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NotifyWindow: A different MSN Messenger style notification window

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2 Aug 2004Public Domain2 min read 466.7K   10.2K   213   112
Another MSN Messenger-like notification window, this one does its own drawing

Introduction

NotifyWindow displays an MSN Messenger-like notification window. If you want to display your own images in the notification window, you may prefer to use John O'Byrne's TaskbarNotifer. NotifyWindow may be easier to use if you just intend to display text. Animations are used in opening and closing the NotifyWindow, and the window is displayed TopMost while not stealing focus. The window will be shown for a default of 11 seconds, although this can be changed. NotifyWindow does all of its own drawing, so no extra image files are required.

Using the code

It is pretty simple to display text using NotifyWindow.

C#
// Display the text "This is a sample NotifyWindow"
NotifyWindow nw = new NotifyWindow ("This is a sample NotifyWindow");
nw.Notify();

// The following two lines of code will display a window that 
// looks exactly like the one shown at the beginning of this article.
NotifyWindow nw = new NotifyWindow ("NotifyWindow", 
  "This is a sample notification created with NotifyWindow");
nw.Notify();

If desired, a variety of other options can be changed - such as fonts and colors. The included TestNotifyWindow application will let you play around with a few of the settings, but the code displayed here should serve as a more complete reference.

C#
NotifyWindow nw = new NotifyWindow();

nw.Text = "This is the NotifyWindow text";
nw.Title = "Title Text";

// Change the background style.  Other valid 
// styles are Solid, VerticalGradient,
// HorizontalGradient and BackwardDiagonalGradient  
// (Default: VerticalGradient)
nw.BackgroundStyle = NotifyWindow.BackgroundStyles.ForwardDiagonalGradient;

// Change the background colors  
// (Default: BackColor=SteelBlue, GradientColor=WhiteSmoke)
nw.BackColor = Color.SpringGreen;
nw.GradientColor = Color.White;

// Change the text and title colors.  (Default: ControlText)
nw.TextColor = Color.Blue;
nw.TitleColor = Color.Black;

// Change the color displayed when the text is pressed.  (Default: Gray)
nw.PressedColor = Color.Red;

// Use non-default fonts.  If TitleFont is not set 
// by the user, nw.Font will be used.
nw.Font = new Font ("Tahoma", 8.25F);
nw.TitleFont = new Font ("Tahoma", 8.25F, FontStyle.Bold);

// Change NotifyWindow size.  (Default: 130, 110)
nw.SetDimensions (nwWidth, nwHeight);

// Do not close the NotifyWindow if the mouse 
// cursor is over the window.  (Default: true)
nw.WaitOnMouseOver = true;

// Set up an EventHandler to be called if the text or title are clicked.
nw.TextClicked += new System.EventHandler (nwTextClicked);
nw.TitleClicked += new System.EventHandler (nwTitleClicked);

// Display the window for 20 seconds, or 20000ms.  (Default: 11000ms)
nw.WaitTime = 20000;

// Now show the NotifyWindow.
nw.Notify();

This is how the NotifyWindow created with the above code will look:

Programmers can also use their own Blend (for the background) or StringFormat (which will be used when Text and Title are drawn) if desired by setting the nw.Blend and nw.StringFormat variables.

Points of Interest

NotifyWindow is unique because it does all of its own drawing. The background is drawn using Graphics.FillRectangle with either a LinearGradientBrush (default) or a SolidBrush. The borders are drawn using a series of calls to Graphics.DrawRectangle and Graphics.DrawLine. On Windows XP or higher systems with Visual Styles enabled, the close button is drawn using DrawThemeBackground() from UxTheme.dll - otherwise, ControlPaint.DrawCaptionButton is used.

An obstacle faced in both this and similar applications has been displaying the window on top without stealing focus. Both Form.Show() and setting TopMost = true individually activate the form, which steals focus. We get around this by calling ShowWindow() and SetWindowPos() with arguments instructing the operating system not to activate the window.

C#
const Int32 HWND_TOPMOST = -1;
const Int32 SWP_NOACTIVATE = 0x0010;
const Int32 SW_SHOWNOACTIVATE = 4;
[DllImport ("user32.dll")]
protected static extern bool ShowWindow (IntPtr hWnd, Int32 flags);
[DllImport ("user32.dll")]
protected static extern bool SetWindowPos (IntPtr hWnd, 
  Int32 hWndInsertAfter, Int32 X, Int32 Y, Int32 cx, Int32 cy, uint uFlags);

...

