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An Office 2003-like popup notifier

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4.71/5 (58 votes)
23 Mar 2006CPOL1 min read 315.9K   7.1K   182   113
A nice little control to help the user notice you're trying to tell him something...

Image 1

Introduction

This is a simple project, a control that mimics the Microsoft® Outlook® 2003 mail alert.

Features

This control has several features. Among them, you'll find:

Image 2

Progressive appearance - transparency

Image 3

MSN Messenger like pop-ups (any size, color, etc.)

Image 4

Another sample

This control is 100% drawn in the code, there is absolutely no other dependencies than System.Drawing and System.Windows.Forms.

You can include a ContextMenuStrip when clicking on the "down arrow" button.

Using the code

The controls is made of two basic classes:

  • A form (the part that will actually show up).
  • A class that contains all the properties that will be includable on forms.

The class contains two timers, one used for the appearing/disappearing animation, the other (configurable) is used to define how much time the popup is shown before it disappears.

This is how the form is actually shown:

VB
fPopup.Size = Size
fPopup.Opacity = 0
fPopup.Location = _
  New Point(Screen.PrimaryScreen.WorkingArea.Right_
   - fPopup.Size.Width - 1, _
   Screen.PrimaryScreen.WorkingArea.Bottom)
fPopup.Show()

The form is does the drawing in the Paint event.

I'm using these functions to obtain a color that is similar but lighter/darker. There might exist another method.

VB
Private Function GetDarkerColor(ByVal Color As Color) As Color
    Dim clNew As Color
    clNew = Drawing.Color.FromArgb(255, DedValueMin0(CInt(Color.R), _
            Parent.GradientPower), DedValueMin0(CInt(Color.G), _
            Parent.GradientPower), DedValueMin0(CInt(Color.B), _
            Parent.GradientPower))
    Return clNew
End Function

And to avoid flickering...

VB
Me.SetStyle(ControlStyles.OptimizedDoubleBuffer, True)
Me.SetStyle(ControlStyles.ResizeRedraw, True)
Me.SetStyle(ControlStyles.AllPaintingInWmPaint, True)

Points of Interest

None really, it's nice, it's fun, it's colorful... that's it :)

History

  • March 2006 - V 1.0.

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)


Written By
Software Developer (Senior)
Switzerland Switzerland
This member has not yet provided a Biography. Assume it's interesting and varied, and probably something to do with programming.

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralAnimation Delay Pin
Danilo Corallo27-Mar-06 21:18
Danilo Corallo27-Mar-06 21:18 
GeneralRe: Animation Delay Pin
Nicolas Wälti27-Mar-06 22:06
Nicolas Wälti27-Mar-06 22:06 
Generalvery nice Pin
AnasHashki25-Mar-06 21:57
AnasHashki25-Mar-06 21:57 
GeneralRe: very nice Pin
Nicolas Wälti27-Mar-06 22:07
Nicolas Wälti27-Mar-06 22:07 
Generalits Amazing Pin
Sudhir Mangla23-Mar-06 18:56
professionalSudhir Mangla23-Mar-06 18:56 
GeneralRe: its Amazing Pin
Nicolas Wälti27-Mar-06 22:08
Nicolas Wälti27-Mar-06 22:08 
GeneralRe: its Amazing Pin
Moustafa Arafa15-May-06 21:13
Moustafa Arafa15-May-06 21:13 
GeneralHide Pin
o_pontios23-Mar-06 14:09
o_pontios23-Mar-06 14:09 
How do you hide it on the close button?

You'd have to expose the hide property of the form wouldn't you? Or is there another way i dont know about.
GeneralRe: Hide Pin
Nicolas Wälti24-Mar-06 3:44
Nicolas Wälti24-Mar-06 3:44 
GeneralRe: Hide Pin
HydroEric28-Mar-06 3:51
HydroEric28-Mar-06 3:51 
GeneralRe: Hide Pin
Nicolas Wälti28-Mar-06 5:57
Nicolas Wälti28-Mar-06 5:57 
GeneralRe: Hide Pin
CMTietgen10-Aug-06 15:01
CMTietgen10-Aug-06 15:01 
GeneralRe: Hide Pin
Davor K.27-Nov-08 7:30
Davor K.27-Nov-08 7:30 

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