Windows Mobile C++ - Application design-type question

i have my application skeleton working as expected - it might be that somebody has a good solution to what i am trying to achieve within Windows Mobile 6.5 enviroment.

Here's what i am actually trying to do:

Application running in background ( it sends periodically network packets to office server, packets are loaded with statistics data and pushed onto the server via Winsock2 and custom made protocol ).

What 'background' means here - is an application that creates a window of 0,0 size and is minimized - i am thinking about going into the services with this, but the next thing that i require stops me today from doing this.

I need this application to be 'visible' somewhere as an icon - i already know i can't do this in the 'tray' area as stated in this post:

Windows Mobile C++ Tray Icon

Now i was trying to utilize the: SHNotificationAdd - but this is ok for a 'notification' as the name says type of thing. So it 开发者_运维问答popsup and you can click to hide it - this is bad.

What i need to achieve is an icon that is visible during the application run cycle, so it flashes when there is no synchronization possible, it changes the icon when synchronization is done.

I am a bit worried it can't be done - i even tried to go and code the "Home" plug-in for this purpose, but was told that some people have themes installed and it might be that my application won't be even visible to those guys.

Now as we're going to deploy it to few places around ( 3 data centers spread across the country - around 130 people smart phones only ) - i need to be sure this application is visible even when there is a theme applied or customization done.

Any chance this can be done ?

I was kinda sure it can be done with a classic 'tray icon approach' until i found that 'tray icons' are not supported for normal applications.

If there is something i can do - i would really appreciate if somebody could shed a bit of light on this for us all please.

You'll have to move to a Windows Mobile paradigm for your app, as what you're trying to do isn't possible (as you're finding). A home screen plug in has problems if the user customizes it, and you are correct that there is no "tray". The icons in the corner (battery, signal strength, etc) are reserved for OEM use only.

My recommendation would be to actually create a visible Form for your application. Maybe it shows just some simple status info like last upload time, amount of data transferred, etc.

You then use the notifications to place a user notification during "events" such as the inability to connect (replacing your "flashing icon" idea) or when synchronization is complete (replacing your "changed icon" idea).