Modal forms and notification box

[Claire]

Hi,
I've a problem.
Our app has a main screen, a user logs in to the system using a smart card.
After login, several loops through a switch statement are performed to check
for certain conditions. One or more screens may be shown modally in
succession, finally ending in the user's work centre.The user is usually
encouraged to pull their card before reaching the work centre as this is
primarily a terminal (no keyboard/mouse) for logging in at reception.
I've been asked to add a notification to show the user that they have new
mail (one of the modules in the application) that they can see in the stages
prior to them hitting their work centre.
I thought of creating a small Topmost = true, non modal form that sits in
one of the corners of the screen. This works fine for displaying an alert,
but now the customer wants it clickable so that the user can skip screens
straight to their inbox.
The thought of trying to convert the main modal forms into non modal (yet
make them behave modally) is giving me nightmares, I can imagine the code
will become really messy and become unreliable.
Has anyone else come up against this? how did u overcome it?
I did think that my app could maybe run a small 2nd application just for
this screen, but I dont know if there'd be any security issues of one app
starting another with the OS. I've also not tried doing this so Im not sure
how easy it is to monitor and receive results from another app.

many thanks
Claire

[Marc Gravell]

Not sure how good an idea this is, but perhaps show the second form on a
separate thread? You'd need to think about how they talk to eachother (and
sync), but it seems to work...

Like I say, this might be madness... you'd need to test it...

Marc

static void Main()
{
Application.EnableVisualStyles();
using (Form mainForm = new Form())
using (Button btn = new Button())
{
mainForm.Controls.Add(btn);
btn.Text = "Pretend they're now logged in";
btn.Click += delegate
{
btn.Enabled = false; // only once ;-p
StartWhatever();
};
Application.Run(mainForm);
}
}
static void StartWhatever()
{
Thread thd = new Thread(ShowEmail);
thd.Name = "Email";
thd.IsBackground = true;
thd.Start();
}
static void ShowEmail()
{
using (Form f = new Form())
{
Application.Run(f);
}
}