C# Form Timer and Form Visibility vs. Threading and .Set

[ewokspy]

I have a C# program in 2003 that creates a reminder bubble (windows form) to remind a user to pick up their printout. The bubbles show up fine, and they have 2 buttons, a yes and a snooze. The yes resynchs the thread. The snooze puts the bubble to sleep for 5 minutes.

Originally my event handler code for the snooze button pointed to the following method:

        public void SnoozeForm(int minutes)
        {
            //VAR
            TimeSpan waitLength = DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(minutes) - DateTime.Now;
 
            //BEGIN
 
            //Hide the form
            this.Hide();
 
            //Tell threader this bubble is hidden again
            this.myThreader.BubblesVisible--;
 
            //Turn on Context Menu if no more visible bubbles
            if(this.myThreader.BubblesVisible == 0)
            {
                this.myThreader.frmEOD.FlipContextMenu(true);
            }//end if
 
            //Suspend Thread for endTime
            this.ThreadController.WaitOne(waitLength, false);
 
            //Check to see if we were awoken because of end of day
            if(!this.myThreader.EndOfDay)
            {
                //Turn off context menu
                this.myThreader.frmEOD.FlipContextMenu(false);
 
                //Tell threader we are visible
                this.myThreader.BubblesVisible++;
 
                //Once time has expired unhide the form
                if(!this.Visible)
                {
                    this.Show();
                }//end if
            }
            else if(this.myThreader.AboutOn)
            {
                SnoozeForm(5);
            }
            else
            {
                //Resynch Thread
                ResynchThread(true);
            }
 
        }//SnoozeForm

This worked fine, except that if a bubble was snoozed and the user tried to shut down the computer, the shutdown would abort trying to close my program, and wouldn't allow a logoff/out until the bubble was resynched at which time the shutdown happened as expected. I assume the reason is the AutoEventReset object (ThreadController) and the wait command not releasing. the closing event doesn't fire during the windows shutdown process so I could not release the thread wait that way.

So I decided I would try a timer on the form, which would make sure the bubble had no issues being closed during shutdown, except that it seems the form must be visible when using the timer, as when I modified the code to use the timer, the timer would be enabled and the form would be invisible, but once the end of the method hit, the form would pop up visible again.

So any idea which method is better for this situation, and if so what am I doing wrong to get these bubbles to snooze and hide properly, and allow windows to shut them down? Thanks a bunch.

[Plater]

You are using a regular thread? (System.Threading.Thread?)
Call myThread.Abort(); to tell it to end.
(It actually raises the ThreadAbortingException on the thread, so if you have try/catch blocks you will need to adjust them accordingly)

[ewokspy]

The question is where do I call that? I have tried logging what events were called in my program during shutdown but I cannot find a place to put that code. The close methods and dispose methods don't get called when system is shutting down it seems. The for is hidden so I can't active montior the system messsages. Is there a specific place in the code I can put this where it will run as the first thing the program does when trying to shut down?

[Plater]

The form_closing even is called when system shutsdown.
You can check for it too in the event args they give you.

[ewokspy]

The form_closing even is called when system shutsdown.
You can check for it too in the event args they give you.

I was sure that was only for .NET 2.0, I'm using studio 2003, so it's only 1.1 for me.

Regardless I will rephrase and say I don't see the code in my closing events being executed upon shutdown. I put a method to create a txt file and log the event but it never executed until after the bubble was no longer waiting.

[Plater]

I would guess that the bubble blocks other code from happening?

[ewokspy]

I would guess that the bubble blocks other code from happening?

It doesn't seem to stop the code for the rest of the program. Just the thread that it's working with. I use the Main thread to force the bubble thread to become active when they use a specific function, and I would love to resynch the thread upon windows shutdown, but I have no forms that are active to sniff the Wndproc for shutdown messages, since I noticed that winproc won't return anything if the form isn't active.