Moving CMD python app to the system tray (windows)

Question

I have an python 2.7 application that I would like to move from the CMD window to the system/notification tray (Windows 7). The python script currently listens for particular TCP messages, and upon receipt, logs them to a file.

I have recently found the following system tray code, from another question answered here:

systrayicon

I've been able to run the systrayicon demo correctly by creating the SysTrayIcon.py module. My problem is, when I try to run my TCP application alongside the systrayicon (with some of the demo code intact), it only runs my application, or the system tray application, not both. More specifically, if I list my app's main(sys.argv) before the systrayicon(), it only runs my app without the tray icon. If I have the systrayicon listed before my app, it runs the system tray demo, until I select "Quit", and it then runs my app.

I am able to get my TCP app to run correctly if I plug it into one of the menu selection functions, for example:

def hello(sysTrayIcon): 
    main(sys.argv)

But I'd like my app to begin listening when the application is opened, without selecting something from the menu to initiate it.

This is likely a very basic problem, and maybe worded poorly, my apologies.

Mike Driscoll · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-06 13:08:56Z

0

I think the easiest way for you to accomplish this would be to just wrap your script with a small piece of GUI code using Tkinter or wxPython. Then it can reside in the tray. You will probably need to run your script in a thread as it sounds like a long running process that would block the toolkit's main loop. You might need to add some code to the threading code that allows you to kill your script when the GUI exits, but other than that, it should be pretty easy.

answered Aug 6, 2014 at 13:08

Mike Driscoll

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