Flickering Task Bar on Full Screen Windows Mobile 6 Apps

Question

Just finishing off an update to an application written in VB.NET that used to run fine under CE.NET 4.2. Deployment platform is now Windows Mobile 6.1.

The application runs in full screen, however whenever a new form is opened, the task bar, i.e. the bar with the start button comes to the fore and then the new form takes over. This is particularly annoying as I have a form that has many sub forms which are 128,128 and still the task bar flashes and obscures part of the user input screen.

Has anyone comes across this? Any known workarounds?

Thanks

Colin

Answer 1

You can use the technique I posted here to disable the task bar.

Answer 2

I assume your application flow is something like:

1. Form 1 open.
2. Form 1 close.
3. Form 2 open.

The problem is that between the Form 1 closing and the Form 2 opening the background window may be partially drawn (e.g. the task bar will draw).

To work around this we normally create a parent window (which is your case is full-screen window) which sits behind the form windows. That way when one is closing and the next is opening it falls back to displaying the parent window which can display anything you like (blank?).