System modal messages/forms

[Greg Smith]

I have a user who likes to keep my application minimized. He wants to have
a pop up of some sort come up to tell him he needs to return to the
application to take action.

I have used both message boxes and forms as pop ups but if the application
is minimized it only comes up on the task bar. He wants to have system
modal warning that will pop up and over ride all other applications open.


Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]]

Greg,

That's actually very rude behavior for an application, and MS agrees,
which is why you can't create a system-modal dialog box, or have other forms
take focus when your app is in focus.

Quite frankly, I would tell your user to pay more attention, but being
that is not a viable option, I would recommend a notification tray icon,
which you can then change when the user has to be informed of a change.

Hope this helps.

 

[Paul E Collins]

I have a user who likes to keep my application minimized.
He wants to have a pop up of some sort come up to tell
him he needs to return to the application to take action.

If you want to show an obvious alert but don't need to display a
message, you can call FlashWindow (via System.Runtime.Interop) to make
the program's taskbar button flash.

Eq.

 

[d225563]

That's actually very rude behavior for an application, and MS agrees...

<bit of a rant>
If MS agrees, can we convince somebody to change Outlook to not pop up
a top most window in Outlook every time a login fails? I have three
different mailboxes and if one of them fails to retrieve on its five
minute check, I get a top most login box regardless of what application
I'm typing in. While not technically modal, it still hijacks your
active window at that moment. As others have said, a change in the
tray icon or flashing your taskbar entry is much more palateable.
</bit of a rant>

 

[Nicholas Paldino [.NET/C# MVP]]

I agree with you, it definitely shouldn't do that. The Office team
walks with a big stick in general in MS, if you know what I mean.