Is there any way to make a Balloon Tip never close?

Question

My application is a monitor that may run in the background while the user is away, and its purpose is to visually alert the user when some changes have occurred. MessageBoxes seem a little obnoxious, so I figure a Balloon Tip will accomplish the task without messing with the focus in case they happen to be doing something.

Unfortunately, the thing requires a timeout parameter. I would like for it to stay indefinitely until the user closes it.

Is this possible?

Please read this http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2005/01/10/349894.aspx — Telmo Marques, Nov 22 '10 at 17:01
Have you tried values of `0` or `-1` for the `Timeout` property? — Nobody, Nov 22 '10 at 17:05
@rmx I believe it has a minimum value, so setting it to anything lower will make no difference. — Corey, Nov 22 '10 at 17:06
OK, worth a try. I seem to remember it working for me though. — Nobody, Nov 22 '10 at 17:07

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 22 '10 at 17:02

10

This is already taken care of by Windows. The timeout counter doesn't start ticking until it detects keyboard or mouse input. From the Remarks section of NotifyIcon.ShowBalloonTip:

In addition, if the user does not appear to be using the computer (no keyboard or mouse events are occurring) then the system does not count this time towards the timeout.

answered Nov 22 '10 at 17:02

Hans Passant

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Oh... I didn't notice that probably because I'm actively using my keyboard and mouse while testing it. So this means I don't need to do anything extra. Awesome! – Corey Nov 22 '10 at 17:05

Frédéric Hamidi · Answer 2 · 2010-11-22T17:27:06.147

1

As far as I can tell, it's not possible to specify an infinite timeout.

That said, if you set the timeout to Int32.MaxValue, the tooltip will wait for 2,147,484 seconds, i.e. roughly 25 days. Chances are that your user will have noticed the tooltip by then, or that he/she never will.

EDIT: @Hans Passant mentions a system setting that puts an upper bound on the timeout value, so... that probably won't work after all. His answer is better anyway.

edited Nov 22 '10 at 17:27

answered Nov 22 '10 at 17:06

Frédéric Hamidi

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Nope, it's milliseconds. And a system setting clips it to a maximum value, 30000 is the default afaik. – Hans Passant Nov 22 '10 at 17:21
@Hans, yes, 2,147,483,647 milliseconds, i.e. 2,147,484 seconds. I did not know about the upper bound though, thanks :) – Frédéric Hamidi Nov 22 '10 at 17:23

Is there any way to make a Balloon Tip never close?

2 Answers2