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One application I created had to show a simple, fixed image on screen. As it’s size is fixed and no resizing is needed, one might assume following code would be sufficient:

var left = (ClientRectangle.Width - bitmap.Width) / 2;
var top = (ClientRectangle.Height - bitmap.Height) / 2;
e.Graphics.DrawImageUnscaled(bitmap, left, top);
e.Graphics.DrawRectangle(SystemPens.WindowText, top, left, bitmap.Width, bitmap.Height);

However, running this code might result in image significantly larger than the rectangle.

You see, DrawImageUnscaled will not necessarily ignore all scaling. It will attempt to preserve physical size – not size in pixels. So, if you have a screen punching above ancient 96 DPI, you will see scaling happen.

So, if you want to draw unscaled image, just use the normal DrawImage function and specify the size yourself.

Placing icon in tray is usually quite straightforward. You usually just take application icon and assign it to NotifyIcon. But what if you want to add a small annotation to tray icon (e.g. small shield)?

Well, you can do something like this. Just get application icon and draw another image on it. Yes, it does require a bit of calculation to get it into the bottom right corner but nothing that a little math cannot handle.

private static Icon GetAnnotatedIcon(Bitmap annotation) {
  var icon = GetApplicationIcon();

  if (icon != null) {
    var image = icon.ToBitmap();
    if (icon != null) {
      using (var g = Graphics.FromImage(image)) {
        g.DrawImage(annotation, (int)g.VisibleClipBounds.Width - annotation.Width - 2, (int)g.VisibleClipBounds.Height - annotation.Height - 2);
        g.Flush();
      }
    }
    return Icon.FromHandle(image.GetHicon());
  }
  return null;
}

There is only one magic moment above – how to get application icon. Fortunately, a bit of P/Invoke goes a long way.

private static Icon GetApplicationIcon() {
  var hLibrary = NativeMethods.LoadLibrary(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly().Location);
  if (!hLibrary.Equals(IntPtr.Zero)) {
    var hIcon = NativeMethods.LoadImage(hLibrary, "#32512", NativeMethods.IMAGE_ICON, 20, 20, 0);
    if (!hIcon.Equals(System.IntPtr.Zero)) {
      var icon = Icon.FromHandle(hIcon);
      if (icon != null) { return icon; }
    }
  }
  return null;
}

private static class NativeMethods {
  public const UInt32 IMAGE_ICON = 1;

  [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
  static extern internal IntPtr LoadImage(IntPtr hInstance, String lpIconName, UInt32 uType, Int32 cxDesired, Int32 cyDesired, UInt32 fuLoad);

  [DllImport("kernel32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Unicode)]
  static extern internal IntPtr LoadLibrary(string lpFileName);
}

And yes, this code doesn’t take DPI into account so your high-definition icon might suffer – let’s leave that for some other post. :)