Quoting Jafo, reply 226

People who create Windows shells and GUIs in particular often deal with the limitations of 'z-order' which is the layering designed  into the Windows concept that sees the desktop wallpaper drawn first....then icons and gadgets etc second...then inactive windows third and active [focused] windows last....and pop-over warnings etc on top of them even.

Having Microsoft define the icons as level 2  makes things dramatically different to have them pop-over open windows....something which may be either impossible...or cause all sorts of potential dramas if it can be done...

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 ....

End of Jafo's quote

Could the whole z-order issue be avoided by changing the request from "force Fences to display on top of the active window" to "automatically make a fence the active window on hover and restore the previous z-order when the cursor is moved outside the fence"? Unless I'm misunderstanding, I think this would achieve what we've been asking for.

I for one don't expect a fence to display on top of another active window. The problem is the roll-up feature becomes annoying when fences always unroll behind the active window. It takes extra clicks to get that window out of your way to see, let alone click something inside the fence, then manually return to your previous app window.

TL;DR: A fence should become active when it unrolls and restore previous z-order when it rolls up. Is this possible?

Setting aside if its even possible to get icons at a presentable top z-order (above open apps), its also that we believe the feature request - as it has been described often here  - would not be as practical as people think it might.  It's not to say the idea \ use-case is not sound - quick easy access to desktop assets from anywhere - it very much is. 

There is another idea we have on the table that would be cleaner and reach the same goals.  I cant say that it will, or will not, make it to any new version but I did want to affirm that we get what you want.

Again, thanks for the feedback.

Sean Drohan
Stardock Support Manager

Oh well... obviously I'm not Windows developer, but I know enough to realize some things are far more difficult to achieve than they seem to the general public. Thanks for the quick response. It's good to know you guys understand what we're asking for and haven't given up on finding a solution.  👍

In Windows 10 you have the ability to use small icons in the taskbar, and keeping all the proper alignment in place.  Somethings like this as an option would be nice. And the option to show/hide the shortcut labels.

Great for UI and keeping the fences/desktop from getting cluttered.

I'm many times changing folder by "choose different folder" - best way is to have in title bar on the right edge two buttons - "Home" and "Select folder" buttons.

It will be useful for return to default folder (for example used by current selection) and to have choice for temporary folder for navigation. It makes more flexible and useful. I was inspired by Cairo shell replacement.

Miro

I would like to easily & quickly rearrange my 7 Fences desktop pages in a different order after adding a new desktop page. This could be achieved a few different ways — pick one, I'd be happy with whatever is easiest for Stardock to implement:

1. allow restoration of a single desktop page — save each individual desktop page as a snapshot and restore/override new or existing single desktop pages
2. have each single desktop page saved as snapshot & able to reorder by dragging and dropping thumbnails — this would be a nice setting to include in the same area as snapshot thumbnails
3. allow selection of multiple fences/portals — select all fences/portals at once from one desktop page & drag all fences/portals to a new desktop page

When I add a new desktop page to my setup, I need to quickly reorder them in a way that makes sense in my new workflow. I tried creating a snapshot for each of my 7 current desktop pages & labeling them as each as individual desktops. The snapshot thumbnail reflects only the desktop page from which you take the snapshot, but it actually is taking a snapshot of my entire setup (my 7 desktop pages as a whole). So, essentially ... what I did was create 7 identical snapshots of my setup as a whole & applied different labels to them. So, this didn't work when I tried restoring them as singles to the current desktop page in view. However, experimenting in the snapshot settings (while trying to achieve my goal of rearranging desktop pages more quickly) sparked the idea for #1 & #2 above.

Currently, to rearrange desktop pages, I create a new tiny fence on a new desktop page & leave it empty. This temporary empty fence acts a placeholder and is necessary to create a new "blank" desktop page. Then I create empty tiny fences on each desktop page so they won't close up on me automatically after moving the last fence/portal. The next part is the frustrating part ... I then have to move each fence/folder portal one by one. It sucks having to line everything up again just the way I had it before, the way that I liked it. It's incredibly time consuming to do it for multiple desktop pages with lots of fences/portals. Every time I create a new desktop page, I have to map out a new (handwritten) plan to find the fastest rearranging route possible. I dread adding new desktops. I feel like it could and should be so much easier to achieve my goal of rearranging desktop pages.

Thank you for considering our needs. I  Fences!

I think useful will be creating Fences backup form menu - instead of manually search folders and after reinstallation manually recover.

This is one big problem what caused also two times reinstallation of Fences to get Fences back.

Miro

Fences with 'Sticky Notes' that can be hidden, and allowing icons to be freely placed within a fence to allow different organization of icons.

i have requested this before, but no response, please make fence to roll over ON TOP OF all other apps

instead of what is happening now.  rolling under all app and cannot be seen

example: in the midst of working with lots of app windows opened, i needed to open a file in fence, roll down the fence window and???

