Windows Forms Splash Screen – Show a form while loading main form

There are different ways of creating splash screens:

• You can rely on the splash screen feature of WindowsFormsApplicationBase

• You can show implement the feature yourself by showing a form on a different UI thread and hiding it after the main from loaded successfully.

In this post I’ll show an example of both solutions.

Note: Those who are looking for showing a loading window or a loading
gif animation during loading of data, can take a look at this post: Show Loading animation during loading data in other thread

Option 1 – Use WindowsFormsApplicationBase Splash Screen feature

1. Add a reference of Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll to your project.
2. Create a MyApplication class by deriving from WindowsFormsApplicationBase
3. override OnCreateMainForm and assign the from that you want to be the startup form to MainForm property.

4. Override OnCreateSplashScreen and assign the form that you want to show as splash screen to SplashScreen property.

5. In your Main method, create an instance of MyApplication and call its Run method.

Example

using System;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using Microsoft.VisualBasic.ApplicationServices;

static class Program
{
    /// <summary>
    /// The main entry point for the application.
    /// </summary>
    [STAThread]
    static void Main()
    {
        Application.EnableVisualStyles();
        Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(true);
        var app = new MyApplication();
        app.Run(Environment.GetCommandLineArgs());
    }
}
public class MyApplication : WindowsFormsApplicationBase
{
    protected override void OnCreateMainForm()
    {
        MainForm = new YourMainForm();
    }
    protected override void OnCreateSplashScreen()
    {
        SplashScreen = new YourSplashForm();
    }
}

Option 2 – Implement the feature using a different UI thread

You can implement the feature yourself by showing the splash screen in a different UI thread. To do so, you can subscribe to Load event of the main form in Program class, and show and close your splash screen there.

Example

using System;
using System.Threading;
using System.Windows.Forms;

static class Program
{
    static Form SplashScreen;
    static Form MainForm;
    [STAThread]
    static void Main()
    {
        Application.EnableVisualStyles();
        Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
        //Show Splash Form
        SplashScreen = new Form();
        var splashThread = new Thread(new ThreadStart(
            () => Application.Run(SplashScreen)));
        splashThread.SetApartmentState(ApartmentState.STA);
        splashThread.Start();

        //Create and Show Main Form
        MainForm = new Form8();
        MainForm.Load += MainForm_LoadCompleted;
        Application.Run(MainForm);
    }
    private static void MainForm_LoadCompleted(object sender, EventArgs e)
    {
        if (SplashScreen != null && !SplashScreen.Disposing && !SplashScreen.IsDisposed)
            SplashScreen.Invoke(new Action(() => SplashScreen.Close()));
        MainForm.TopMost = true;
        MainForm.Activate();
        MainForm.TopMost = false;
    }
}

Note: To show a smooth edge custom shaped splash screen take a look at
this post: Windows Forms Transparent Background
Image.