System tray icon with c# Console Application won't show menu

Question

I've got a small C# (.NET 4.0) Console Application that I'd like the user to be able to interact by showing a menu when they right-click the System Tray icon. I can add an icon to the Tray with no problems, but I just cannot get the menu to appear. I'm using the following code: ``` NotifyIcon trayIcon = new NotifyIcon(); trayIcon.Text = "TestApp"; trayIcon.Icon = new Icon(SystemIcons.Application, 40, 40); ContextMenu trayMenu = new ContextMenu(); trayMenu.MenuItems.Add("Blah", item1_Click); trayMenu.MenuItems.Add("Blah2", item1_Click); trayMenu.MenuItems.Add("Blah3", item1_Click); trayIcon.ContextMenu = trayMenu; trayIcon.Visible = true; ``` ... which puts the icon in the tray. However, right-clicking the icon does nothing. I've tried various permutations of `MenuItems.Add`, but nothing will make the menu appear. I'm sure I'm missing something simple - any ideas what?

Accepted Answer

Try adding this after you create the icon:

```
Application.Run()
```

Note that this method will not return, so you can't do anything after calling it. This means that you'll have to do all your other work in a separate thread.

What happens is that the OS sends your application a message telling it that the tray icon has been right-clicked, but the tray icon code never sees it (because these messages are processed by `Application.Run`) and so can't respond by opening the menu.

System tray icon with c# Console Application won't show menu

Solution

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