CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c#winforms
jstuardo
jstuardo

Reputation: 4414

How to show a window on top of all windows of the same application

I have a SplashScreen that should be shown in front of all other windows in the application.

Since it is a SplashScreen, this cannot be modal dialog. Instead, this should be shown by mean of other thread.

I create the splash screen this way:

            SplashScreenForm = new SplashScreen(mainForm);
            // SplashScreenForm.TopMost = true;

And to show it, I am using this call, called from a different thread:

Application.Run(SplashScreenForm);

If I uncomment SplashScreenForm.TopMost = true, the splash is shown on top of other windows, even on top of windows belonging to different applications.

If you want to know how the thread is created:

    public void ShowSplashScreen()
    {
        SplashScreenThread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(ShowForm));
        SplashScreenThread.IsBackground = true;
        SplashScreenThread.Name = "SplashScreenThread";
        SplashScreenThread.Start();
    }

    private static void ShowForm()
    {
        Application.Run(SplashScreenForm);
    }

How can I do it?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 390

Answers (2)

TomServo
TomServo

Reputation: 7409

Something like:

static void Main()
{
    Application.EnableVisualStyles();
    Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);

    Thread splashThread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(
        delegate
        {
            splashForm = new SplashForm();
            Application.Run(splashForm);
        }
        ));

    splashThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
    splashThread.Start();

    // Load main form and do lengthy operations
    MainForm mainForm = new MainForm();
    mainForm.Load += new EventHandler(mainForm_Load);
    Application.Run(mainForm);
}

Then later after time-consuming operations are ended:

static void mainForm_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
    if (splashForm == null)
        return;
    splashForm.Invoke(new Action(splashForm.Close));
    splashForm.Dispose();
    splashForm = null;
}

This will start your splash screen before your main form and only dismiss it when the lengthy operations are completed in mainForm_Load.

Upvotes: 1

mrogal.ski
mrogal.ski

Reputation: 5930

You can try calling function SetForegroundWindow(HWND) from WinAPI :

[DllImport("user32.dll")]
[return: MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.Bool)]
static extern bool SetForegroundWindow(IntPtr hWnd);

// somewhere in the code :
SetForegroundWindow(SplashScreenForm.Handle);

Upvotes: 0

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