In my project I have a MessageBox that pops up from time to time.
When I'm playing a game and the MessageBox appears, the game is minimized and I'm back to the desktop.
This might depend from app to app, but this specific app/game minimizes when MessageBox appears.
How to avoid this behavior? Is there anything I can do to the MessageBox to make it lose focus/not activated ? I tried to look at the MessageBox methods but no luck.
It sounds like you want the message box to be able to display while the rest of your code is still running. Type of messagebox you are using is modal and needs to be closed until it allows you to interact with the other open window.
I suggest you start a new thread for the message box so that the thread can continue to run allowing you to be able to interact with the other windows.
Related
I have an WPF application which takes a little bit to start up, I have a SplashScreen which tells to the user to just wait for a bit till the application is completly loaded. So far so good.
The problem is the user (like always), and if he starts clicking desesperatly everywhere in the SplashScreen, he gets the typical Windows™ message saying "This program is not responding", in this messagebox he can choose to close the program, this will close another process where I make all the loading stuff, but not the WPF app. Then the WPF Application starts, but you cannot do anything on it. This behaviour doesnt happen if the user clicks just a couple of times.
So my questions are, Is it possible either to block this message from Windows™, either block the user interaction with the SplashScreen?
Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
Any slow processes should be in a separate thread to the GUI. This will keep the GUI responsive to user input.
BTW, if you display a progress bar (even a fake one that just moves 1% every second) the user should be more patient as they can see that the application hasn't crashed.
I have an application that monitors bit states from external socket/Ethernet connections, known as a PLC device.
These states trigger database calls and UI updates, some of which require Modal dialogs, others require Modeless dialogs.
The issue is that the process needs to continually monitor even when a Modal dialog is displayed.
I have tried using a DispatcherTimer, but this will block when a Modal dialog is displayed. I understand the reason why.
I tried a standard Timer, but I get an exception stating something like 'Some UI components require the thread to run in STA mode.'
So I create a standard Thread and set the ApartmetState to STA. The thread runs just fine after adding DispatcherInvoke around the part of the processing loop that requires UI interaction, but whenever a Modal dialog box is displayed, the thread is blocked until the Modal dialog is closed.
Now I really do not want to get into inter-thread messaging and over-complicating the whole thing.
I have also tried putting the Modal dialog into its own thread whenever a Modal dialog is needed. Everything works fine and it was almost acceptable, but the owner window of the application is still accessible, essentially making the Modal dialog a Modeless dialog. I tried setting the IsEnabled flag on the owner window and at first I thought that would be okay, but it is still active when clicked and hides the dialog.
Any suggestions?
I have solved the issue! I reverted back to a standard Timer and was able to get around not requiring STA mode; this reguired another judicial placement of Dispatcher.Invoke.
Now everything works as I expect.
How can I show a dialog message, similar to MessageBox, which have just the "Cancel" button and can be closed by the application.
The idea is to show the dialog while the application retrieves data from a server, allowing the user to cancel this request, and closing the dialog once the request is completed.
I recall having a very similar problem in the past. I don't think there is a dialog message "out of the box" that works like that. The way I solved this was by writing a class that modeled this sort of behavior in a window and having the application spawn an instance of the window.
The silverlight message box blocks code execution while it is open so it is not possible to close it. However you can use an XNA messagebox in Silverlight which is asynchronous
This explains its use in depth
You can probably then call EndShowMessageBox for your purposes.
if your intention is to let the user know that something is loading and that they should wait. you should use a progressbar instead.
How to: Create a Custom Indeterminate Progress Bar
I have an application where the taskbar flashes if an event has occurred. This is working perfectly, and was relatively easy to implement using a Win32 API described below:
http://blogs.x2line.com/al/archive/2008/04/19/3392.aspx
However, when I stop the flashing, sometimes the application is stuck in the "highlighted" state in the taskbar. This only gets reset by clicking on the application in the taskbar, minimizing it, then re-maximizing it. Is there a way to clear this from being highlighted without any user interaction?
Maybe instead of flashing it you could put an overlay icon on it - one line of code from C# with the Code Pack. Then when you want to clear it you could take the overlay icon away - again one line of code. Windows 7 only, however.
Can you post the code that you are using to "Stop" the flashing?
Have you also considered using a different flag such as:
// flash until the window comes to the foreground
FLASHW_TIMERNOFG = 12;
You will still need to click on the applicaiton to get the flash to stop, but you should not have to minimize then re-maximize the app to get the flash to stop.
You can include the FlashTaskbar snippet and use the following code
FlashWindow(Form.Handle, FlashMode.FLASHW_STOP)
I want to create an alarm app for myself. On certain conditions (i need to poll websites) i want my app to inform me and make it HARD TO MISS. So i can take appropriate action or ignore it if i need to do something else.
I wrote a test app and using a BalloonTip (ShowBalloonTip with notifyIcon) isnt great. One of my previous apps brings the window in front of you and does a MessageBox however that doesnt always work or work well (if i somehow miss it or accidentally forget to click ok no futher messages will occur).
What are your suggestions?
You could also make it a system tray application and change the icon out if there is something which requires attention, a la a messenger application. That may not be "hard to miss" but I am trained (for better or worse) to look down at the icon tray when I see something blinking.
Where I work, we have a TimeTracker application (built in house) with which developers are supposed to log what we worked on and when. I am notorious for not using it. So, I wrote my own (Windows Forms) version for my own use which, every hour opens up and takes over my screen:
It is a frameless dialog which consumes the entire screen.
TopMost = True.
On resize, it sets WindowsState = Normal and resizes to fill the screen.
While it is open, it polls for taskmgr.exe and procexp.exe and kills them if found.
It disables the start menu to prevent cmd.exe commands from the menu in Windows 7.
The only way to close it is to enter a log, only then is the OK button shown!
So far, it's working out well - no one has been able to break it!
My less drastic suggestion would be to have a notification which pops up momentarily above the system tray. After a second or two, fade it out. Keep showing the notification every 30 seconds or so until it is dismissed.
Always-on-top window in the corner of the screen?
You could always set your window to be a top most window, make it full screen, and activate it. It would be very, very hard to miss...
Granted, it would also be very annoying, and not something I'd do to other users...
My "real" suggestion would be to use sound along with standard notification methods if this is going to be used by other people, as that's an easy way to grab attention without necessarily killing their workflow. A modeless window that appears in a corner of the screen, especially if combined with sound and color, can be very effective to grab attention.
The industry has been adopting these ambient orb devices and variations of it when such a hard-to-miss notification is required. It is used for tracking the stock-market and for broken-daily-builds.
http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/MAN_Ambient%20Orb_3-23-03.pdf
Regards