Click here to Skip to main content
15,868,141 members
Articles / Desktop Programming / MFC

Taskbar Notification Dialog

Rate me:
Please Sign up or sign in to vote.
4.94/5 (67 votes)
11 Jul 20023 min read 676.7K   18.7K   329   185
A MSN IM-style popup notification dialog

Image 1

Introduction

A few weeks ago, I saw an MSN messenger popup class on CodeProject written by Prateek Kaul. Since I needed a taskbar popup with skin support, I decided to write my own new class.

This is my first submission to Codeproject, since I think my code begins to be mature enough to be posted.

Compatibility

This class needs MFC to be either statically or dynamically linked in your project; it has been written, compiled and tested under Visual Studio .NET (but should work with VC6).

How to Use the Class

The class is very easy to use: Just add TaskbarNotifier.h and TaskbarNotifier.cpp into your project, then include TaskbarNotifier.h into your application, add a CTaskbarNotifier member variable in the header file of your Dialog or Window class.

In the OnInitDialog or OnCreate member functions, add the following lines:

C++
m_wndTaskbarNotifier.Create(this);
m_wndTaskbarNotifier.SetSkin(IDB_MY_BITMAP_RESOURCE);
m_wndTaskbarNotifier.SetTextFont("Arial",90,TN_TEXT_NORMAL,TN_TEXT_UNDERLINE);
m_wndTaskbarNotifier.SetTextColor(RGB(0,0,0),RGB(0,0,200));
m_wndTaskbarNotifier.SetTextRect(CRect(10,40,m_wndTaskbarNotifier1.m_nSkinWidth-10,
                                 m_wndTaskbarNotifier1.m_nSkinHeight-25));

Then when you want to show the popup animation, just call anywhere m_wndTaskNotifier.Show("Text to display"); this will show the animation of the window appearing and then disappearing. You can call again the Show() method whenever you want. If the popup was still here, the text is just replaced, if it was disappearing, it maximizes again.

Be sure not to allocate the CTaskbarNotifier each time you want to show a message, because the skinning function takes a little CPU time to generate the region used to make a non rectangular window.

Class Documentation

C++
int Create(CWnd *pWndParent);

Creates the popup window which remains hidden until Show() is called.

C++
BOOL SetSkin(UINT nBitmapID,short red=-1,short green=-1,short blue=-1);
BOOL SetSkin(LPCTSTR szFileName,short red=-1,short green=-1,short blue=-1);

Those two functions assign a skin to the popup, they take as parameter either a Bitmap resource ID or the path of a bitmap file.

The optional parameters are the RGB values for the transparency color for the bitmap. Use these parameters only if you want a non rectangular window; if these parameters are left blank, no Region is created.

C++
void SetTextFont(LPCTSTR szFont,int nSize,int nNormalStyle,int nSelectedStyle);

This function permits to specify the Font used for displaying the text (two styles are possible, one for the normal state and one when the mouse is over the window)

nNormalStyle or nSelectedStyle can be one or a combination of these parameters:

  • TN_TEXT_NORMAL
  • TN_TEXT_BOLD
  • TN_TEXT_ITALIC
  • TN_TEXT_UNDERLINE
C++
void SetTextColor(COLORREF crNormalTextColor,COLORREF crSelectedTextColor);

This function sets the color of the text when in normal or selected state.

C++
void SetTextRect(RECT rcText);

This function allows to define a rectangle within the bitmap which will be the clipping zone for displaying the text.

C++
void Show(LPCTSTR szCaption,DWORD dwTimeToShow=800,DWORD dwTimeToStay=3000,
           DWORD dwTimeToHide=500,int nIncrement=1);

Displays the popup window animation:

  • szCaption: Text to display
  • dwTimeToShow: Duration in milliseconds for the popup to be fully visible
  • dwTimeToStay: Duration in milliseconds for the popup to be stay visible
  • dwTimeToHide: Time in millisecond for the popup to completely disappear
  • nIncrement: Pixel increment for moving the window during the animation (the higher, the faster)

Show can be called even if the popup is already visible, being hiding or showing.

C++
void Hide();

Manually hides the popup.

Additional Notes

When the user clicks on the popup, a message is being sent to its parent window (WM_TASKBARNOTIFIERCLICKED defined in TaskbarNotifier.h), you can intercept it by adding in your Message Map macro:

C++
ON_MESSAGE(WM_TASKBARNOTIFIERCLICKED,OnTaskbarNotifierClicked)

The fact I'm not releasing the HRGN handle is because when you call SetWindowRgn() function, the GDI takes care of the object deletion.

