C# – minimize app to system tray

cwindowswinforms

I have a Windows forms app powered by C# and Visual Studio 2010.

How can I minimize my app to system tray (not taskbar), then bring it back when doubled click in the system tray? any idea? also, how can I make some menu in the icon in system tray and when I right click it, it shows a menu like Login, Disconnect, Connect, something like that.
Also, are there any methods to show like a baloon popping up from the system tray?

PS: I already added a notifyIcon, but I do not know how to use it.

Best Answer

Handle the form’s Resize event. In this handler, you override the basic functionality of the Resize event to make the form minimize to the system tray and not to the taskbar. This can be done by doing the following in your form’s Resize event handler: Check whether the form’s WindowState property is set to FormWindowState.Minimized. If yes, hide your form, enable the NotifyIcon object, and show the balloon tip that shows some information. Once the WindowState becomes FormWindowState.Normal, disable the NotifyIcon object by setting its Visible property to false. Now, you want the window to reappear when you double click on the NotifyIcon object in the taskbar. For this, handle the NotifyIcon’s MouseDoubleClick event. Here, you show the form using the Show() method.

private void frmMain_Resize(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (FormWindowState.Minimized == this.WindowState)
    {
       mynotifyicon.Visible = true;
       mynotifyicon.ShowBalloonTip(500);
       this.Hide();
    }

    else if (FormWindowState.Normal == this.WindowState)
    {
       mynotifyicon.Visible = false;
    }
}

Related Solutions

C# – What’s the proper way to minimize to tray a C# WinForms app

There is actually no managed way to do that form of animation to the tray in native winforms, however you can P/Invoke shell32.dll to do it:

Some good info here (In the comments not the post):

http://blogs.msdn.com/jfoscoding/archive/2005/10/20/483300.aspx

And here it is in C++:

http://www.codeproject.com/KB/shell/minimizetotray.aspx

You can use that to figure out what stuff to Pinvoke for your C# version.

C# – .NET Minimize to Tray AND Minimize required resources

Calling MiniMizeMemory() will do a garbage collection, trim the process working size, then compact the process' heap.

public static void MinimizeMemory()
{
    GC.Collect(GC.MaxGeneration);
    GC.WaitForPendingFinalizers();
    SetProcessWorkingSetSize(
        Process.GetCurrentProcess().Handle,
        (UIntPtr)0xFFFFFFFF,
        (UIntPtr)0xFFFFFFFF);

    IntPtr heap = GetProcessHeap();

    if (HeapLock(heap))
    {
        try
        {
            if (HeapCompact(heap, 0) == 0)
            {
                // error condition ignored
            }
        }
        finally
        {
            HeapUnlock(heap);
        }
    }
}

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
internal static extern bool SetProcessWorkingSetSize(
    IntPtr process,
    UIntPtr minimumWorkingSetSize,
    UIntPtr maximumWorkingSetSize);

[DllImport("kernel32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
internal static extern IntPtr GetProcessHeap();

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
internal static extern bool HeapLock(IntPtr heap);

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
internal static extern uint HeapCompact(IntPtr heap, uint flags);

[DllImport("kernel32.dll")]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
internal static extern bool HeapUnlock(IntPtr heap);

Best Answer

Related Solutions

C# – What’s the proper way to minimize to tray a C# WinForms app

C# – .NET Minimize to Tray AND Minimize required resources

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