Skip to main content

Variable: GtkFileChooserDialog

const GtkFileChooserDialog: "GtkFileChooserDialog"

Defined in: generated/jsx.ts:15465

GtkFileChooserDialog is a dialog suitable for use with “File Open” or “File Save” commands.

An example GtkFileChooserDialog

This widget works by putting a Gtk.FileChooserWidget inside a Gtk.Dialog. It exposes the Gtk.FileChooser interface, so you can use all of the Gtk.FileChooser functions on the file chooser dialog as well as those for Gtk.Dialog.

Note that GtkFileChooserDialog does not have any methods of its own. Instead, you should use the functions that work on a Gtk.FileChooser.

If you want to integrate well with the platform you should use the Gtk.FileChooserNative API, which will use a platform-specific dialog if available and fall back to GtkFileChooserDialog otherwise.

Typical usage​

In the simplest of cases, you can the following code to use GtkFileChooserDialog to select a file for opening:

static void
on_open_response (GtkDialog *dialog,
                  int        response)
{
  if (response == GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT)
    {
      GtkFileChooser *chooser = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER (dialog);

      g_autoptr(GFile) file = gtk_file_chooser_get_file (chooser);

      open_file (file);
    }

  gtk_window_destroy (GTK_WINDOW (dialog));
}

  // ...
  GtkWidget *dialog;
  GtkFileChooserAction action = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_OPEN;

  dialog = gtk_file_chooser_dialog_new ("Open File",
                                        parent_window,
                                        action,
                                        _("_Cancel"),
                                        GTK_RESPONSE_CANCEL,
                                        _("_Open"),
                                        GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT,
                                        NULL);

  gtk_window_present (GTK_WINDOW (dialog));

  g_signal_connect (dialog, "response",
                    G_CALLBACK (on_open_response),
                    NULL);

To use a dialog for saving, you can use this:

static void
on_save_response (GtkDialog *dialog,
                  int        response)
{
  if (response == GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT)
    {
      GtkFileChooser *chooser = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER (dialog);

      g_autoptr(GFile) file = gtk_file_chooser_get_file (chooser);

      save_to_file (file);
    }

  gtk_window_destroy (GTK_WINDOW (dialog));
}

  // ...
  GtkWidget *dialog;
  GtkFileChooser *chooser;
  GtkFileChooserAction action = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_SAVE;

  dialog = gtk_file_chooser_dialog_new ("Save File",
                                        parent_window,
                                        action,
                                        _("_Cancel"),
                                        GTK_RESPONSE_CANCEL,
                                        _("_Save"),
                                        GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT,
                                        NULL);
  chooser = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER (dialog);

  if (user_edited_a_new_document)
    gtk_file_chooser_set_current_name (chooser, _("Untitled document"));
  else
    gtk_file_chooser_set_file (chooser, existing_filename);

  gtk_window_present (GTK_WINDOW (dialog));

  g_signal_connect (dialog, "response",
                    G_CALLBACK (on_save_response),
                    NULL);

Setting up a file chooser dialog​

There are various cases in which you may need to use a GtkFileChooserDialog:

  • To select a file for opening, use %GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_OPEN.

  • To save a file for the first time, use %GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_SAVE, and suggest a name such as “Untitled” with Gtk.FileChooser.set_current_name.

  • To save a file under a different name, use %GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_SAVE, and set the existing file with Gtk.FileChooser.set_file.

  • To choose a folder instead of a file, use %GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_SELECT_FOLDER.

In general, you should only cause the file chooser to show a specific folder when it is appropriate to use Gtk.FileChooser.set_file, i.e. when you are doing a “Save As” command and you already have a file saved somewhere.

Response Codes​

GtkFileChooserDialog inherits from Gtk.Dialog, so buttons that go in its action area have response codes such as %GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT and %GTK_RESPONSE_CANCEL. For example, you could call Gtk.FileChooserDialog.new as follows:

GtkWidget *dialog;
GtkFileChooserAction action = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_OPEN;

dialog = gtk_file_chooser_dialog_new ("Open File",
                                      parent_window,
                                      action,
                                      _("_Cancel"),
                                      GTK_RESPONSE_CANCEL,
                                      _("_Open"),
                                      GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT,
                                      NULL);

This will create buttons for “Cancel” and “Open” that use predefined response identifiers from Gtk.ResponseType. For most dialog boxes you can use your own custom response codes rather than the ones in Gtk.ResponseType, but GtkFileChooserDialog assumes that its “accept”-type action, e.g. an “Open” or “Save” button, will have one of the following response codes:

  • %GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT
  • %GTK_RESPONSE_OK
  • %GTK_RESPONSE_YES
  • %GTK_RESPONSE_APPLY

This is because GtkFileChooserDialog must intercept responses and switch to folders if appropriate, rather than letting the dialog terminate — the implementation uses these known response codes to know which responses can be blocked if appropriate.

To summarize, make sure you use a predefined response code when you use GtkFileChooserDialog to ensure proper operation.

CSS nodes​

GtkFileChooserDialog has a single CSS node with the name window and style class .filechooser.