FileChooserNative

open class FileChooserNative : NativeDialog, FileChooserNativeProtocol

GtkFileChooserNative is an abstraction of a dialog box suitable for use with “File/Open” or “File/Save as” commands. By default, this just uses a GtkFileChooserDialog to implement the actual dialog. However, on certain platforms, such as Windows and macOS, the native platform file chooser is used instead. When the application is running in a sandboxed environment without direct filesystem access (such as Flatpak), GtkFileChooserNative may call the proper APIs (portals) to let the user choose a file and make it available to the application.

While the API of GtkFileChooserNative closely mirrors GtkFileChooserDialog, the main difference is that there is no access to any GtkWindow or GtkWidget for the dialog. This is required, as there may not be one in the case of a platform native dialog. Showing, hiding and running the dialog is handled by the GtkNativeDialog functions.

Typical usage ##

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

GtkFileChooserNative *native;
GtkFileChooserAction action = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_OPEN;
gint res;

native = gtk_file_chooser_native_new ("Open File",
                                      parent_window,
                                      action,
                                      "_Open",
                                      "_Cancel");

res = gtk_native_dialog_run (GTK_NATIVE_DIALOG (native));
if (res == GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT)
  {
    char *filename;
    GtkFileChooser *chooser = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER (native);
    filename = gtk_file_chooser_get_filename (chooser);
    open_file (filename);
    g_free (filename);
  }

g_object_unref (native);

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

GtkFileChooserNative *native;
GtkFileChooser *chooser;
GtkFileChooserAction action = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER_ACTION_SAVE;
gint res;

native = gtk_file_chooser_native_new ("Save File",
                                      parent_window,
                                      action,
                                      "_Save",
                                      "_Cancel");
chooser = GTK_FILE_CHOOSER (native);

gtk_file_chooser_set_do_overwrite_confirmation (chooser, TRUE);

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

res = gtk_native_dialog_run (GTK_NATIVE_DIALOG (native));
if (res == GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT)
  {
    char *filename;

    filename = gtk_file_chooser_get_filename (chooser);
    save_to_file (filename);
    g_free (filename);
  }

g_object_unref (native);

For more information on how to best set up a file dialog, see GtkFileChooserDialog.

Response Codes ##

GtkFileChooserNative inherits from GtkNativeDialog, which means it will return GTK_RESPONSE_ACCEPT if the user accepted, and GTK_RESPONSE_CANCEL if he pressed cancel. It can also return GTK_RESPONSE_DELETE_EVENT if the window was unexpectedly closed.

Differences from GtkFileChooserDialog ##

There are a few things in the GtkFileChooser API that are not possible to use with GtkFileChooserNative, as such use would prohibit the use of a native dialog.

There is no support for the signals that are emitted when the user navigates in the dialog, including:

• GtkFileChooser::current-folder-changed
• GtkFileChooser::selection-changed
• GtkFileChooser::file-activated
• GtkFileChooser::confirm-overwrite

You can also not use the methods that directly control user navigation:

• gtk_file_chooser_unselect_filename()
• gtk_file_chooser_select_all()
• gtk_file_chooser_unselect_all()

If you need any of the above you will have to use GtkFileChooserDialog directly.

No operations that change the the dialog work while the dialog is visible. Set all the properties that are required before showing the dialog.

Win32 details ##

On windows the IFileDialog implementation (added in Windows Vista) is used. It supports many of the features that GtkFileChooserDialog does, but there are some things it does not handle:

• Extra widgets added with gtk_file_chooser_set_extra_widget().

• Use of custom previews by connecting to GtkFileChooser::update-preview.

• Any GtkFileFilter added using a mimetype or custom filter.

If any of these features are used the regular GtkFileChooserDialog will be used in place of the native one.

Portal details ##

When the org.freedesktop.portal.FileChooser portal is available on the session bus, it is used to bring up an out-of-process file chooser. Depending on the kind of session the application is running in, this may or may not be a GTK+ file chooser. In this situation, the following things are not supported and will be silently ignored:

• Extra widgets added with gtk_file_chooser_set_extra_widget().

• Use of custom previews by connecting to GtkFileChooser::update-preview.

• Any GtkFileFilter added with a custom filter.

macOS details ##

On macOS the NSSavePanel and NSOpenPanel classes are used to provide native file chooser dialogs. Some features provided by GtkFileChooserDialog are not supported:

• Extra widgets added with gtk_file_chooser_set_extra_widget(), unless the widget is an instance of GtkLabel, in which case the label text will be used to set the NSSavePanel message instance property.

• Use of custom previews by connecting to GtkFileChooser::update-preview.

• Any GtkFileFilter added with a custom filter.

• Shortcut folders.

The FileChooserNative type acts as a reference-counted owner of an underlying GtkFileChooserNative instance. It provides the methods that can operate on this data type through FileChooserNativeProtocol conformance. Use FileChooserNative as a strong reference or owner of a GtkFileChooserNative instance.