How to override windows notifications/balloons/popups/outlookreminders

[njuneardave]

I have a full-screen C# app, but windows notifications (the little
balloons on the bottom right-hand of the screen) and outlook reminders
will pop on top of my app. i want to prevent them from doing so.
does anyone know how?
thanks so much

[Peter Duniho]

On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 07:44:12 -0700, njuneardave <da**********@gmail.com>
wrote:

I have a full-screen C# app, but windows notifications (the little
balloons on the bottom right-hand of the screen) and outlook reminders
will pop on top of my app. i want to prevent them from doing so.

does anyone know how?

Sure. Go into your Outlook settings and turn them off.

Your own application has no business disabling the behavior of some other
application. If users don't like the behavior, they can control that. If
they _do_ like the behavior, then you're just annoying your users by
disabling it yourself.

Pete

[njuneardave]

Thanks for the reply, Pete.
I did a poor job asking my question.

I want to disable all popups (Windows balloons and notifications,
email notifications, outlook reminders, etc...), but only when the app
is running. I don't want to make a persistent change, so I guess that
rules out registry changes. The outlooks pop-ups are just part of the
problem. And, this application will be distributed to several people,
so I'd like to inherently have my app block all "focus-stealing"
events while it runs.

[=?Utf-8?B?Q2lhcmFuIE8nJ0Rvbm5lbGw=?=]

I think the problem is that these popups and notifications arent focus
stealing. If you are writing in Word for Studio and Outlook pops up a
notification, you key presses still hit the app you were using. These things
just draw on top due (I guess) to them having a higher z-index or calling a
particular WinAPI function to make them totally topmost.

I would doubt this is possible as Microsoft will have coded Outlook
specifically to come on top of other applications like that.
--
Ciaran O''Donnell
http://wannabedeveloper.spaces.live.com
"njuneardave" wrote:

Thanks for the reply, Pete.
I did a poor job asking my question.

I want to disable all popups (Windows balloons and notifications,
email notifications, outlook reminders, etc...), but only when the app
is running. I don't want to make a persistent change, so I guess that
rules out registry changes. The outlooks pop-ups are just part of the
problem. And, this application will be distributed to several people,
so I'd like to inherently have my app block all "focus-stealing"
events while it runs.

[Peter Duniho]

On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 10:01:15 -0700, njuneardave <da**********@gmail.com>
wrote:

Thanks for the reply, Pete.

I did a poor job asking my question.

Based on your clarification, I think your original question was stated
just fine. The fact is, your application does not have any business
changing the user's settings. If they find these notifications bothersome
while they are using your application, they can disable them themselves.

As Ciaran points out, these kinds of notifications shouldn't be stealing
the focus, so at worst they are temporarily obscuring part of your own
application. But again, that's something for the user to decide. In any
case, I don't think there's a uniform, reliable way to disable them.

Pete

[Paul E Collins]

"Peter Duniho" <Np*********@nnowslpianmk.comwrote:

As Ciaran points out, these kinds of notifications shouldn't be stealing
the focus, so at worst they are temporarily obscuring part of your own
application. But again, that's something for the user to decide. In any
case, I don't think there's a uniform, reliable way to disable them.

I haven't used Vista, personally, but doesn't it offer a "presentation mode"
(intended for slideshows etc.) that disables most alerts? Perhaps that would
be better than nothing, if the poster could find a way to enable it via
interop.

Eq.