CoolTrayIcon Hints

How do I start my app. with the tray icon visible and the main form invisible?
At design time set IconVisible to true and set the form's Visible property to false. Set the ShowMainForm parameter to false in the OnStartup event. See the StartHidden demo.

What is the proper way to restore the form?
ALWAYS use the method ShowMainForm! This method contains important calls that affect how the form and the application display themselves. Simply setting the form visible or calling Application.Restore is not enough. A common symptom is the form with tabpages that don't update themselves because ShowMainForm wasn't used.

I used the OnStartup event to hide the form, but I can still see a quick flash on the taskbar when the app. is starting?
If it bothers you you can set the Application.ShowMainForm property in the main project source, like this:

  .....
  Application.Initialize;
  Application.ShowMainForm := False;
  .....

Why does the tray icon not appear in my NT/2000/XP service app.?
Set the service's Interactive property to true and set IconVisible to true. See also the bugs section concerning services in NT4.
I want multiple tray icons in my app.?
Just create a CoolTrayIcon object for each tray icon you want. The component is optimized to share resources between the tray icons.
How do I send a message to the tray icon through code?
Use PostMessage or SendMessage and specify the message as the LParam parameter. Here's an example of sending a WM_LBUTTONDOWN message, invoking the tray icon's OnMouseDown event:
```
  PostMessage(CoolTrayIcon1.Handle, WM_TRAYNOTIFY, Integer(CoolTrayIcon1), WM_LBUTTONDOWN);
```
I want to hide ALL windows, including dialogs and popup forms?
Minimize the app. before calling HideMainForm, like this:
```
  Application.Minimize;
  CoolTrayIcon1.HideMainForm;
```
I want to override the "hide inactive tray icons" feature in WinXP?
I don't know exactly how to do this, but try refreshing the tray icon at regular intervals. Anyway, it's not a good idea to override standard Windows behavior.
When does the OnStartup event occur?
The OnStartup event occurs before the owner form's OnCreate event.
What are some good rules for showing text in a tray icon?
You only have 16x16 pixels to draw inside, so use only 1 or 2 lines of text. Use high contrast colors, like white background and black text, perhaps with a border. Don't use fonts with serifs. For multiline text I think the font 'Small Fonts' approx. size 6 looks best. Set OffsetY to -1 and LineDistance to -2. NOTE: It's easy to experiment if you enable the DesignPreview property.