Creating a Popup Balloon like Windows Messenger or AVG

Question

How can I create a Popup balloon like you would see from Windows Messenger or AVG or Norton or whomever?

I want it to show the information, and then slide away after a few seconds.

Edit: It needs to be blocking like Form.ShowDialog() because the program exits after displaying the notification

Answer 1

You can use the notifyIcon control that's part of .NET 2.0 System.Windows.Forms. That allows you to place an icon for your application in the System Tray. Then, you can call the ShowBalloonTip(int timeOut) method on that. Be sure however to first set the text, and icon properties on the notifyIcon for it to work. Small code sample:

private void button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.notifyIcon1.BalloonTipText = "Whatever";
            this.notifyIcon1.BalloonTipTitle = "Title";
            this.notifyIcon1.Icon = new Icon("icon.ico");
            this.notifyIcon1.Visible = true;
            this.notifyIcon1.ShowBalloonTip(3);
        }

EDIT: Ok, so notifyIcon won't work for you. My second suggestion would then be to create your own control for this. Actually, I would use a form. A simple form, with no borders, and no control box and just have a timer running so you can set the Opacity for fade in/out. Then, you can easily get the bottom right of the screen using the Rectangle Screen.PrimaryScreen.WorkingArea. Then just show your form at that position.

Answer 2

Don't create a modal (blocking) balloon. Please. A big part of the design of these UIs is that they are not dialogs: they're transient, potentially non-interactive elements, intended to provide incidental information to a user without necessarily interrupting their workflow. A balloon that steals focus and blocks user input would be irritating at best - if you need a dialog, then use a dialog.

Answer 3

You might want to look at this article http://www.codeproject.com/KB/miscctrl/RobMisNotifyWindow.aspx which has code to display an MSN Messenger-like notification window

Answer 4

The .NET 1.1 Visual Basic Power Pack had a toaster control.