As a staple of the desktop, icons are a fundamental part of the Windows experience. These little pictures of folders, apps, files, and more, are what make the desktop a place of productivity and the come in all different styles and colors.
But the irony of this is that many people, such as myself, actively avoid putting icons on the desktop as it can cover up the images that I spent hours cultivating. I have a rotating set of images from recent travel or pictures of the dog that I like to see and having dozens of icons on the desktop ruins the experience.
To take this challenge head-on, we have been working with Fences to various degrees to try and find a middle ground of icons on the desktop but also icons that are not distracting. With Fences 5, we introduced Chameleon(tm) that blends the icons and fence groups into the wallpaper – the actual technology to do this is likely worth a post as well at some point as it’s far more than just changing opacity.
And in Fences 6, we took a different approach to let the user apply a color expression to the icon and fence groups. If you look at the screenshot below, you will see how all the icons are of a similar hue, rather than the standard color arrangement - this feature is called Icon tint.
Also new features in Fences 6, is a tool that makes it possible to pick an exact color from your wallpaper so that the icons are still visible but are not a distraction.
Both options provide different ways to keep icons on your desktop without making your desktop all about the icons, if that makes sense. The goal is to keep the desktop as a space for productivity but also allow you to keep the attention on the wallpapers that many of you diligently curate.
Of course, you can always double-click the desktop to hide all icons for a quick cleanup with Fences but for now, I am staying with icon tint option in Fences 6 – that is until I change my mind next week.
