How to flash the desktop when I'm receiving an email ?

Question

Hi,

I'm developing a email client and I want the screen to flash briefly when I receive a mail. I searched anywhere I could in .NET documentation, but the only way I found to achieve it was to use DirectX functions which is of course impossible : I don't want my users to install DirectX only for a mail client :)

Is there a way to do this only with GDI ?

Thanks

Answer 1

I'm not sure exactly what kind of flash effect you're looking for, but you could achive this by briefly showing a full-screen semi-transparent form -- see the Opacity property.

Answer 2

Fortunately, there is no way for an application to do this sort of annoying thing. Your program should use the notification area for notifying users of events and/or status changes.

Check out the WPF Notification Area example to see how you can use this in a WPF application...

Answer 3

There's a good reason functionality like this isn't built into Windows. Displaying large flashing rectangles is prone to induce seizures in people that suffer from photosensitive epilepsy.

Don't do this.