Native File Dialog Extended

A small C library with that portably invokes native file open, folder select and file save dialogs. Write dialog code once and have it pop up native dialogs on all supported platforms. Avoid linking large dependencies like wxWidgets and Qt.

This library is based on Michael Labbe's Native File Dialog (mlabbe/nativefiledialog).

Features:

• Lean C API, static library -- no C++/ObjC runtime needed
• Supports Windows (MSVC, MinGW), MacOS (Clang), and Linux (GCC, Clang)
• Zlib licensed
• Friendly names for filters (e.g. C/C++ Source files (*.c;*.cpp) instead of (*.c;*.cpp)) on platforms that support it
• Automatically append file extension on platforms where users expect it
• Support for setting a default folder path
• Support for setting a default file name (e.g. Untitled.c)
• Consistent UTF-8 support on all platforms
• Native character set (UTF-16 wchar_t) support on Windows
• Initialization and de-initialization of platform library (e.g. COM (Windows) / GTK (Linux)) decoupled from dialog functions, so applications can choose when to initialize/de-initialize
• Multiple file selection support (for file open dialog)
• Support for Vista's modern IFileDialog on Windows
• No third party dependencies
• Modern CMake build system
• Works alongside SDL2 on all platforms
• Optional C++ wrapper with unique_ptr auto-freeing semantics and optional parameters, for those using this library from C++

Comparison with original Native File Dialog:

The friendly names feature is the primary reason for breaking API compatibility with Michael Labbe's library (and hence this library probably will never be merged with it). There are also a number of tweaks that cause observable differences in this library.

Features added in Native File Dialog Extended:

• Friendly names for filters
• Automatically appending file extensions
• Support for setting a default file name
• Native character set (UTF-16 wchar_t) support on Windows
• Initialization and de-initialization of platform library decoupled from file dialog functions
• Modern CMake build system
• Optional C++ wrapper with unique_ptr auto-freeing semantics and optional parameters

There is also significant code refractoring, especially for the Windows implementation.

Basic Usage

#include <nfd.h>
#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(void)
{
    
    NFD_Init();

    nfdchar_t *outPath;
    nfdfilteritem_t filterItem[2] = { { "Source code", "c,cpp,cc" }, { "Headers", "h,hpp" } };
    nfdresult_t result = NFD_OpenDialog(&outPath, filterItem, 2, NULL);
    if (result == NFD_OKAY)
    {
        puts("Success!");
        puts(outPath);
        NFD_FreePath(outPath);
    }
    else if (result == NFD_CANCEL)
    {
        puts("User pressed cancel.");
    }
    else 
    {
        printf("Error: %s\n", NFD_GetError());
    }

    NFD_Quit();
    return 0;
}

See NFD.h for more options.

If you are using a platform abstraction framework such as SDL or GLFW, also see the "Usage" section below.

Screenshots

Building

CMake Projects

If your project uses CMake, simply add the following lines to your CMakeLists.txt:

add_subdirectory(path/to/nativefiledialog-extended)
target_link_libraries(MyProgram PRIVATE nfd)

Make sure that you also have the needed dependencies.

Standalone Library

If you want to build the standalone static library, execute the following commands (starting from the project root directory):

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ..
cmake --build .

The above commands will make a build directory, and build the project (in release mode) there. If you are developing NFDe, you may want to do -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug to build a debug version of the library instead.

If you want to build the sample programs, add -DNFD_BUILD_TESTS=ON (sample programs are not built by default).

Visual Studio on Windows

Recent versions of Visual Studio have CMake support built into the IDE. You should be able to "Open Folder" in the project root directory, and Visual Studio will recognize and configure the project appropriately. From there, you will be able to set configurations for Debug vs Release, and for x86 vs x64. For more information, see the Microsoft Docs page. This has been tested to work on Visual Studio 2019, and it probably works on Visual Studio 2017 too.

Compiling Your Programs

1. Add src/include to your include search path.
2. Add nfd.lib or nfd_d.lib to the list of static libraries to link against (for release or debug, respectively).
3. Add build/ / to the library search path.

Dependencies

Linux

apt-get libgtk-3-dev installs the GTK+3 dependency on debian based systems.

MacOS

On MacOS, add AppKit to the list of frameworks.

Windows

On Windows, ensure you are building against comctl32.lib and uuid.lib.

Usage

See NFD.h for API calls. See the test directory for example code (both C and C++).

If you turned on the option to build the test directory (-DNFD_BUILD_TESTS=ON), then build/bin will contain the compiled test programs.

File Filter Syntax

Files can be filtered by file extension groups:

nfdfilteritem_t filterItem[2] = { { "Source code", "c,cpp,cc" }, { "Headers", "h,hpp" } };

A file filter is a pair of strings comprising the friendly name and the specification (multiple file extensions are comma-separated).

A list of file filters can be passed as an argument when invoking the library.

A wildcard filter is always added to every dialog.

