DayuanJiang/PecoFence v0.3.2

PecoFence v0.3.2

on GitHub

PecoFence 0.3.2 lets the icons outside your fences stay wherever you put them on the desktop, adds smart fences that show the live result of a search, a filter for folder fences, fences for each virtual desktop and type tabs in the Peek search, opens files you drop on a program with that program, and keeps the fences responsive while File Explorer is busy and smooth on PCs without a graphics card.

Highlights

• Place icons anywhere on the desktop (the most asked-for change: #173, #193, #198, feedback #106, #110, #126, and on linux.do). The icons in no fence used to line up from the top-left, like a Windows desktop with Auto arrange icons on, so an icon dragged elsewhere went back to the end of the columns. Right-click one of them and choose Place freely (also in the Desktop fence's menu and in Settings → Fences), and it works like a Windows desktop with Auto arrange icons off and Align icons to grid on: an icon dropped on the empty desktop stays in the grid cell where you drop it, or in the nearest free one. Several icons dragged together keep their places to each other, new icons take the first free cell, and the arrow keys go to the nearest icon in that direction. The first time, each icon takes the place it had on the Windows desktop (#204). PecoFence remembers the cells for each set of monitors, resolution and scale, so they stay after a restart. A new installation has it on; a configuration from an earlier version keeps it off until you turn it on.
• Smart fences. A smart fence shows the live result of a saved search, and the files stay where they are. New smart fence… in the tray menu (and under Add to desktop in the fence menu) opens a small window, like a smart folder in Apple's Notes: a name, Include files that meet all (or any one) of these conditions, one row per condition, and the number of files found right now. Five templates fill the rows in one click: Downloads of the last 7 days, Screenshots of the last week, Files over 1 GB, All .psd files and Recently opened files. A row can look at the Location (a folder, several folders or the whole computer), subfolders, Time, Type, Extension, Name (with pinyin, as the Peek search matches), Size, Time created, Weekday created, a shortcut's target, Idle days or Everything's own search syntax. Edit conditions… in the fence menu, or in Settings → Fences, changes the search later. The title shows a folder with a magnifier badge, and the number of files in a grey capsule at its right end. The files open, drag out, rename, delete and preview as in a folder fence. New files show within about a second, and the fence searches again once a minute and on Refresh now (F5). The search runs in Everything when it runs; without Everything, a smart fence over one folder reads that folder itself, and a whole-computer search offers Start Everything or Install Everything in its menu.
• Filter a folder fence or a smart fence. Ctrl+F, or Filter… in the fence menu, turns the title row into a search box like Windows 11's, and every key narrows the fence to the names that match, pinyin initials included; the box shows how many files are left, such as 4 / 31. Type pdf or Images and press Tab, and the type becomes a tag while you go on typing a name. Enter keeps the filter as a tag in the title row, and Esc or Clear filter shows everything again. Save filter as a smart fence keeps what the filtered fence shows as a smart fence.
• Fences for each virtual desktop. Right-click a fence's title, open Show on virtual desktop and pick a desktop by its Task View name, or choose it in Settings → Fences. When you switch desktops with Win+Ctrl+Left/Right or in Task View, the fences of the old desktop fade out and those of the new one fade in. A small Task View icon before the title marks a fence that shows on some desktops only, and pointing at it says where. With Settings → General → Separate fences for each virtual desktop on, a new fence shows only on the desktop it is made on. The Desktop fence stays on every desktop, since new files land there. Peek brings only the current desktop's fences to the front, and its search still finds the items of the others. Closing a desktop moves its fences to the desktop Windows moves its windows to. Works on Windows 11 and Windows 10.
• Type tabs in the Peek search, as asked. A row of tabs under the search box, All, Folders, Documents, Images, Videos, Music, Archives and Programs, keeps the fences' matches and Everything's results to one type; a click or Ctrl+Tab and Ctrl+Shift+Tab pick one. While Everything answers, the list ends with Put this search on the desktop, which makes a smart fence with the same search, type included.
• Right-click a search result (feedback #124). A right-click on a row of the Peek search list opens that file's menu at the pointer, as in File Explorer: Open, Open containing folder, Copy path and the Windows context menu. The menu key and Shift+F10 open it for the highlighted row. A window opened from the Windows part of the menu, such as Properties, now comes to the front instead of opening behind the Peek.
• A clearer search list. The list follows Windows 11: rounded, a heading over each group (In fences, Whole computer (Everything), Actions), Ctrl and a digit only on the highlighted row, and a bottom bar with the keys and the number of results.
• Drop files on a program to open them with it (#198). Drop files, or files and folders together, onto an application's shortcut or onto a program file in a fence, and the program starts with all of them, as on the Windows desktop. The badge says Open with and the program's name, and the items stay where they are. Files dropped on a shortcut to a folder go into that folder (feedback #121).
