Tray icon context menu positioning in WPF application

Question

I have a C# WPF .NET 4 application that has an icon in the system tray. I am currently using the well-discussed WPF NotifyIcon, but the problem I am having is not dependent on this control. The problem is that .NET 4 simply does not allow (for the most part) a WPF ContextMenu object to appear over the top of the Windows 7 taskbar. This example illustrates the problem perfectly.

XAML:

<Window x:Class="TrayIconTesting.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="100" Width="400">

    <Window.Resources>
        <ContextMenu x:Key="TrayContextMenu" Placement="MousePoint">
            <MenuItem Header="First Menu Item" />
            <MenuItem Header="Second Menu Item" />
        </ContextMenu>
        <Popup x:Key="TrayPopup" Placement="MousePoint">
            <Border Width="100" Height="100" Background="White" BorderBrush="Orange" BorderThickness="4">
                <Button Content="Close" Click="ButtonClick"></Button>
            </Border>
        </Popup>
    </Window.Resources>

    <StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
        <Label Target="{Binding ElementName=UseWinFormsMenu}" VerticalAlignment="Center">
            <AccessText>Use WinForms context menu for tray menu:</AccessText>
        </Label>
        <CheckBox Name="UseWinFormsMenu" IsChecked="False" Click="UseWinFormsMenuClicked" VerticalAlignment="Center" />
    </StackPanel>
</Window>

Code:

using System.Drawing;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls.Primitives;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using ContextMenu = System.Windows.Controls.ContextMenu;

namespace TrayIconTesting
{
    /// <summary>
    /// Interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        private ContextMenuStrip winFormsContextMenu;

        public MainWindow()
        {
            InitializeComponent();

            this.TrayIcon = new NotifyIcon
            {
                Icon = new Icon("Bulb.ico"),
                Visible = true
            };

            this.TrayIcon.MouseClick += (sender, args) =>
                                        {
                                            switch (args.Button)
                                            {
                                                case MouseButtons.Left:
                                                    this.TrayPopup.IsOpen = true;
                                                    break;

                                                case MouseButtons.Right:
                                                    if (!this.UseWinFormsMenu.IsChecked.GetValueOrDefault())
                                                    {
                                                        this.TrayContextMenu.IsOpen = true;
                                                    }
                                                    break;
                                            }
                                        };
        }

        private void ButtonClick(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.TrayPopup.IsOpen = false;
        }

        private void UseWinFormsMenuClicked(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            this.TrayIcon.ContextMenuStrip = this.UseWinFormsMenu.IsChecked.GetValueOrDefault() ? this.WinFormsContextMenu : null;
        }

        private ContextMenu TrayContextMenu
        {
            get
            {
                return (ContextMenu)this.FindResource("TrayContextMenu");
            }
        }

        private Popup TrayPopup
        {
            get
            {
                return (Popup)this.FindResource("TrayPopup");
            }
        }

        private NotifyIcon TrayIcon
        {
            get;
            set;
        }

        private ContextMenuStrip WinFormsContextMenu
        {
            get
            {
                if (this.winFormsContextMenu ==  null)
                {
                    this.winFormsContextMenu = new ContextMenuStrip();
                    this.winFormsContextMenu.Items.AddRange(new[] { new ToolStripMenuItem("Item 1"), new ToolStripMenuItem("Item 2") });
                }
                return this.winFormsContextMenu;
            }
        }
    }
}

To see the problem make sure that the tray icon is always visible and not part of that Win7 tray icon popup thing. When you right click on the tray icon the context menu opens ABOVE the taskbar. Now right click one of the standard Windows tray icons next to it and see the difference.

Now, left click on the icon and notice that it DOES allow a custom popup to open right where the mouse cursor is.

Checking the "Use WinForms..." checkbox will switch the app to use the old ContextMenuStrip context menu in the Windows.Forms assembly. This obviously opens the menu in the correct place, but its appearance doesn't match the default Windows 7 menus. Specifically, the row highlighting is different.

I have played with the Horizontal and VerticalOffset properties, and with the "right" values you can make the context menu popup all the way at the bottom right of the screen, but this is just as bad. It still never opens where your cursor is.

The real kicker is that if you build this same sample targeting .NET 3.5 it works just as expected. Unfortunately, my real application uses many .NET 4 features, so reverting back is not an option.

Anyone have any idea how to make the context menu actually open where the cursor is?

can you not put all the notify icon logic in a separate assembly that does target .NET 3.5, and then use that inside your actual project? — SwissCoder
Unfortunately that does not work. The problem still happens even when the notify icon and the context menu exist in a separate assembly that targets 3.5. It seems that so long as the executable target 4.0 the problem exists. — EricTheRed
Not a solution to the problem, but I would use the WinForms Menu. Eventually in a separate Assembly, to make a clean cut between WinForms and WPF. That way the Context-Menu of the NotifyIcon should look like intended for normal apps. — SwissCoder

EricTheRed EricTheRed · Accepted Answer · 2012-02-15T00:25:18

After a little more searching I stumbled across this question & answer. I never thought to try the ContextMenu property on the NotifyIcon! While not ideal it will work well enough until WPF address the fact that the system tray is a useful part of applications. It will really be a shame to lose all the binding and command routing features provided by the WPF ContextMenu though.

It feels wrong to accept my own answer though, so I'm going to leave this open for a few more days.

Tray icon context menu positioning in WPF application

2 Answers