Note: On MacOS, the file dialogs do not have friendly names and there is no way to switch between filters, so the filter specifications are combined (e.g. "c,cpp,cc,h,hpp"). The filter specification is also never explicitly shown to the user. This is usual MacOS behaviour and users expect it.

Note 2: You must ensure that the specification string is non-empty and that every file extension has at least one character. Otherwise, bad things might ensue (i.e. undefined behaviour).

Note 3: On Linux, the file extension is appended (if missing) when the user presses down the "Save" button. The appended file extension will remain visible to the user, even if an overwrite prompt is shown and the user then presses "Cancel".

Note 4: On Windows, the default folder parameter is only used if there is no recently used folder available. Otherwise, the default folder will be the folder that was last used. Internally, the Windows implementation calls IFileDialog::SetDefaultFolder(IShellItem). This is usual Windows behaviour and users expect it.

Iterating Over PathSets

A file open dialog that supports multiple selection produces a PathSet, which is a thin abstraction over the platform-specific collection. There are two ways to iterate over a PathSet:

Accessing by index

This method does array-like access on the PathSet, and is the easiest to use. However, on certain platforms (Linux, and possibly Windows), it takes O(N²) time in total to iterate the entire PathSet, because the underlying platform-specific implementation uses a linked list.

See test_opendialogmultiple.c.

Using an enumerator (experimental)

This method uses an enumerator object to iterate the paths in the PathSet. It is guaranteed to take O(N) time in total to iterate the entire PathSet.

See test_opendialogmultiple_enum.c.

This API is experimental, and subject to change.

Customization Macros

You can define the following macros before including nfd.h/nfd.hpp:

• NFD_NATIVE: Define this before including nfd.h to make non-suffixed function names and typedefs (e.g. NFD_OpenDialog) aliases for the native functions (e.g. NFD_OpenDialogN) instead of aliases for the UTF-8 functions (e.g. NFD_OpenDialogU8). This macro does not affect the C++ wrapper nfd.hpp.
• NFD_THROWS_EXCEPTIONS: (C++ only) Define this before including nfd.hpp to make NFD::Guard construction throw std::runtime_error if NFD_Init fails. Otherwise, there is no way to detect failure in NFD::Guard construction.

Macros that might be defined by nfd.h:

• NFD_DIFFERENT_NATIVE_FUNCTIONS: Defined if the native and UTF-8 versions of functions are different (i.e. compiling for Windows); not defined otherwise. If NFD_DIFFERENT_NATIVE_FUNCTIONS is not defined, then the UTF-8 versions of functions are aliases for the native versions. This might be useful if you are writing a function that wants to provide overloads depending on whether the native functions and UTF-8 functions are the same. (Native is UTF-16 (wchar_t) for Windows and UTF-8 (char) for Mac/Linux.)

Usage with a Platform Abstraction Framework

NFDe is known to work with SDL2 and GLFW, and should also work with other platform abstraction framworks. However, you should initialize NFDe after initializing the framework, and probably should deinitialize NFDe before deinitializing the framework. This is because some frameworks expect to be initialized on a "clean slate", and they may configure the system in a different way from NFDe. NFD_Init is generally very careful not to disrupt the existing configuration unless necessary, and NFD_Quit restores the configuration back exactly to what it was before initialization.

An example with SDL2:

// Initialize SDL2 first
if (SDL_Init(SDL_INIT_VIDEO|SDL_INIT_AUDIO) != 0) {
    // display some error here
}

// Then initialize NFDe
if (NFD_Init() != NFD_OKAY) {
    // display some error here
}

/*
Your main program goes here
*/

NFD_Quit(); // deinitialize NFDe first

SDL_Quit(); // Then deinitialize SDL2

Known Limitations

• No support for Windows XP's legacy dialogs such as GetOpenFileName. (There are no plans to support this; you shouldn't be still using Windows XP anyway.)
• No Emscripten (WebAssembly) bindings. (This might get implemented if I decide to port Circuit Sandbox for the web, but I don't think there is any way to implement a web-based folder picker.)
• GTK dialogs don't set the existing window as parent, so if users click the existing window while the dialog is open then the dialog will go behind it. GTK writes a warning to stdout or stderr about this.
• This library is not compatible with the original Native File Dialog library. Things might break if you use both in the same project. (There are no plans to support this; you have to use one or the other.)

Reporting Bugs

Please use the GitHub issue tracker to report bugs or to contribute to this repository. Feel free to submit bug reports of any kind.

Credit

Bernard Teo (me) and other contributors for everything that wasn't from Michael Labbe's Native File Dialog.

Michael Labbe for his awesome Native File Dialog library, and the other contributors to that library.

Much of this README has also been copied from the README of original Native File Dialog repository.

License

Everything in this repository is distributed under the ZLib license, as is the original Native File Dialog library.

Support

I don't provide any paid support. Michael Labbe appears to provide paid support for his library at the time of writing.