How can I make CommonOpenFileDialog select folders only, but still show files?

Question

I am using Microsoft's CommonOpenFileDialog to allow users to select a Folder, but no files are visible when the dialog comes up. Is it possible to show files as well as folders when IsFolderPicker is set to true?

My current code looks like this

var dialog = new CommonOpenFileDialog();
dialog.IsFolderPicker = true;

if (dialog.ShowDialog() == CommonFileDialogResult.Ok)
{
    SelectedFolderPath = dialog.FileName;
}

Answer 1

Off the top of my head, this is how I did it

  var dialog = new CommonOpenFileDialog
  {
    EnsurePathExists = true,
    EnsureFileExists = false,
    AllowNonFileSystemItems = false,
    DefaultFileName = "Select Folder",
    Title = "Select The Folder To Process"
  };


  dialog.SetOpenButtonText("Select Folder");

  if (dialog.ShowDialog() == CommonFileDialogResult.Ok)
  dirToProcess = Directory.Exists(dialog.FileName) ? dialog.FileName : Path.GetDirectoryName(dialog.FileName);

EDIT: Holy 2 years ago Batman!

---

Seems like few changes were made, snippet below seems to do the job

var openFolder = new CommonOpenFileDialog();
openFolder.AllowNonFileSystemItems = true;
openFolder.Multiselect = true;
openFolder.IsFolderPicker = true;
openFolder.Title = "Select folders with jpg files";

if (openFolder.ShowDialog() != CommonFileDialogResult.Ok)
{
    MessageBox.Show("No Folder selected");
    return;
}

// get all the directories in selected dirctory
var dirs = openFolder.FileNames.ToArray();

Answer 2

Not very sure if it even possible to do in a standard way, but even considering that yes, think about UI. Seeing contemporary folders and files in one place, but be able to select only folders, doesn't seem to me a good UI. IMHO it's better, and more "natural" way, to have one control populated with folders, and another (clearly readonly) populated with only files that have to be loaded.

Hope this helps.

Answer 3

If you want the user to select a folder only, have you considered using a FolderBrowserDialog?