WPF application window appears on top of SplashScreen

Question

I followed the simple steps outlined at How to: Add a Splash Screen to a WPF Application to add a splash screen to my WPF application. When I start the application, the splash image is shown, then the main window pops up, and the splash image fades away.

My problem is that when the main window pops up, it appears on top of the splash image. Then when the splash image begins to fade out, the splash image pops up to the top again. The end result is that the splash image disappears for a split second as the main window appears.

How can I force the main window to appear under the splash image, so that the splash image does not disappear?

Answer 1

In .NET 4.0 an overload has been added to the Show method that allows to set the window style WS_EX_TOPMOST on the splash screen window. Show the splash screen in code like this:

SplashScreen splash = new SplashScreen("SplashScreen.png");
splash.Show(autoClose: true, topMost: true);

I call that from the method

protected override void OnStartup(StartupEventArgs e)

in App.xaml.cs.

"SplashScreen.png" is of course the identifier for your splash image embedded in the application's resources.

Answer 2

This isn't default behaviour you must have some code thats manually focusing the main window?

It may be easier just to turn off the fade manually with a bit of code like this:

_splash = new SplashScreen("LoadingScreen.png");

_splash.Show(false);

_splash.Close(TimeSpan.Zero);