Conclusion

Thanks to Prateek Kaul whose code inspired me to write this class and to Vander Nunes for his article about skinning a window.

I hope this class will be useful to you, if you find any memory or GDI leaks, please let me know. If you have suggestions to enhance the functionalities of this class, please post a comment.

License

This article has no explicit license attached to it, but may contain usage terms in the article text or the download files themselves. If in doubt, please contact the author via the discussion board below.

A list of licenses authors might use can be found here.


Written By
Web Developer
United States United States
I live in Santa Clara CA and work as a software engineer for SAP Business Objects.

My areas of expertise are user interface developments in Eclipse RCP / SWT / Draw 2D and C#

Comments and Discussions

 
GeneralThank you for your great work Pin
Member 4350345-Sep-03 2:20
Member 4350345-Sep-03 2:20 
GeneralRe: Thank you for your great work Pin
John O'Byrne5-Sep-03 6:55
John O'Byrne5-Sep-03 6:55 
QuestionHow to make the notifation dialog stackable Pin
Member 14430918-Aug-03 0:46
Member 14430918-Aug-03 0:46 
AnswerRe: How to make the notifation dialog stackable Pin
John O'Byrne18-Aug-03 6:59
John O'Byrne18-Aug-03 6:59 
Generalquestion Pin
billow_boy16-Jun-03 16:13
billow_boy16-Jun-03 16:13 
GeneralRe: question Pin
John O'Byrne18-Aug-03 6:56
John O'Byrne18-Aug-03 6:56 
Generalreally nice work but how too Pin
iffi99230-May-03 3:25
iffi99230-May-03 3:25 
GeneralRe: really nice work but how too Pin
John O'Byrne31-May-03 22:42
John O'Byrne31-May-03 22:42 
GeneralJohn - Off Topic Pin
Brian Delahunty13-Apr-03 5:12
Brian Delahunty13-Apr-03 5:12 
GeneralRe: John - Off Topic Pin
John O'Byrne13-Apr-03 5:16
John O'Byrne13-Apr-03 5:16 
GeneralRe: John - Off Topic Pin
Brian Delahunty13-Apr-03 5:20
Brian Delahunty13-Apr-03 5:20 
QuestionProblem? Pin
Jump_Around21-Mar-03 2:13
Jump_Around21-Mar-03 2:13 
AnswerRe: Problem? Pin
John O'Byrne21-Mar-03 4:59
John O'Byrne21-Mar-03 4:59 
GeneralRe: Problem? Pin
Anonymous21-Mar-03 5:42
Anonymous21-Mar-03 5:42 
GeneralRe: Problem? Pin
Anonymous21-Mar-03 5:50
Anonymous21-Mar-03 5:50 
GeneralRe: Problem? Pin
John O'Byrne21-Mar-03 5:51
John O'Byrne21-Mar-03 5:51 
GeneralDual Monitor Issue Pin
Keith Rule11-Feb-03 11:55
professionalKeith Rule11-Feb-03 11:55 
GeneralCool code with a minor gotcha Pin
Keith Rule12-Dec-02 13:59
professionalKeith Rule12-Dec-02 13:59 
GeneralRe: Cool code with a minor gotcha Pin
John O'Byrne15-Dec-02 2:54
John O'Byrne15-Dec-02 2:54 
GeneralAlterniative: www.tooltips.net Pin
Chopper22-Oct-02 11:18
Chopper22-Oct-02 11:18 
GeneralClickety Police! Pin
David Stone22-Oct-02 11:27
sitebuilderDavid Stone22-Oct-02 11:27 
GeneralDoes Not Display Before Calling DoModal Pin
Jeff Elmore12-Aug-02 11:46
Jeff Elmore12-Aug-02 11:46 
GeneralRe: Does Not Display Before Calling DoModal Pin
John O'Byrne12-Aug-02 12:06
John O'Byrne12-Aug-02 12:06 
GeneralRe: Does Not Display Before Calling DoModal Pin
Jeff Elmore13-Aug-02 4:18
Jeff Elmore13-Aug-02 4:18 
GeneralRe: Does Not Display Before Calling DoModal Pin
Jeff Elmore13-Aug-02 4:34
Jeff Elmore13-Aug-02 4:34 

General General    News News    Suggestion Suggestion    Question Question    Bug Bug    Answer Answer    Joke Joke    Praise Praise    Rant Rant    Admin Admin   

Use Ctrl+Left/Right to switch messages, Ctrl+Up/Down to switch threads, Ctrl+Shift+Left/Right to switch pages.