• Apply now sorts every icon, and can be undone. Apply now (Settings → Sorting rules, or Apply sorting rules now in the tray menu) also sorts the icons you dragged out of a fence onto the desktop, and its notice offers Undo, which puts every moved icon back. Icons you put into another fence still stay.
• A rule from an icon's menu. Put all .pdf files here from now on adds a sorting rule for that extension with this fence as its target. If a rule already sends the type to another fence, PecoFence asks first.
• Undo in fences. Ctrl+Z in a fence undoes the last fence move or resize, icons moved into another fence, or a fence deleted from its menu. Deleting a fence now shows a card with Undo that brings it back with its icons, rules and note text.
• Fit a fence to its icons. Double-click a fence's bottom edge, or choose Fit to content in its menu, and its height fits its icons. Dragging the edge also stops for a moment at that height.
• Folder fences: a click on the folder icon before the title opens the folder in File Explorer (#192), and Alt+Left and Alt+Right go back and forward, as in File Explorer.
• Expand speed (feedback #98). Settings → General → Roll up and expand → Expand speed (Fast, Default, Slow) sets how long the pointer rests on a rolled-up fence before it expands.
• Lining fences up works farther (feedback #100). An edge a few pixels off the edge of any fence in the same row or column lines up with it and shows a guide, however far apart the two fences are.
• Two small buttons after drawing a rectangle. An empty rectangle drawn on the desktop shows New fence and Show a folder here… at its bottom-right corner, which fade after about 3 seconds. They take neither the foreground nor the keyboard, so Delete, Esc or the next drag act on the desktop as before.
• Bigger text in the tools, as asked on linux.do. A clock grows and shrinks with its fence, and notes and script fences have Text size in their fence options (Small, Standard, Large, Extra large). The PC status script fence shows the IP address of the Wi-Fi or Ethernet connection in use and the free space of every local drive (#201, thanks to @lizt12).
• Tab between fences. Tab and Shift+Tab move the keyboard to the next or previous fence. During Peek, Tab or an arrow key puts it into the first fence.
• Feature tips. Three one-time cards suggest a feature when it would help: rolling fences up once you have made several, a folder fence for a folder you keep opening, and a rule after you drag three files of one type into one fence. Feature tips in Settings → General turns them off.
• A shorter fence menu. The fence's own commands come first, and the four that make something new on the desktop are in one submenu, Add to desktop. Fence options… opens Settings beside the fence.
• Smaller changes. The first-start fences take the new names when the interface language changes, icon size names match Windows (64 px is Medium-large icons), the rename box centres its text under the icon, and on the first start every automatic fence shows all its icons.
• pecofence-cli makes and edits smart fences (fence create --smart downloads|screenshots|large|psd|recent, or --title with --smart-folder, --within-days, --ext, --name-matches, --everything and --match all|any), searches again (fence refresh), lists the virtual desktops (virtual-desktop list) and chooses where a fence shows (fence set <fence> virtualDesktops all|current|..., settings set perDesktopFences true). 0.3.1 and older read a smart fence as an empty fence, and saving there drops its search.
• No more freezes while File Explorer is busy. When 1500 to 2000 files land on the desktop at once or Explorer's desktop stops answering for a while, the fences can still be dragged and clicked and pecofence-cli still answers; before, everything waited 12 to 90 seconds. Right after sign-in, the fences work as soon as they appear.
• Your layout is safe at startup. When an antivirus, backup or sync program held the configuration files open at startup, PecoFence started with the default fences and then saved them over your layout. It now waits, saves nothing until it can read your files, and loads them as soon as they are free.
• A menu can always be closed. When another program took the foreground right at a right-click, the menu ignored Esc and clicks elsewhere, and PecoFence did nothing else until an entry was chosen. A menu now opens only when PecoFence has the foreground, and one that finds another program in front closes by itself.
• A fast first right-click. The menu extensions of other programs (7-Zip, WinRAR, OneDrive and so on) load in the background two seconds after the start, so the first menu no longer waits 0.5 to 0.9 s for them.
• Smoother. Scrolling a fence takes about a quarter of the work it took, and a Liquid Glass fence follows the pointer while its title is dragged. On PCs without a graphics card (virtual machines, remote desktop, some office PCs), animations run at the full frame rate, expanding a fence that pushes others no longer stutters, and rolling fences up and down no longer makes the memory grow. Typing in the Peek search no longer stutters when the results are programs on a sleeping drive.
• Steadier. Deleted desktop files no longer pile up in config.json, PecoFence starts again after Windows closes it as not responding, quitting while Explorer is busy no longer leaves the desktop icons hidden, and going back to an older version keeps a copy of the newer configuration in the backups.

