Using the Open File Dialog Window - Page 1
       by kirupa  |  7 August 2007

In many applications, there are certain tasks that you perform frequently. Some of those tasks include opening files, saving files, printing files, and so on. Because a lot of these tasks do not vary among applications and require some level of OS-level hacking, Windows provides built-in functionality and a consistent UI for performing these tasks for you. You commonly use them in the form of dialog windows.

In this tutorial, I will explain how to use one such dialog window known as Open File. The Open File dialog window is what you see when you, for example, go to File | Open in most applications:

[ the Open File dialog window in Vista ]

To maintain consistency, it is better for you to use the same Open File dialog window in your applications to provide open file functionality, and you'll learn how to do that and more in this tutorial. The final section of this tutorial is dedicated to address a WPF issue that displays the wrong version of the Open File dialog window in Vista.

Getting Started
Instead of having you spend time creating your own application, I have provided a very simple application consisting of a button to which you will add some code to for testing/displaying your dialog window:

[ your sample application ]

So, first, download and extract the source files used for creating the sample application shown above:

[ your recently extracted files ]

Once you have extracted the files, open this project using Visual Studio or the free Visual C# Express. I'll be using Visual C# Express for this tutorial.

With your project now opened, open Window1.xaml.cs. You will see the following code displayed:

using System;

using System.IO;

using System.Net;

using System.Windows;

using System.Windows.Controls;

using System.Windows.Data;

using System.Windows.Media;

using System.Windows.Media.Animation;

using System.Windows.Navigation;

using Microsoft.Win32;

 

namespace DialogTest1

{

public partial class Window1

{

public Window1()

{

this.InitializeComponent();

 

// Insert code required on object creation below this point.

}

 

private void WindowLauncher(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)

{

 

}

}

}

The WindowLauncher event handler method is what gets called when the button in your application is pressed. In the following sections, you'll add code to your WindowLauncher method to display your Open File dialog window. Let's get started on the next page!

Onwards to the next page.

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