Windows file dialog

Download the tool using the link at the end of this article and follow the instructions to install it. If the User Account Control dialog box displays during installation, click Yes to continue. Use the shortcut created on the desktop to run PlacesBar Editor. You may see the User Account Control dialog box again.

The first time you run PlacesBar Editor, the following dialog box displays, encouraging you to donate. Your default web browser also opens to a PayPal page, suggesting a donation. The main interface displays showing a toolbar and two tabs. To define a custom target folder for one of the places, select the Custom check box for that place.

Click the folder button to the right of the User Folders edit box to select a folder, or type in the full path to a folder. To select a system folder for a place, select a folder from the drop-down list under System Folders for that place. As mentioned at the beginning of this article, some programs use the Windows Explorer-like File Open and File Save dialog box.

Microsoft Office programs and some other Microsoft programs, like Notepad and Paint use this style of dialog box. Click the Office tab. For each custom folder you want to add, enter a name for the folder in the edit box under Folder Name. Use the folder button to select the desired folder or enter the full path to the desired folder in the edit box under User Folders.

You can add up to five additional custom folders. These folders are added to the Favorites, and also display as Favorites in Windows Explorer. To apply changes for each tab, you must click Save when that tab is active. To apply changes for Office programs, make sure the Office tab is active and click Save.

To save changes you made on the Windows tab, you must click the Windows tab and click Save again. Once you apply, or save, your changes, on a tab, you can test those changes by clicking the Test button. The appropriate dialog box for the currently selected tab displays.

If the Office tab is active, an Office program like Word or Excel opens and the Open dialog box displays. Click Cancel on the Open dialog box to close the dialog box and the program.

You can revert back to the default settings for both types of File Open and File Save dialog boxes by clicking the Defaults button. You must click the Defaults button for each tab separately. Customizing the File Open and File Save dialog boxes with custom folders can improve your productivity, especially if the folders you use most often are several layers deep in your folder structure.

Use Google Fonts in Word. Use FaceTime on Android Signal vs. Customize the Taskbar in Windows What Is svchost. Best Smartwatches. For more information, see Command-line building with csc. Starting with. NET Core 3. NET Core apps from a folder that has a. After the user chooses a file and selects OK , an instance of the StreamReader class reads the file and displays its contents in the form's text box.

For more information about reading from file streams, see FileStream. BeginRead and FileStream. The following example uses the Button control's Click event handler to open the OpenFileDialog with a filter that shows only text files. After the user chooses a text file and selects OK , the OpenFile method is used to open the file in Notepad.

Skip to main content. The Open dialog box lets the user specify the drive, directory, and the name of a file or set of files to open. The Save As dialog box lets the user specify the drive, directory, and name of a file to save. Explorer-style Open and Save As dialog boxes provide user-interface features that are similar to the Windows Explorer. However, the system continues to support old-style Open and Save As dialog boxes for applications that must be consistent with the old-style user interface.

In addition to the difference in appearance, the Explorer-style and old-style dialog boxes differ in their use of custom templates and hook procedures for customizing the dialog boxes. However, the Explorer-style and old-style dialog boxes have the same behavior for most basic operations, such as specifying a file name filter, validating the user's input, and getting the file name specified by the user.

To determine the cause of the error, call the CommDlgExtendedError function to retrieve the extended error value. The information in this section applies to both Explorer-style and old-style Open and Save As dialog boxes. The nMaxFile member must specify the size, in characters, of the lpstrFile buffer.

For an ANSI function this is the number of bytes, but for a Unicode function this is the number of characters. If the user specifies a file name and clicks the OK button, the dialog box copies the selected drive, directory, and file name to the lpstrFile buffer. The function also sets the nFileOffset and nFileExtension members to the offsets, in characters, from the start of the buffer to the file name and to the file name extension, respectively.

To retrieve just the file name and extension, set the lpstrFileTitle member to point to a buffer and set the nMaxFileTitle member to the size, in characters, of the buffer. Alternatively, you can pass the lpstrFile buffer in a call to the GetFileTitle function to get the display name of the selected file.

Note, however, that the file name that GetFileTitle returns includes an extension only if that is the user's preference for displaying file names. The dialog box uses the current directory for the calling process as the initial directory from which to display files and directories. To specify a different initial directory without changing your current directory, use the lpstrInitialDir member to specify the name of a directory.

The dialog box automatically changes your current directory when the user selects a different drive or directory. This flag does not prevent the user from changing directories to find a file. To specify a default file name extension, use the lpstrDefExt member. If the user specifies a file name that does not have an extension, the dialog box adds your default extension.

For compatibility with older applications, the default multiple selection dialog box uses the old-style user interface. If the user selects more than one file, the buffer pointed to by the lpstrFile member returns the path to the current directory followed by the file names of the selected files.

The nFileOffset member is the offset to the first file name, and the nFileExtension member is not used. The following table describes the difference between Explorer-style and old-style dialog boxes in returning multiple file names. You can use the FindFirstFile function to convert between long and short file names.

The information in this section applies to both Explorer-style and old style Open and Save As dialog boxes. You can provide file name filters to assist the user in limiting the file names that the dialog box displays. A file name filter consists of a pair of null-terminated strings, a description and a pattern, one concatenated to the other.

The dialog box displays the description to let the user pick which filter to use; and it uses the pattern to select the files to display. The last string in the array must be followed by an extra null character.

The asterisk is a wildcard that represents any combination of valid file name characters. The dialog box displays only those files that match the pattern. To specify multiple patterns for the same description, you must use a semicolon ; to separate the patterns.

Note that space characters in the pattern string can produce unexpected results. The following code fragment specifies two filters. The filter with the "Source" description has two patterns.

If the user selects this filter, the dialog box displays only files that have the. C and. CXX extensions. Note, in the C programming language, a string enclosed in double quotes is null-terminated.

The first filter in the buffer has index 1, the second 2, and so on. If the user changes the filter while using the dialog box, the nFilterIndex member is set to the index of the selected filter on return.