calling the user attention outside of app

Question

I want to create an alarm app for myself. On certain conditions (i need to poll websites) i want my app to inform me and make it HARD TO MISS. So i can take appropriate action or ignore it if i need to do something else.

I wrote a test app and using a BalloonTip (ShowBalloonTip with notifyIcon) isnt great. One of my previous apps brings the window in front of you and does a MessageBox however that doesnt always work or work well (if i somehow miss it or accidentally forget to click ok no futher messages will occur).

What are your suggestions?

Answer 1

Always-on-top window in the corner of the screen?

Answer 2

You could always set your window to be a top most window, make it full screen, and activate it. It would be very, very hard to miss...

Granted, it would also be very annoying, and not something I'd do to other users...

My "real" suggestion would be to use sound along with standard notification methods if this is going to be used by other people, as that's an easy way to grab attention without necessarily killing their workflow. A modeless window that appears in a corner of the screen, especially if combined with sound and color, can be very effective to grab attention.

Answer 3

You could also make it a system tray application and change the icon out if there is something which requires attention, a la a messenger application. That may not be "hard to miss" but I am trained (for better or worse) to look down at the icon tray when I see something blinking.

Answer 4

Where I work, we have a TimeTracker application (built in house) with which developers are supposed to log what we worked on and when. I am notorious for not using it. So, I wrote my own (Windows Forms) version for my own use which, every hour opens up and takes over my screen:

1. It is a frameless dialog which consumes the entire screen.

2. TopMost = True.

3. On resize, it sets WindowsState = Normal and resizes to fill the screen.

4. While it is open, it polls for taskmgr.exe and procexp.exe and kills them if found.

5. It disables the start menu to prevent cmd.exe commands from the menu in Windows 7.

6. The only way to close it is to enter a log, only then is the OK button shown!

So far, it's working out well - no one has been able to break it!

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My less drastic suggestion would be to have a notification which pops up momentarily above the system tray. After a second or two, fade it out. Keep showing the notification every 30 seconds or so until it is dismissed.

Answer 5

Hello,

The industry has been adopting these ambient orb devices and variations of it when such a hard-to-miss notification is required. It is used for tracking the stock-market and for broken-daily-builds.

http://www.ambientdevices.com/cat/orb/MAN%5FAmbient%20Orb%5F3-23-03.pdf

Regards