.
Again, we welcome your ideas for Fences 4 here and look forward to you seeing many of then in a new version.
Sean DrohanStardock Support Manager
Not sure if this has been suggested before (I don't really have time to go through 9 pages of replies), but I'd like the flickering of icons when using roll-up feature to be fixed.
Also adding a feature to remove the names under icons and just have the icon would make it look very clean in my opinion. Example below. (wasn't bothered to remove shortcut icons too)
Collecting features only here but that is part of the bug \ issue list, yes.
You can hide the icon text (and shortcut arrow) using WindowFX if it helps.
Totally agree, would be great to have the scroll drop over windows if wanted.
An opportunity to have fences organized within fences would be great.
I would like a mode to move fences as a group to some other location on the desktop as opposed to dragging each separately.
I think having Separators we could add to the Fences panels and pullout panels would be handy. This way we could create "subgroups" or "clusters" of different things within the panel for further organization. The separators should isolate items within those areas from leaving for sorting operations and such as well.
On the pullouts, it could just be standard horizontal separator bars and on the regular panels, it could be either vertical or horizontal which I suppose would terminate either at the bounds of the panel or at an intersection with another separator, preferably both would be available. So, you could throw out a vertical separator and a horizontal that intersects it and you've made 3 "zones". Preferably it would be both horizontal and vertical that could be used in tandem for the regular panels but if that wasn't possible I would personally prefer vertical for those.
I don't think there would be any need for naming these newly created "zones" outside of the name the panel or pullout already has. Just being able to create them would be enough I think. It's somewhat like Fences in Fences I suppose but it requires less overhead to achieve this way.
Seems like it could be useful in a lot of cases.
I have 7 Fences desktop pages for the 7 separate types of workflows that I have. Each desktop page has several folder portals relevant to the respective workflow. Currently, all the desktop pages look the same — same desktop background, same color for all fences/portals & no desktop page labels for identification purposes. I must switch pages slowly & read several portal names to figure out which desktop page I've landed on.
I would like to have the ability to:
1) label each of my 7 Fences desktop pages
2) have a different desktop background for each of my 7 Fences desktop pages
This would allow me to quickly recognize each desktop when scrolling through them & mentally associate each workspace with customized visuals — like having a different theme for each room in a home. When you approach it or pass by it, it's instantly recognizable — saving lots of time, confusion & frustration.
I would love to be able to set the default View to "list" for all folder portals & fences. It seems this would be best to implement in the "Configure Fences" settings. Currently, I have to manually change the view every time I make a new folder portal or every time I change the folder displayed in the portal (which is done with "Choose a different folder ...").
It really sucks — especially when I have many nested folders. Say I have 5 folders in a portal view & each of those folders has 10 nested folders & each of those folders has 15 nested folders ... that's 805 folders view settings I have to change manually. I try to get it over with from the initial setup process, so I change them all one right after the other. I often lose my place in the line up of folders & end up clicking on the same folder multiple times — a folder for which I've already changed the view. It's a real headache to perform the setup & that's not mentioning the tons of valuable time wasted. I don't even like to think about how many times I've had to do it. It is painful.
Both of these have been logged in the past and are included in the internal documentation I have been working on.
Thank you for the feedback.
I have been lurking for a while waiting to purchase the current version of Fences because it seems to have quite a few limitations. I don't want to find myself purchasing something that I am stuck with and cannot upgrade to the newer version if one is around the corner. While I understand that there is work being done, I have not seen anything mentioning any sort of planned release date/year for v4.
You can upgrade something to the point that it can never be released, so hopefully there is a 4.0, 4.1, 4.2, etc. that will roll some of the features out over time, but considering this thread was started in December of 2018, are we looking at some time in 2020? 2021? Beyond?
If there is some sort of end of the tunnel in sight, that would probably help to alleviate some of the angst or belief that there is no forward motion happening.
Right now, it would be impossible to put a date on a new version release. That said, a new version is a priority for us.
https://forums.stardock.com/499870/page/1/#3778008
New very useful feature can be to have option to create tabs in fences or folder portals.
Simply - many times fences are rolling up/down and for this is easier to switch tabs and also useful it is for desktop place reducing.
Miro
Was looking for an option to lock Fences and went through every option I could find, but no luck, until I I right clicked desktop, view. Why on earth isn't that option placed on the fences or in the configuration panel? No logic at all, I think.
Actually it is really annoying to have to move windows around in order to see a fence unroll. Please add opening on top of open windows an option!
I have not renewed /bought my trial fences for this. Without thesw 2 features I don't see the point to buy fences. Moving around identical desktops does not help to identify workflows.
Regards
This gets requested a lot.
Out of curiosity, how would one detail how a 'bring Fences to top' feature would act any different - if at all - to WinKey+D?
Fences without build in GPU in the CPU is much slower than with. Please change that in v4.
Option to remove animation (see https://forums.stardock.com/500019/page/1/#3778939) to make working on desktop a bit snappier (feels very laggy and slow at the moment).
Maybe there is also a problem because of missing iGPU in processor (comment above?) or a high res (4K) display is used. For me it looks more like a usability "bug" (while maybe technically not a bug, but usability could be enhanced that way by a lot).
Also (someone already mentioned it a long time ago I think), not having to wait for the fences to appear like 5-10 seconds after windows login would be great (it really takes very long while everything else like taskbar immediately appears).
Those are the major concerns I have at the moment. It has to be much "snappier" (faster/quicker) and not feel like I will misclick with my mouse all the time because everything is so slow.
Otherwise it is a beautiful software which does exactly what I want.
Windows D drops all my windows (on three high res screens!). Windows D again only brings back the last one. I have lotsa windows open as I'm working on data or software or ... I've arranged the fence roll-ups at the top of the screen but I don't want to rearrange several windows to see the icon in the fence when I open the fence. So, unroll fence on top; select icon Needed; fence goes back to rolled up. I'm pretty sure that's what other folks want, too when they make this request. Thanks.
Sound exactly what I want to, so count me in!
This is page 10 .....quote is from page 2.
It may be 'ideal' to want Fences to show on top of open windows....but I highly expect it won't be possible to achieve. Microsoft determined at what level desktop icons would be displayed. Physically deleting them all ... and any subsequent creation of more ...from the MS defined level and placing them at an entirely different level...ie. above any and ALL open windows ... whether in fences or not ...is going to be problematic with open window functionality.... the z-order is possibly zthe most important feature of the windows GUI itself ....
Would like to see some feature that allows splitting a single fence into multiple sections, im working with 7 fences on my bench station and each time i plugin a Monitor or i change the GPU driver fencces get thrown around...So my wish would be a single fence split option where i can color each section of the fence (something that could be considered a fence group) with different layers / where you have an object and mutiple compositions/aggregations of that very object.
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