NotifyIcon Component Overview (Windows Forms)
The Windows Forms NotifyIcon component is typically used to display icons for processes that run in the background and do not show a user interface much of the time. An example would be a virus protection program that can be accessed by clicking an icon in the status notification area of the taskbar.
Key Properties of NotifyIcons
Each NotifyIcon component displays a single icon in the status area. If you have three background processes and wish to display an icon for each, you must add three NotifyIcon components to the form. The key properties of the NotifyIcon component are Icon and Visible. The Icon property sets the icon that appears in the status area. In order for the icon to appear, the Visible property must be set to true.
If you are using Visual Studio 2005, you have access to a large library of standard images that you can use with the NotifyIcon control. For more information, see Visual Studio Image Library.
NotifyIcons Options
You can associate balloon tips, shortcut menus, and ToolTips with a NotifyIcon to assist the user.
You can display balloon tips for a NotifyIcon by calling the ShowBalloonTip method specifying the time span you wish the balloon tip to display. You can also specify the text, icon and title of the balloon tip with the BalloonTipText, BalloonTipIcon and BalloonTipTitle, respectively. NotifyIcon components can also have associated ToolTips and shortcut menus. For more information, see ToolTip Component Overview (Windows Forms) and ContextMenu Component Overview (Windows Forms).