me.Visible = false in Form_Load doesn't work

[Martin G. Brown]

I am trying to write a system tray application. I want it to have an
invisible window when it loads, with just an icon in the bottom right of the
screen.

I have placed the following line in the Form_Load event but it doesn't seem
to work.

me.Visible = false

The form just gets displayed anyway, no error messages. The VisibleChanged
event fires twice once when I set the value and again immediately after the
Form_Load event, this second time the value of me.Visible is true.

I have tried putting the code in various events but I get a rather annoying
"flash" of the form before it disappears.

for example

Dim bFirst as boolean = true
Private Sub Form_Paint(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As
System.Windows.Forms.PaintEventArgs) Handles MyBase.Paint
if bFirst then
bFirst = false
me.Visible = false
end if
End Sub


Does anyone have any ideas?

Martin

 

[Martin G. Brown]

I do apologise for my last post. I had missed that fact that the exact same
question had been asked and answered before.

The answer seems to lie in using a minimized form with the show in task bar
property set to false.

Martin

 

[Rhett Gong]

Hi Martin:
Your question is similar with the following issue:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=zh-CN&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=Btf0Q
wCnDHA.1548%40cpmsftngxa06.phx.gbl&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522Ying-Shen%
2522%2BWindowState%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26hl%3Dzh-CN

Best regards,

Rhett Gong [MSFT]
Microsoft Online Partner Support
Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

I am trying to write a system tray application. I want it to have an
invisible window when it loads, with just an icon in the bottom right of the
screen.

I have placed the following line in the Form_Load event but it doesn't seem
to work.

me.Visible = false

The form just gets displayed anyway, no error messages. The VisibleChanged
event fires twice once when I set the value and again immediately after the
Form_Load event, this second time the value of me.Visible is true.

I have tried putting the code in various events but I get a rather annoying
"flash" of the form before it disappears.

In addition to the other posts:

The form will be shown directly after the 'Load' event.

 

[Chris Dunaway]

I am trying to write a system tray application. I want it to have an
invisible window when it loads, with just an icon in the bottom right of the
screen.

Instead of using a form, start the app using a component class. Add a
component to your application and put the icon and optionally a context
menu on that. Then create a shared sub main in that component and use that
as the start up.

HTH

 

[Martin Brown]

I have been trying to get this to work, however the Application.Run method
won't take a component class as an argument. I guess that I am just missing
something, would it be possible for you to give an example that we could
look at?

Martin

 

[Martin G. Brown]

I have finally cracked it.

All you have to do is to create your form before calling Application.Run.
Then when you want the application to end you call Application.End.

So...

[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
Application.Run(new Magnifier());
}

becomes...

[STAThread]
static void Main()
{
Magnifier m = new Magnifier();
m.Visible = false;
m.Activate();
Application.Run();
}

With the addition of something like this...

private void menuExit_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Application.Exit();
}

the whole thing starts to fall into place.

For a slightly longer explanation see:
http://www.mgbrown.com/2003_11_02_MGBlogArchive.asp#106806083681987263

Martin G. Brown
http://www.mgbrown.com