Minimize a form after a period of user inactivity

[ErroR]

Any suggestions for an efficient method to have my application minimize itself when a period of time elapses and the user has no interaction with the form? It also must cancel the minimize if the user clicks on something else before the timeout.

For instance, user uses my application to launch something another program. They work in the newly spawned application, and my app needs to stay running, minimize, and be ready without re-launching it.

Currently, it's on a timer that is enabled once my tool is used. But if the user made a mistake, and tries to use it again, it will minimize while they try to use it. I thought about disabling the timer via the KeyDown or MouseDown events. Would that be a lot of overhead for the app to process each and every keystroke and mouse click, just to satisy this piece of it?

 

[Shift838]

I have done this via a function. Here is the function I use to maximize, minimize windows etc. Hope this helps..

'Minimize Any Window
'In Declarations of Module

Declare Function ShowWindow Lib "User32" (ByVal Hwnd As
Long, ByVal nCmdShow As Long) As Long
Public Const SW_SHOWMINIMIZED = 2
'In Module Put...


Sub MiniWindow(Hwnd)
'minimizes the "hWnd" window
mi = ShowWindow(Hwnd, SW_MINIMIZE)
End Sub
'Maximize Any Window
'In Declarations of Module Put...


Declare Function ShowWindow Lib "User32" (ByVal Hwnd As
Long, ByVal nCmdShow As Long) As Long
Public Const SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED = 3
'In Module Put...


Sub MaxiWindow(Hwnd)
'maximizes the "hWnd" window
mi = ShowWindow(Hwnd, SW_MAXIMIZE)
End Sub
'Close Any Window
'In Declarations of Module Put...


Declare Function SendMessageByNum& Lib "User32" Alias
"SendMessageA" (ByVal Hwnd As Long, ByVal wMsg As Long,
ByVal wParam As Long, ByVal lParam As Long)
Public Const WM_CLOSE = &H10
'In Module Put...


Sub CloseWindow(Hwnd)
'Closes the "hWnd" window
mi = SendMessageByNum(Hwnd,WM_CLOSE,0,0)
End Sub

 

[ErroR]

Well.. I'm just using Me.Windowstate to control the minimize.

My question is, does anyone know a way to intiate and/or cancel the minimize timer that is better than putting a Timer.Enabled = False in the KeyDown and MouseDown events on the form?

 

[MGjaltema]

I have used this sample code ...

http://www.codeoftheweek.com/issues/issue102/

It works great !

Regards