ManagedShell Feature Request: Single application tray window

Hi, i tried to work on some shell experiments for windows to. See it here: https://gitlab.com/bluedxca93/11-shell-gtk/-/tree/main/0-5-beta?ref_type=heads . But im not able to show the system tray. Then i found out that retrobar (that uses managed shell) is the only application that can display the notification area without explorer. Is tehre any method to start a sirt of retrobar with a normal window that only shows the tray area?.

Mar 27 '25 07:03 blue-devil-93

Hi! Yes, you can use ManagedShell to create a notification area without explorer running. Have you seen the quick start that shows how to get started? It is here: https://github.com/cairoshell/ManagedShell/wiki/Getting-Started

Mar 27 '25 23:03 dremin

Not really, got some sort of progress while looking at retrbar:


<appbar:AppBarWindow x:Class="RetroBar.Taskbar"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:controls="clr-namespace:RetroBar.Controls"
        xmlns:converters="clr-namespace:RetroBar.Converters"
        xmlns:utilities="clr-namespace:RetroBar.Utilities"
        xmlns:appbar="clr-namespace:ManagedShell.AppBar;assembly=ManagedShell.AppBar"
        Title="RetroBar Taskbar" Height="450" Width="800">
    
    <!-- Set the DataContext to your view model, ensuring it exposes NotificationArea -->
    <appbar:AppBarWindow.DataContext>
        <!-- Replace 'TaskbarViewModel' with your actual view model if needed -->
        <utilities:TaskbarViewModel/>
    </appbar:AppBarWindow.DataContext>
    
    <Grid>
        <!-- Bind the NotifyIconList's NotificationArea property to the view model's NotificationArea -->
        <controls:NotifyIconList NotificationArea="{Binding NotificationArea}" />
    </Grid>
</appbar:AppBarWindow>

But thats is not what i want. The appbar class conflicts with my gtk shell. It gets tons of window placement errors. Is there a way to not use appbar but normal window decoration?

Mar 28 '25 07:03 blue-devil-93

An AppBar is not needed to use it. Here is a rough basic code example to illustrate.

MainWindow.xaml:

<StackPanel Orientation="Horizontal">
    <ItemsControl x:Name="MyTrayUnpinnedItemsControl">
        <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
            <DataTemplate>
                <Image Source="{Binding Icon}" ToolTip="{Binding Title}" />
            </DataTemplate>
        </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
    </ItemsControl>
    <ItemsControl x:Name="MyTrayPinnedItemsControl">
        <ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
            <DataTemplate>
                <Image Source="{Binding Icon}" ToolTip="{Binding Title}" />
            </DataTemplate>
        </ItemsControl.ItemTemplate>
    </ItemsControl>
</StackPanel>

MainWindow.xaml.cs:

ShellManager shellManager = new ShellManager();
MyTrayPinnedItemsControl.ItemsSource = shellManager.NotificationArea.PinnedIcons;
MyTrayUnpinnedItemsControl.ItemsSource = shellManager.NotificationArea.UnpinnedIcons;

Mar 29 '25 20:03 dremin

MainWindow.xaml.txt MainWindow.xaml.cs.txt I am impressed by your help, got a lot of things right already. Ned to fix the main window scaling and the context menu but i can now view what is active in tray..

need now to look how to handle the click events, maybe something like this? ` private void PropertiesNotifyIcon_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e) { if (sender is MenuItem menuItem && menuItem.Tag is NotifyIcon notifyIcon) { // Show properties for this icon // This might involve showing a custom dialog, or calling a method on the NotifyIcon notifyIcon.ShowProperties(); } }

    private void CloseNotifyIcon_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
    {
        if (sender is MenuItem menuItem && menuItem.Tag is NotifyIcon notifyIcon)
        {
            // Close or hide the notify icon
            notifyIcon.Close();
        }
    }
}`

Mar 30 '25 10:03 blue-devil-93

See this section for how to handle each of the mouse events: https://github.com/cairoshell/ManagedShell/wiki/Tray-Service#notification-area-icon-interaction

Mar 30 '25 19:03 dremin

sadly it does not work, showing up tons of errors.Retrobar works but it provides full panel and i want only the notification area. Tried now wven other approaches it seems that you need a compiler different from mingw to implement it. mingw can not use ths low level approach.. ups, writing from my art uniersity account

Oct 08 '25 08:10 kost00002-web

Could you provide a copy of your code? I can help figure out what is going on, it should work :)

Oct 21 '25 03:10 dremin

Feature Request: Single application tray window - test.