Behavior in WinForm/Console Hybrid Application

Question

I have a WinForm project that I want to be usable as a console app if certain arguments are passed into it. Using some tips I read from here, I used the following code to m

Answer 1

It looks like there is no way around it: 1) If I want the output in console mode to behave like a dedicated console app, the console window must always be there. 2) If I want to hide the console when I run it in windowed mode, I will lose the blocking prints.

Answer 2

The above will work, but it won't allow you to write to the console which is maddening if you're trying to debug exceptions. To write to the console from a Win Forms app, you need to apply the code described here: http://www.codeissue.com/issues/i24e1ef8e5a93b4/run-windows-form-application-as-console-app-c.

Answer 3

Instead of this iffy method, you can accomplish this by just creating a winforms application and not displaying the main form if a certain argument is passed on the command line.

Since a console application doesn't need a message loop, you don't call Application.Run() when called in console mode.

So your Main() would be something like:

    static void Main(params string[] args)
    {
        if (args.Length > 0 && args[0] == "consolemode")
        {
            // do stuff 
        }
        else
        {
            Application.EnableVisualStyles();
            Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
            Application.Run(new MainForm());
        }
    }

I haven't tried this but I think it would work.

Answer 4

Maybe I've been doing it wrong but I've always done hybrids like this:

[STAThread]
public static int Main(string[] args)
{
   if (args.Length > 0)
   {
      // run console code here
   }
   else
   {
      // start up the win form app
      Application.EnableVisualStyles();
      Application.SetCompatibleTextRenderingDefault(false);
      Application.Run(new MainForm());
   }

   return 0;
}