Open directory dialog

Question

I want the user to select a directory where a file that I will then generate will be saved. I know that in WPF I should use the OpenFileDialog from Win32, but unfortunately the dialog requires file(s) to be selected - it stays open if I simply click OK without choosing one. I could "hack up" the functionality by letting the user pick a file and then strip the path to figure out which directory it belongs to but that's unintuitive at best. Has anyone seen this done before?

Answer 1

For Directory Dialog to get the Directory Path, First Add reference System.Windows.Forms, and then Resolve, and then put this code in a button click.

    var dialog = new FolderBrowserDialog();
    dialog.ShowDialog();
    folderpathTB.Text = dialog.SelectedPath;

(folderpathTB is name of TextBox where I wana put the folder path, OR u can assign it to a string variable too i.e.)

    string folder = dialog.SelectedPath;

And if you wana get FileName/path, Simply do this on Button Click

    FileDialog fileDialog = new OpenFileDialog();
    fileDialog.ShowDialog();
    folderpathTB.Text = fileDialog.FileName;

(folderpathTB is name of TextBox where I wana put the file path, OR u can assign it to a string variable too)

Note: For Folder Dialog, the System.Windows.Forms.dll must be added to the project, otherwise it wouldn't work.

Answer 2

For those who don't want to create a custom dialog but still prefer a 100% WPF way and don't want to use separate DDLs, additional dependencies or outdated APIs, I came up with a very simple hack using the Save As dialog.

No using directive needed, you may simply copy-paste the code below !

It should still be very user-friendly and most people will never notice.

The idea comes from the fact that we can change the title of that dialog, hide files, and work around the resulting filename quite easily.

It is a big hack for sure, but maybe it will do the job just fine for your usage...

In this example I have a textbox object to contain the resulting path, but you may remove the related lines and use a return value if you wish...

// Create a "Save As" dialog for selecting a directory (HACK)
var dialog = new Microsoft.Win32.SaveFileDialog();
dialog.InitialDirectory = textbox.Text; // Use current value for initial dir
dialog.Title = "Select a Directory"; // instead of default "Save As"
dialog.Filter = "Directory|*.this.directory"; // Prevents displaying files
dialog.FileName = "select"; // Filename will then be "select.this.directory"
if (dialog.ShowDialog() == true) {
    string path = dialog.FileName;
    // Remove fake filename from resulting path
    path = path.Replace("\\select.this.directory", "");
    path = path.Replace(".this.directory", "");
    // If user has changed the filename, create the new directory
    if (!System.IO.Directory.Exists(path)) {
        System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory(path);
    }
    // Our final value is in path
    textbox.Text = path;
}

The only issues with this hack are :

• Acknowledge button still says "Save" instead of something like "Select directory", but in a case like mines I "Save" the directory selection so it still works...
• Input field still says "File name" instead of "Directory name", but we can say that a directory is a type of file...
• There is still a "Save as type" dropdown, but its value says "Directory (*.this.directory)", and the user cannot change it for something else, works for me...

Most people won't notice these, although I would definitely prefer using an official WPF way if microsoft would get their heads out of their asses, but until they do, that's my temporary fix.

Answer 3

I'd suggest, to add in the nugget package:

  Install-Package OpenDialog

Then the way to used it is:

    Gat.Controls.OpenDialogView openDialog = new Gat.Controls.OpenDialogView();
    Gat.Controls.OpenDialogViewModel vm = (Gat.Controls.OpenDialogViewModel)openDialog.DataContext;
    vm.IsDirectoryChooser = true;
    vm.Show();

    WPFLabel.Text = vm.SelectedFilePath.ToString();

Here's the documentation: http://opendialog.codeplex.com/documentation

Works for Files, files with filter, folders, etc

Answer 4

You could use smth like this in WPF. I've created example method. Check below.

public string getFolderPath()
{
           // Create OpenFileDialog 
           Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog dlg = new Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog();

           OpenFileDialog openFileDialog = new OpenFileDialog();
           openFileDialog.Multiselect = false;

           openFileDialog.InitialDirectory = Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.MyDocuments);
           if (openFileDialog.ShowDialog() == true)
           {
               System.IO.FileInfo fInfo = new System.IO.FileInfo(openFileDialog.FileName);
               return fInfo.DirectoryName;
           }
           return null;           
       }

Answer 5

I know this is an old question, but a simple way to do this is use the FileDialog option provided by WPF and using System.IO.Path.GetDirectory(filename).

Answer 6

I found the below code on below link... and it worked Select folder dialog WPF

using Microsoft.WindowsAPICodePack.Dialogs;

var dlg = new CommonOpenFileDialog();
dlg.Title = "My Title";
dlg.IsFolderPicker = true;
dlg.InitialDirectory = currentDirectory;

dlg.AddToMostRecentlyUsedList = false;
dlg.AllowNonFileSystemItems = false;
dlg.DefaultDirectory = currentDirectory;
dlg.EnsureFileExists = true;
dlg.EnsurePathExists = true;
dlg.EnsureReadOnly = false;
dlg.EnsureValidNames = true;
dlg.Multiselect = false;
dlg.ShowPlacesList = true;

if (dlg.ShowDialog() == CommonFileDialogResult.Ok) 
{
  var folder = dlg.FileName;
  // Do something with selected folder string
}