how to display an image without a window in C#

Question

I would like to know how to open an image without having a window open, so its like the the image is floating on my desktop with no border. thanks

Answer 1

What you want to do is to draw an image on the screen without a visible window border around it. Whether a window will be created is a totally different question. And as it turns out, you have to have a window. It just won't be visible. So:

Create a window, making sure to set the following in InitializeComponent():

this.ControlBox = false;
this.FormBorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.None;
this.MaximizeBox = false;
this.MinimizeBox = false;
this.ShowIcon = false;
this.ShowInTaskbar = false;

Then, override OnPaintBackground for that window, as follows:

protected override void OnPaintBackground( WinForms.PaintEventArgs e )
{
    e.Graphics.DrawImage( Image, 0, 0, Width, Height );
}

Answer 2

If all you want is a splash screen, there's a framework component for that: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.splashscreen.aspx

Answer 3

Show a window without the title bar

In case of winforms -

FormBorderStyle = None
ControlBox = false

taken from - Windows Form with Resizing Frame and no Title Bar?

In case of XAML use this to show window without title bar -

<Window
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    Width="640" Height="480" 
    WindowStyle="None"
    AllowsTransparency="True"
    ResizeMode="CanResizeWithGrip">

    <!-- Content -->

</Window>

taken from - Is it possible to display a wpf window without an icon in the title bar?