CBrowseFolderDialog Class

• Download demo - 22.3 KB
• Download source code - 1.27 KB

Introduction

Almost every time I develop an application, I need the «Browse For Folder» dialog functionality. But every time I use it, I have to allocate and initialize the BROWSEINFO structure and call SHGetMalloc(), SHGetFolderLocation(), SHGetPathFromIDList(), etc.

Obviously, this code would have to be duplicated a lot of times. To avoid such duplications, I created a class that encapsulates all the above mentioned code inside.

Using the Code

What you have to do if you want to put it to work:

1. Download the source code and add it to your project.
2. Create a CBrowseFolderDialog instance.
3. Call the CBrowseFolderDialog::BrowseFolder() member function that creates a dialog and returns the path selected. Here is how the function is declared:

PCTSTR BrowseFolder(HWND hwndOwner = NULL, // parent window handle
        PCTSTR pTitle = NULL, // text that will be shown in the top of dialog
        int nCSIDL = 0,   // here you can specify initial folder CSIDL
        LPARAM lParam = NULL, // here you can specify initial folder path
        UINT uFlags = BIF_NEWDIALOGSTYLE,  // dialog flags
        BFFCALLBACK callbackProc = NULL // callback procedure,
                // use NULL if you will not provide it);

As you can see, all the parameters have default values. Here are several examples of using CBrowseFolderDialog in the code:

CBrowseFolderDialog dlg;

// example 1:
CString strFolderPath = dlg.BrowseFolder();

// example 2:
strFolderPath = dlg.BrowseFolder(NULL, TEXT("SELECT FOLDER!"));

// example 3: specifying initial folder CSIDL
strFolderPath = dlg.BrowseFolder(CSIDL_DESKTOP);

// example 4: specifying initial folder Path
strFolder = dlg.BrowseFolder(NULL, NULL, NULL, (LPARAM)_T("C:\\"));

// example 5: specifying your own browse
// callback procedure as 6-th parameter
static int CALLBACK BrowseCallbackProc(HWND hwnd, UINT uMsg, 
                    LPARAM lParam, LPARAM lpData)
{
    // some implementation
    return 0;
}

strFolder = dlg.BrowseFolder(NULL, NULL, NULL, NULL, 
                             NULL, BrowseCallbackProc);

I have to explain a little about the fifth parameter. It is the BROWSEINFO flags, and is explained in detail on MSDN. The default value is BIF_NEWDIALOGSTYLE. If you want to get a different behaviour, specify your own flag combination here.

History

• 16^th April, 2009: Initial post.
• 17^th April, 2009: Article updated.