"WTF"  it rolled down behind all the apps window. i have to minimize each and every window to expose fence and to select the file i want

and if there is more than one file, Oops!,  i have to look thru the minimize app to find the app window again to see which other files is to be selected,

this happened all the time, email for example, always has this

because of the lack of this feature, fence became almost practically useless other than to hide everything on the desktop

it became easier to just go to taskbar to pop up window explorer to select files or activate apps when i have a few active windows opened

which is almost always the case. for sure, at least two or three, microsoft word, email, acrobat reader and these are just the basic requirement

i also need to open the real work app, like excel, circuit designer, etc

in fact, it is actually quite comical to see fence appearing the the background instead of over all the apps, it is really a "WTF"  moment.

i really regretted buying fence due to this. what is the use of it opening a window that i cannot get access to directly without closing the very files that i need to reference to as well and then reopening all of them once i finished with fence. 

i am using a 3440 x 1440 screen on a 34inch wide monitor, if this has problems, i cannot imagine smaller screens

Just this little feature will make "fence great again"

johntse ....please read my replies...ie 226 at the top of this page.

Fences works at the icon level.  It isn't a Window.  Windows work at the next z-order above the icons which means Windows are on top of the icon level, and not the other way round.

All of this is controlled by Microsoft and cannot be changed without a MAJOR change to Windows itself...;)

As a matter of interest, Microsoft obviously realized a user's need to get to the icon level....hence the 'Show Desktop' option on the Taskbar.

@johntse Minimizing and maximizing all open windows is as easy as clicking W+D and W+D again or as Jafo mentioned, using the show/hide desktop taskbar button.

I'm still waiting for a different background desktop for each virtual desktop, i tried Dexpot but did not like it much, i has not been updated in years, gimme the different backgrounds and i might buy fences.

I'm not sure if it's already been mentioned, but I'd like to see three things:

1. Can we have a choice of having icons with no text or text with no icons as well as both?
2. Can the icons be made any smaller?
3. Can we have a fence that sits at the side of the screen and resizes all full screen apps so that the fence is always visible? [So effectivly resizing the screen boundaries and putting the fence outside of it.] Tiles can do it, so why not Fences?

Cheers

Alan

Switch pages with one click. Dragging through multiple pages is a pain.

I would particularly like to see the addition to hide application names when in the fences dock. I'm all about the minimal clean setups and would just love to make fences more minimal too. The option to hide application names entirely would be a wonderful addition. 

I.e. so that all you see is the application icons. This is 2020 no one needs names for apps anymore.

Ah, Fantastic! Thats useful to know, however it would be nice to have it built into fences so I'm not having to run various different software programs in background processes. Just for a simple change like this.

Hi there! I'm using the trial version and I'm loving it, looking to get it during the steam sale.

My suggestion is to have some integration with the Windows 10 Virtual Desktops feature, as I'm using them a lot and would be amazing to have Fences for each desktop.

Especially always on top rolling down over opened windows apps would be perfect!! 

BarbKnop ....please read my replies...ie 226 at the top of this page.

Fences works at the icon level.  It isn't a Window.  Windows work at the next z-order above the icons which means Windows are on top of the icon level, and not the other way round.

All of this is controlled by Microsoft and cannot be changed without a MAJOR change to Windows itself...

As a matter of interest, Microsoft obviously realized a user's need to get to the icon level....hence the 'Show Desktop' option on the Taskbar.

[I feel this almost needs to be an automated response]...;)

I would like a way to apply a view change to all fences.  I have about 20 fences across three screens (I know, a bit much), and if I change my background image to one where a different opacity would help the readability, I have to change them all individually now.  A radio button to "Apply changes to all fences" would be nice.

I strongly disagree. Too many icons look similar and I depend on the filenames to tell some of them apart.

Colored fences.

You can set each Fence with it own color. Just click on the dropdown, pick a fence and set its color.

Thank you,

Basj,
Stardock Community Assistant

Is this a windows 10 thing then? I remember that Aston could do such a thing. Obviously not since Win10

Quoting BarbKnop, reply 251

Is this a windows 10 thing then? I remember that Aston could do such a thing. Obviously not since Win10

End of BarbKnop's quote

No...it's a Windows thing...ever since Windows 3 [at least]....;)

The Windows shell is Explorer.exe ....it is that which has the 'limitations' of Z-order.

Aston, Litestep [and all the others] are alternative shells by third parties used instead of Microsoft's original.  One of their tricks was to empower the user to redefine how the shell would display, whereas Microsoft's required coders to work WITH their system, not against it.

So, Fences isn't changing what layer/level the icons are at....because they are Microsoft's shell icons, not added on ones in a separate program....like a popup right-click menu....that doesn't interfere with the original icons...it's a aeparate set of them.

Fences actually improves Microsoft's shell [which is why it's so popular] but it would have to be quite a different animal to do what it does now AND change the z-order of the shell it's working in...;)