// Show the window without activating it.
ShowWindow (this.Handle, SW_SHOWNOACTIVATE);

// Equivalent to setting TopMost = true, except don't activate the window.
SetWindowPos (this.Handle, HWND_TOPMOST, Left, Top, Width, Height, SWP_NOACTIVATE);

A similar NotifyWindow class was originally implemented for an open-source project called ChronosXP. When it became apparant that others might like to use this code outside of that project, it was modified, removing the ChronosXP-specific parts and making it more generic.

A class called NotifyWindow2000 is included with the distribution that will display the NotifyWindow indefinitely until there is mouse or keyboard activity, similar to balloon windows. It uses SetWindowsHookEx() with WH_KEYBOARD_LL/WH_MOUSE_LL to detect user activity, so it will only work with Windows 2000 or higher. If anyone knows how to do this on older versions of Windows I would like to hear about it.

History

  • Initial coding: July 28, 2004

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under A Public Domain dedication


Written By
Architect Onestop Internet
United States United States
Web architect and PM, in the E-commerce space.

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralGood work Pin
John O'Byrne3-Aug-04 5:53
John O'Byrne3-Aug-04 5:53 
GeneralNice Pin
attackweasel3-Aug-04 3:09
attackweasel3-Aug-04 3:09 
GeneralRe: Nice Pin
Robert Misiak4-Aug-04 11:29
professionalRobert Misiak4-Aug-04 11:29 
GeneralRe: Nice Pin
Robert Misiak10-Aug-04 0:23
professionalRobert Misiak10-Aug-04 0:23 
GeneralRe: Nice Pin
mikasa11-Aug-04 8:58
mikasa11-Aug-04 8:58 
GeneralRe: Nice Pin
Robert Misiak13-Aug-04 2:03
professionalRobert Misiak13-Aug-04 2:03 
GeneralRe: Nice Pin
mikasa13-Aug-04 3:44
mikasa13-Aug-04 3:44 
GeneralRe: Nice Pin
afinnell13-Aug-04 11:49
afinnell13-Aug-04 11:49 
Here's a simple but elegant solution.

Use Case: Determing stacking

1) Allow the user to select a group property to determine what
   group a notify belongs to. This will determine internally if
   the window should be stacked or not.

2) All notify windows in a process are concidered part of the same group.
   This may make more sense as there is only a single desktop per say. When
   would you want a notify window to eclipse another notify window in the
   same app?

Use Case: Managing Stacking

* When showing the window do the following in the show method
-------------------------------------------------------------

    1) Obtain the current manager for the current window group

    2) Obtain the current window position and set it for the
    notify window

    3) Update the current window position in the manager

    4) Show the window


* When the window goes away
---------------------------

    1) Update the current window position to reflect the window
        being removed so that new windows won't have to
        do any calculations


The code is below. However there is a problem. The NotifyWindowManagers are a memory leak
because they will not remove themselves from the hash table. You could remove the manager
when you remove the last window from the manager. This would require a new manager be
created again if a new notify window is created though. Trade off of memory vs. speed.

If the notifies are to be called from multiple threads you will need to synch the
calls.

Psuedo Code (meaning typed off the top of my head without thought for error or completeness)
<code>
class NotifyWindow
{
    void ShowWindow ()
    {
        NotifyWindowManager mgr = 
            NotifyWindowManager.getInstance(this.Group)  
        mgr.ManageWindow (this);

        this.Show()
    }
}

class NotifyWindowManager
{
    public static NotifyWindowManager GetInstance(Object group)
    {
        if(!managers.Contains(group))
        {
            managers.Add(group, new NotifyWindowManager());
        }
        return (NotifyWindowManager)managers.Get(group);
    }

    public void ManageWindow(NotifyWindow window)
    {
        managedWindows.Add(window);
        window.Closed += new EventHandler (OnWindowClosed);
        window.Bottom = NextAvailablePosition;
        NextAvailablePosition -= window.Height;
    }

    public void OnWindowClosed(NotifyWindow closedWindow)
    {
        NextAvailablePosition += window.Height;

        managedWindows.Remove (closedWindow);

        
        /// You might update the remaining windows 
        /// to fall back into place here.
    }

    private static HashTable managers;
    private ArrayList managedWindows;
}
</code>










-
Andrew T Finnell
Active Solutions LLC
andrew@activesol.net
GeneralCool Pin
leppie3-Aug-04 1:11
leppie3-Aug-04 1:11 

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