Using Invoke with a UI element that extends Application Context?

Question

I have a taskBarIcon element extending Application Context from which my entire UI is designed. This is because the original functionality of the application was to run a background process and simply provide the icon as a confirmation that the app was running. However, I am now adding additional functionality in the form of a menu that may be accessed by right clicking the icon, and since the core functionality is running on one thread, and the icon on the main thread, I am having issues accessing the icon in the simple case of needing to display a notification bubble. There are no other points at which the two threads may be accessing the same memory, so synchronization is not really an issue.

I am used to Java, in which this process is far simpler. I've read the articles I can find regarding the Invoke-Delegate dance that C# requires, but none are specific to an object extending Application Context. My current implementation is far too unpredictable to be production safe.

My question is this: How do I send the message to the other process to display the notification bubble, without disturbing the accessibility of the menu? Specifically, a simple example with a UI class extending Application Context and a class on a separate thread calling the invoke method would be very helpful.

I really appreciate any help!

badPanda

Answer 1

You could just as well use a SynchronizationContext object that you assign to SynchronizationContext.Current on the same thread that you create the notification bubble. You would then pass your SynchronizationContext object into whatever component the menu is on and it would use context.Send(....) to send a message. Or, if you have access to the notification bubble component or the form it's on, you could do form.Invoke((MethodInvoker)delegate {....});