Folder Browser component for .NET

Rama Krishna Vavilala

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5 Mar 2002CPOL2 min read

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A component that provides shell folder browsing dialog to .NET applications

Download source files - 24 Kb

Demo Application

Dialog generated by settings in the demo application

Introduction

ShellFolderBrowser

is a component that makes it possible to use shell's folder browsing dialog for .NET applications. It can be used in the same way as

OpenFileDialog

and SaveFileDialog components which are available from the framework SDK. The component makes use of SHBrowseForFolder function and demonstrates various aspects of interoperability of managed and unmanaged code like passing delegates function pointers, passing structures and strings.

It is quite simple to use the component. You can place it on the toolbox and drag it to the form. You can set the desired properties in the component in the property grid as shown :-

In order to display the dialog all that needs to be done is to call the

ShowDialog

method as

folderBrowser1.ShowDialog();

Here is a brief description of the component. For detailed description see the documentation of SHBrowseForFolder.

Properties

BrowseFlags	Sets the flags that control the behaviour of the dialog
FolderDisplayName	The display name of the folder selected by the user
FolderPath	The folder path that was selected
Title	String that is displayed above the tree view control in the dialog box. This string can be used to specify instructions to the user. Can only be modified if the dalog is not currently displayed.

Methods

`EnableOKButton`	Enables or disables the ok button in the dialog
`SetExpanded`	Expand a path in the folder
`SetOkButtonText`	Sets the text of the OK button in the dialog
`SetSelection`	Sets the selection the text specified
`SetStatusText`	Sets the text of the staus area of the folder dialog
`ShowDialog`	Shows the dialog

Events

`Initialized`	Fired when the dialog is initialized (when `BFFM_INITIALIZED` is send to the BrowseCallback function)
`IUnknownObtained`	Shell provides an `IUnknown` through this event. For details see documentation of SHBrowseForFolder (when `BFFM_INITIALIZED` is send to the `BrowseCallback` function)
`SelChanged`	Fired when selection changes (when `BFFM_INITIALIZED` is send to the BrowseCallback function)
`ValidateFailed`	Fired when validation of text typed by user fails (when `BFFM_INITIALIZED` is send to the `BrowseCallback` function)

BrowseFlags

BrowseFlags is an enumeration with Flags attribute set and can be a combination of any of the following values :-

`ReturnOnlyFSDirs`	Same as `BIF_RETURNONLYFSDIRS`
`DontGoBelowDomain`	Same as `BIF_DONTGOBELOWDOMAIN`
`ShowStatusText`	Same as `BIF_STATUSTEXT`
`ReturnFSancestors`	Same as `BIF_RETURNFSANCESTORS`
`EditBox`	Same as `BIF_EDITBOX`
`Validate`	Same as `BIF_VALIDATE`
`NewDialogStyle`	Same as `BIF_NEWDIALOGSTYLE`
`BrowseIncludeURLs`	Same as `BIF_BROWSEINCLUDEURLS`
`AddUsageHint`	Same as `BIF_UAHINT`
`NoNewFolderButton`	Same as `BIF_NONEWFOLDERBUTTON`
`BrowseForComputer`	Same as `BIF_BROWSEFORCOMPUTER`
`BrowseForPrinter`	Same as `BIF_BROWSEFORPRINTER`
`IncludeFiles`	Same as `BIF_BROWSEINCLUDEFILES`
`ShowShareable`	Same as `BIF_SHAREABLE`

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)

Written By

Rama Krishna Vavilala

Architect

United States

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