Fixes

• Right after signing in to Windows, a double-click on the empty desktop hides the fences again, and a box drawn on the desktop offers New fence (#196, #171). The same works right after switching virtual desktops.
• Shortcuts to folders, and shortcuts that are still empty for a moment when they appear (Send to → Desktop (create shortcut)), go where the sorting rules put shortcuts (feedback #125).
• With the Manual order, new icons go after the ones a fence shows, as on the Windows desktop (feedback #125).
• A fence opened on hover stays above the other fences while it is open (#197).
• Fences no longer end up on top of each other after the display scale changes, and plugging in a second monitor no longer moves the fences on the main one.
• A Ctrl or Shift rectangle drawn beside the Desktop fence keeps the right icons selected while a desktop file comes or goes, so a Delete right after no longer deletes the wrong file.
• Moving the Desktop folder while PecoFence runs keeps every icon in its fence.
• In the Desktop fence arranged like the desktop, a press at the top right of an icon's cell no longer drags the whole fence.
• A rolled-up fence let go near the bottom of the screen opens fully above the taskbar, and dragging a fence's edge stops at the taskbar.
• A fence dropped into the gap an opening fence pushed open is moved out of the way at once.
• With How rolled-up fences expand set to On a title click, a second click on the title rolls the fence up again.
• A click on the roll-up arrow while a fence is still opening turns it round, and a change of icon size while a fence rolls up no longer saves the wrong height.
• Ctrl+wheel that makes a fence taller pushes the fences below it out of the way, and going back to the starting icon size gives the fence its old height back.
• Closing a Properties window or a delete confirmation opened from a fence brings you back to that fence with the icons still selected.
• Win+D (Show desktop) no longer makes the fences disappear for a moment.
• A fence no longer keeps its hover look after its title drag is cancelled with Esc.
• Renaming a file whose name ends in a dot or a space works.
• A fence that shows a folder shows it again within about 1.5 seconds after the folder comes back.

Downloads

• pecofence-v0.3.2-x64-setup.exe: installer, per user, no administrator rights needed.
• pecofence-v0.3.2-x64-portable.zip: portable; extract and run pecofence.exe.
• A .sha256 checksum for each.

Copies installed with the setup can update from Settings → About → Check for updates.

Full changelog: v0.3.1...v0.3.2