Description GtkFileChooser is an interface that can be implemented by file selection widgets. In GTK+, the main objects that implement this interface are GtkFileChooserWidget, GtkFileChooserDialog, and GtkFileChooserButton. You do not need to write an object that implements the GtkFileChooser interface unless you are trying to adapt an existing file selector to expose a standard programming interface. GtkFileChooser allows for shortcuts to various places in the filesystem. In the default implementation these are displayed in the left pane. It may be a bit confusing at first taht these shortcuts come from various sources and in various flavours, so lets explain the terminology here: Bookmarks are created by the user, by dragging folders from the right pane to the left pane, or by using the "Add". Bookmarks can be renamed and deleted by the user. Shortcuts can be provided by the application or by the underlying filesystem abstraction (e.g. both the gnome-vfs and the Windows filesystems provide "Desktop" shortcuts). Shortcuts cannot be modified by the user. Volumes are provided by the underlying filesystem abstraction. They are the "roots" of the filesystem. File Names and Encodings When the user is finished selecting files in a GtkFileChooser, your program can get the selected names either as filenames or as URIs. For URIs, the normal escaping rules are applied if the URI contains non-ASCII characters. However, filenames are always returned in the character set specified by the G_FILENAME_ENCODING environment variable. Please see the Glib documentation for more details about this variable. Note This means that while you can pass the result of gtk_file_chooser_get_filename() to open(2) or fopen(3), you may not be able to directly set it as the text of a GtkLabel widget unless you convert it first to UTF-8, which all GTK+ widgets expect. You should use g_filename_to_utf8() to convert filenames into strings that can be passed to GTK+ widgets. <hr> Adding a Preview Widget You can add a custom preview widget to a file chooser and then get notification about when the preview needs to be updated. To install a preview widget, use gtk_file_chooser_set_preview_widget(). Then, connect to the "update-preview" signal to get notified when you need to update the contents of the preview. Your callback should use gtk_file_chooser_get_preview_filename() to see what needs previewing. Once you have generated the preview for the corresponding file, you must call gtk_file_chooser_set_preview_widget_active() with a boolean flag that indicates whether your callback could successfully generate a preview. <hr> Adding Extra Widgets You can add extra widgets to a file chooser to provide options that are not present in the default design. For example, you can add a toggle button to give the user the option to open a file in read-only mode. You can use gtk_file_chooser_set_extra_widget() to insert additional widgets in a file chooser. Note If you want to set more than one extra widget in the file chooser, you can a container such as a GtkVBox or a GtkTable and include your widgets in it. Then, set the container as the whole extra widget. <hr> Key Bindings Internally, GTK+ implements a file chooser's graphical user interface with the private GtkFileChooserDefaultClass. This widget has several key bindings and their associated signals. This section describes the available key binding signals. You can change these defaults to something else. For example, to add a Shift modifier to a few of the default bindings, you can include the following fragment in your .gtkrc-2.0 file: binding "my-own-gtkfilechooser-bindings" { * bind "<Alt><Shift>Up" { * "up-folder" () * } * bind "<Alt><Shift>Down" { * "down-folder" () * } * bind "<Alt><Shift>Home" { * "home-folder" () * } } class "GtkFileChooserDefault" binding "my-own-gtkfilechooser-bindings" The "GtkFileChooserDefault::location-popup" signal void user_function (GtkFileChooserDefault *chooser, const char *path, gpointer user_data); This is used to make the file chooser show a "Location" dialog which the user can use to manually type the name of the file he wishes to select. The path argument is a string that gets put in the text entry for the file name. By default this is bound to Control+L with a path string of "" (the empty string). It is also bound to / with a path string of "/" (a slash): this lets you type / and immediately type a path name. On Unix systems, this is bound to ~ (tilde) with a path string of "~" itself for access to home directories. chooser : the object which received the signal. path : default contents for the text entry for the file name user_data : user data set when the signal handler was connected. Note You can create your own bindings for the GtkFileChooserDefault::location-popup signal with custom path strings, and have a crude form of easily-to-type bookmarks. For example, say you access the path /home/username/misc very frequently. You could then create an Alt+M shortcut by including the following in your .gtkrc-2.0: binding "misc-shortcut" { * bind "<Alt>M" { * "location-popup" ("/home/username/misc") * } } class "GtkFileChooserDefault" binding "misc-shortcut" The "GtkFileChooserDefault::up-folder" signal void user_function (GtkFileChooserDefault *chooser, gpointer user_data); This is used to make the file chooser go to the parent of the current folder in the file hierarchy. By default this is bound to Backspace and Alt+Up (the Up key in the numeric keypad also works). chooser : the object which received the signal. user_data : user data set when the signal handler was connected. The "GtkFileChooserDefault::down-folder" signal void user_function (GtkFileChooserDefault *chooser, gpointer user_data); This is used to make the file chooser go to a child of the current folder in the file hierarchy. The subfolder that will be used is displayed in the path bar widget of the file chooser. For example, if the path bar is showing "/foo/bar/baz", then this will cause the file chooser to switch to the "baz" subfolder. By default this is bound to Alt+Down (the Down key in the numeric keypad also works). chooser : the object which received the signal. user_data : user data set when the signal handler was connected. The "GtkFileChooserDefault::home-folder" signal void user_function (GtkFileChooserDefault *chooser, gpointer user_data); This is used to make the file chooser show the user's home folder in the file list. By default this is bound to Alt+Home (the Home key in the numeric keypad also works). chooser : the object which received the signal. user_data : user data set when the signal handler was connected. The "GtkFileChooserDefault::desktop-folder" signal void user_function (GtkFileChooserDefault *chooser, gpointer user_data); This is used to make the file chooser show the user's Desktop folder in the file list. By default this is bound to Alt+D. chooser : the object which received the signal. user_data : user data set when the signal handler was connected. The "GtkFileChooserDefault::quick-bookmark" signal void user_function (GtkFileChooserDefault *chooser, gint bookmark_index, gpointer user_data); This is used to make the file chooser switch to the bookmark specified in the bookmark_index parameter. For example, if you have three bookmarks, you can pass 0, 1, 2 to this signal to switch to each of them, respectively. By default this is bound to Alt+1, Alt+2, etc. until Alt+0. Note that in the default binding, that Alt+1 is actually defined to switch to the bookmark at index 0, and so on successively; Alt+0 is defined to switch to the bookmark at index 10. chooser : the object which received the signal. bookmark_indes : index of the bookmark to switch to; the indices start at 0. user_data : user data set when the signal handler was connected.