Question

I am trying to make a desktop application that will be hidden but will display only after a time interval. I am trying to set Visible =false at window load event but it still displays.

Answer 1

For WinForms applications I have found that the easiest way to control the start-up visibility is to override the SetVisbileCore method.

Here is a simple example, the form will show after 5 seconds

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;

namespace DelayedShow
{
  public partial class Form1 : Form
  {
    private bool _canShow = false;
    private Timer _timer;

    public Form1()
    {
      InitializeComponent();
      _timer = new Timer();
      _timer.Interval = 5000;
      _timer.Tick += new EventHandler(timer_Tick);
      _timer.Enabled = true;
    }

    void timer_Tick(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
      _canShow = true;
      Visible = true;
    }

    protected override void SetVisibleCore(bool value)
    {
      if (_canShow)
      {
        base.SetVisibleCore(value);
      }
      else
      {
        base.SetVisibleCore(false);
      }
    }
  }
}