Getting Started with WPF FileDialogs

This article will provide you with the knowledge required to use the file dialogs in a basic scenario.

Assembly References

In order to use the file dialog controls, you will need to add references to the following assemblies:

• Telerik.Windows.Controls
• Telerik.Windows.Controls.Input
• Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation
• Telerik.Windows.Controls.GridView
• Telerik.Windows.Controls.FileDialogs
• Telerik.Windows.Data

When referencing the assemblies directly in a .NET Core application, users need to explicitly add a package reference to the respective Microsoft.Windows.Compatibility package. For example - 6.0.0 when targeting .NET 6. This is not required when using the Telerik UI for WPF NuGet packages.

You can find the required assemblies for each control from the Telerik UI for WPF suite in the Controls Dependencies help article.

Using the dialogs

There are few dialogs that you can use in a similar way. Example 1 shows how to show a RadOpenFileDialog. You can use this code to also show the open folder and save file dialogs.

Example 1: Opening a dialog

RadOpenFileDialog openFileDialog = new RadOpenFileDialog();  
openFileDialog.Owner = theHostWindowInstance;    
openFileDialog.ShowDialog(); 
if (openFileDialog.DialogResult == true) 
{ 
    string selectedFileName = openFileDialog.FileName; 
} 

You can see how to define and show the different dialogs in the corresponding articles.

• RadOpenFileDialog

• RadOpenFolderDialog

• RadSaveFileDialog

Setting a Theme

The controls from our suite support different themes. You can see how to apply a theme different than the default one in the Setting a Theme (Using Implicit Styles) help article.

Changing the theme using implicit styles will affect all controls that have styles defined in the merged resource dictionaries. This is applicable only for the controls in the scope in which the resources are merged.

To change the theme, you can follow the steps below:

• Choose between the themes and add reference to the corresponding theme assembly (for example: Telerik.Windows.Themes.VisualStudio2013.dll). You see the different themes applied in the Theming examples from our demos application.

• Merge the ResourceDictionaries with the namespace required for the controls that you are using from the theme assembly. For RadTreeView, you will need to merge the following resources:

  • System.Windows.xaml
  • Telerik.Windows.Controls.xaml
  • Telerik.Windows.Controls.Input.xaml
  • Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation.xaml
  • Telerik.Windows.Controls.GridView.xaml
  • Telerik.Windows.Controls.FileDialogs.xaml

  Example 2 demonstrates where you can merge the ResourceDictionaries so they are applied globally in the application.

  Example 2: Merging the ResourceDictionaries

      <Application x:Class="MyTestApplication.App" 
               xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation" 
               xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml" 
               StartupUri="MainWindow.xaml"> 
          <Application.Resources> 
              <ResourceDictionary> 
                  <ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> 
                      <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.VisualStudio2013;component/Themes/Telerik.Windows.Controls.xaml" /> 
                      <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.VisualStudio2013;component/Themes/Telerik.Windows.Controls.Input.xaml" /> 
                      <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.VisualStudio2013;component/Themes/Telerik.Windows.Controls.Navigation.xaml" /> 
                      <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.VisualStudio2013;component/Themes/Telerik.Windows.Controls.GridView.xaml" /> 
                      <ResourceDictionary Source="/Telerik.Windows.Themes.VisualStudio2013;component/Themes/Telerik.Windows.Controls.FileDialogs.xaml" /> 
                  </ResourceDictionary.MergedDictionaries> 
              </ResourceDictionary> 
          </Application.Resources> 
      </Application> 
  

  Figure 1: File dialog with VisualStudio2013 theme applied

  

See Also

• Visual Structure
• Events