Tip: Showing a Main view as a tray app with Caliburn.Micro

The trick here is to make sure that the main view doesn’t pop-up right away in a visible form. After creation and resolving all the binding rules – the main view should be in a Hidden form.

This can easily be achieved with customizing the WindowManager by sub-classing it and adding one extra method:

[Export]
public class CustomWindowManager : WindowManager
{
    public Window MainWindow(object rootModel, object context = null)
    {
        return CreateWindow(rootModel, false, context);
    }
}

As soon as you'll have the new WindowManager - the logic for the root view creation in the Boostrapper should be adjusted accordingly:
protected override void DisplayRootView()
{
    var viewModel = IoC.Get<IShell>();

    var windowManager = IoC.Get<CustomWindowManager>();

    _mainWindow = windowManager.MainWindow(viewModel);
    _mainWindow.Hide();
}

Here is a simple ShellView that uses a WPF TrayIcon implementation from CodeProject:
<UserControl ...
             xmlns:tb="clr-namespace:Hardcodet.Wpf.TaskbarNotification;assembly=Hardcodet.Wpf.TaskbarNotification"
             xmlns:cal="http://www.caliburnproject.org"
             Visibility="Hidden">
    <Grid>
        <tb:TaskbarIcon
            Visibility="Visible"
            x:Name="MyNotifyIcon"
            IconSource="/Resources/Images/Bulb.ico"
            MenuActivation="LeftOrRightClick" PopupActivation="DoubleClick">
            <!-- Set a simple context menu  -->
            <tb:TaskbarIcon.ContextMenu>
                <ContextMenu>
                    <MenuItem Header="Exit" cal:Message.Attach="AppExit" />
                </ContextMenu>
            </tb:TaskbarIcon.ContextMenu>
        </tb:TaskbarIcon>
    </Grid>
</UserControl>

The View Model for this view is very straight forward:
[Export(typeof(IShell))]
public class ShellTrayViewModel : Screen, IShell
{
    public void AppExit()
    {
        Application.Current.Shutdown();
    }
}

That’s it.


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