Create a background / taskbar application in c# .NET

Recently, I was working on integration of two windows applications. First application will launch the second application on login and then they both will communicate using pre-defined set of instructions. There were some complications (I am not going into them) and thus we decided to have a third application which actually will act as mediator. First application will launch the mediator (third application) and it will launch the second application. For this purpose we needed to create a task bar application (which will run in background).

How To

·         Create a new windows project and delete the default form (Form1).

·         In Program.cs create a new class and inherit it from Form.

·         Please refer the code below.

·         Now change the Main method. In Application.Run change the startup object from Form1 to ApplicationStartUp.  

using System;

using System.Drawing;

using System.Windows.Forms;

using BackgroundApp.Properties;

namespace BackgroundApp

{

    static class Program

    {

        /// <summary>

        /// The main entry point for the application.

        /// </summary>

        [STAThread]

        static void Main()

        {

            Application.EnableVisualStyles();

            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);

            Application.Run(new ApplicationStartUp());

        }

    }

    public class ApplicationStartUp : Form

    {

        private NotifyIcon trayIcon;

        private ContextMenu trayMenu;

        private void InitializeComponent()

        {

            trayMenu = new ContextMenu();

            trayMenu.MenuItems.Add("Exit", OnExit);

            trayIcon = new NotifyIcon();

            trayIcon.Text = Resources.TrayIcon;

            trayIcon.Icon = new                            Icon(global::BackgroundApp.Properties.Resources.IntegratedServer, 40, 40);

            trayIcon.ContextMenu = trayMenu;

            trayIcon.Visible = true;

        }

       

        //Ctor

        public ApplicationStartUp()

        {

            InitializeComponent();

        }

        protected override void OnLoad(EventArgs e)

        {

            Visible = false;

            ShowInTaskbar = false;

            base.OnLoad(e);

        }

        private void OnExit(object sender, EventArgs e)

        {

            // Release the icon resource.

            trayIcon.Dispose();

            Application.Exit();

        }

        protected override void Dispose(bool isDisposing)

        {

            if (isDisposing)

            {

                // Release the icon resource.

                trayIcon.Dispose();

            }

            base.Dispose(isDisposing);

        }

    }

}