JFileChooser : Java Glossary

go to home page J words local find full screen, hide local find menu Google search web for more information on this topic jump to foot of page translate this page with Babelfish punctuation 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z (all) ©1996-2009 Roedy Green, Canadian Mind Products
JFileChooser
A Swing component to ask the user to select a file or directory. The AWT equivalent of JFileChooser is called FileDialog. By default it lets the user select files only, but you can setFileSelectionMode( JFileChooser.DIRECTORIES_ONLY ) or setFileSelectionMode( JFileChooser.FILES_AND_DIRECTORIES ).

When you do a JFileChooser.showOpenDialog it pops up a modal dialog box and returns JFileChooser. APPROVE_OPTION if all went ok. Then you can retrieve the selected file with JFileChooser.getSelectedFile().

Watch out. When you a feed a filter to JFileChooser, it wants as javax.swing.filechooser. FileFilter not a java.io.FilenameFilter. To control whether the user selects a file, directory or either, use setFileSelectionMode( int mode) with JFileChooser. FILES_ONLY, JFileChooser. DIRECTORIES_ONLY or JFileChooser. FILES_AND_DIRECTORIES.

JFileChooser only works in applications, signed JWS applications and signed Applets. If you intend to distribute your program as an unsigned Java Web Start application, then instead of using JFileChooser you should use the JWS classes FileOpenService and FileSaveService.

It lets the user create new directories as he navigates. It is embarrassingly slow code. Here is how you use it.

Learning More

Sun’s Javadoc on JFileChooser class : available:
Sun’s Javadoc on FileFilter class : available:
Sun’s Javadoc on FileNameExtensionFilter class : available:

CMP homejump to top You can get the freshest copy of this page from: or possibly from your local J: drive (Java virtual drive/mindprod.com website mirror)
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jfilechooser.html J:\mindprod\jgloss\jfilechooser.html
CMP logofeedback Please email your feedback for publication, errors, omissions, typos, formatting errors, ambiguities, unclear wording, broken/redirected link reports, suggestions to improve this page or comments to Roedy Green : feedback email
mindprod.com IP:[65.110.21.43]
view BlogYour face IP:[38.107.191.105]
You are visitor number 19,657.