将数据发送到Windows窗体应用程序

Question

I'm working on a program that is autostarting with windows. The program is a windows-forms application written in C# . When it gets started, it automatically hides itself and shows a tray icon. So it's only visible in tray, not in taskbar, not as a window.

Now I want somehow to send an ID (a simple int number) to the running windows form and the form should automatically show a messagebox with the recieved number.

Sending should be directly, not over a database or a textfile that is watched.

Is there a way to send data to a open windows form?

Any help apreciated :)

Answer 1

you can use the standard Windows APIs SendMessage (synchronous) or PostMessage (asynchronous / send and forget). To use these APIs you must know the handle of the Windows Form / application main form.

there are also other ways but this might be by far the simplest and would work from same or other process and is very lightweight for an integer only like you need to pass.

Answer 2

How about named pipes?

They are persistent, and easily accessible. Here's a blog post detailing both the 2.0 and 3.5 implementations: http://www.switchonthecode.com/tutorials/dotnet-35-adds-named-pipes-support