I want to write a small program that will display a status icon in the 
system tray and pop up small messages in the corner of the screen. [It 
is critical that these do *not* take the input focus. Can you imagine 
how *annoying* that would be?]

Any suggestions as to how to pull this off? Personally I don't know of a 
programming language that makes it easy to do this kind of thing.

[Obviously everything is possible in C, if you can figure out your way 
around the low-level Win32 API... But that doesn't sound like my idea of 
a good time.]

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> I want to write a small program that will display a status icon in the 
> system tray and pop up small messages in the corner of the screen. [It 
> is critical that these do *not* take the input focus. Can you imagine 
> how *annoying* that would be?]
> 
> Any suggestions as to how to pull this off? Personally I don't know of a 
> programming language that makes it easy to do this kind of thing.
> 
> [Obviously everything is possible in C, if you can figure out your way 
> around the low-level Win32 API... But that doesn't sound like my idea of 
> a good time.]

Check out the "Shell_NotifyIcon" function from shell32.dll.

Details on the msdn here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa922175.aspx

And I'm sure lots of other results from google.

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> Details on the msdn here:
> 
> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa922175.aspx

Oops that was for CE/Mobile. Here's the one for XP/Vista:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa922175.aspx

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scott wrote:

>> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa922175.aspx
> 
>  http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa922175.aspx

Uh... Scott, honey... you wanna re-check that? ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> Uh... Scott, honey... you wanna re-check that? ;-)

Stupid Ctrl-C not working in Firefox ;-)

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762159(VS.85).aspx

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scott wrote:
>> Uh... Scott, honey... you wanna re-check that? ;-)
> 
> Stupid Ctrl-C not working in Firefox ;-)

Oh sure, whatever. ;-)

> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762159(VS.85).aspx

Thanks.

Hmm... looks pretty complicated. And presumably I'm going to need the 
header files and stuff - not to mention a C compiler. Gee, it could take 
me quite a while to figure this stuff out... :-S

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb762159(VS.85).aspx
>
> Thanks.
>
> Hmm... looks pretty complicated. And presumably I'm going to need the 
> header files and stuff - not to mention a C compiler. Gee, it could take 
> me quite a while to figure this stuff out... :-S

I'm sure you can use some other language that allows access to DLLs?

Here is the extract from shellapi.h that should give you the layout of the 
data structures in memory and the constants (it includes two different 
versions for unicode and non-unicode):

////
//// Tray notification definitions
////

typedef struct _NOTIFYICONDATAA {
        DWORD cbSize;
        HWND hWnd;
        UINT uID;
        UINT uFlags;
        UINT uCallbackMessage;
        HICON hIcon;
        CHAR   szTip[64];
} NOTIFYICONDATAA, *PNOTIFYICONDATAA;
typedef struct _NOTIFYICONDATAW {
        DWORD cbSize;
        HWND hWnd;
        UINT uID;
        UINT uFlags;
        UINT uCallbackMessage;
        HICON hIcon;
        WCHAR  szTip[64];
} NOTIFYICONDATAW, *PNOTIFYICONDATAW;
#ifdef UNICODE
typedef NOTIFYICONDATAW NOTIFYICONDATA;
typedef PNOTIFYICONDATAW PNOTIFYICONDATA;
#else
typedef NOTIFYICONDATAA NOTIFYICONDATA;
typedef PNOTIFYICONDATAA PNOTIFYICONDATA;
#endif // UNICODE


#define NIM_ADD         0x00000000
#define NIM_MODIFY      0x00000001
#define NIM_DELETE      0x00000002

#define NIF_MESSAGE     0x00000001
#define NIF_ICON        0x00000002
#define NIF_TIP         0x00000004

WINSHELLAPI BOOL WINAPI Shell_NotifyIconA(DWORD dwMessage, PNOTIFYICONDATAA 
lpData);
WINSHELLAPI BOOL WINAPI Shell_NotifyIconW(DWORD dwMessage, PNOTIFYICONDATAW 
lpData);
#ifdef UNICODE
#define Shell_NotifyIcon  Shell_NotifyIconW
#else
#define Shell_NotifyIcon  Shell_NotifyIconA
#endif // !UNICODE

////
//// End Tray Notification Icons
////

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Invisible wrote:
> I want to write a small program that will display a status icon in the 
> system tray and pop up small messages in the corner of the screen. [It 
> is critical that these do *not* take the input focus. Can you imagine 
> how *annoying* that would be?]
> 
> Any suggestions as to how to pull this off? Personally I don't know of a 
> programming language that makes it easy to do this kind of thing.
> 
> [Obviously everything is possible in C, if you can figure out your way 
> around the low-level Win32 API... But that doesn't sound like my idea of 
> a good time.]
> 


This, too if you'd prefer to use VB or C#:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.notifyicon.aspx

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Mike Raiford wrote:

> This, too if you'd prefer to use VB or C#:

Well, that looks a little easier. I'd still have to install the entire 
.NET framework just for this tiny application, but at least I don't need 
to worry about causing segfaults in J#...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Invisible wrote:
> I want to write a small program that will display a status icon in the 
> system tray and pop up small messages in the corner of the screen. [It 
> is critical that these do *not* take the input focus. Can you imagine 
> how *annoying* that would be?]
> 
> Any suggestions as to how to pull this off? Personally I don't know of a 
> programming language that makes it easy to do this kind of thing.
> 
> [Obviously everything is possible in C, if you can figure out your way 
> around the low-level Win32 API... But that doesn't sound like my idea of 
> a good time.]
> 

Using C#:

Start a Windows project.  Open the default form in design mode.  Open 
the Toolbox, grab a NotifyIcon, and drop it on the form.  Look through 
the properties, events, and methods (all very standard Windows stuff) 
and see if what you need is in there.  Note that, while the Help file is 
fairly useful, Object Browser is your friend.  ;)

(I'm using Visual Studio 2005 Pro...don't know if there's any difference 
in the Express version or not.)

Is this at all useful?

--Sherry Shaw


-- 
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}//                                   TenMoons

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