Browse for Folder with a Quick Pick

• Download source files - 8.19 KB
• Download demo project (including MFC and Win32 example) - 56.68 KB

Introduction

I was working on the SizeMe project when a user requested a feature. He asked for a predefined list over directories that he wanted to scan. I just finished reading the article Customizing the "Browse for folder" dialog and I got the idea of just customizing the common dialog. Here is the result.
Remember that the common dialogs are shown in the installed language of Windows. The picture shows the dialog with my language Norwegian. I also want to thank Hans Dietrich for his article XBrowseForFolder - Wrapper for SHBrowseForFolder. Some of the code used in the project has been inspired by his work.

Using the Code

The project can be used in either an MFC project or Win32. (The project has only been tested with the Visual Studio 6.0 environment. I don't know if it would work on the newer versions of Visual Studio, but I guess so).

First add the files Dirbrowse.cpp and DirBrowse.h to your project, then include the DirBrowse.h. There are two public functions that you need to use:

BOOL Show(char *szInitDir="");

Function Show results in TRUE if the user pressed OK, and FALSE on cancel/close. The szInitDir is optional and selects the startdir for the browser.

char* GetSelectedDir();

Function GetSelectedDir returns a string with the selected path.

Sample

Here is the quick win32 sample I wrote for handling the class:

#include "stdafx.h"
#include "..\DirBrowse.h"

#include <stdio.h>

int APIENTRY WinMain(HINSTANCE hInstance,
                     HINSTANCE hPrevInstance,
                     LPSTR     lpCmdLine,
                     int       nCmdShow)
{
     // TODO: Place code here.
    CDirBrowse m_dirbrowser(NULL, hInstance);
    
    if(m_dirbrowser.Show()==TRUE)
    {
        char Text[MAX_PATH*2];
        sprintf(Text, "You selected folder: %s", m_dirbrowser.GetSelectedDir());
        MessageBox(NULL, Text, "Browse for folder", MB_OK);
    }
    else
    {
        MessageBox(NULL, "You pressed the cancel button!", "Browse for folder", MB_OK);
    }

    return 0;
}

It is as simple as that. Take a look at the project to check out the MFC version of the same.

Header Customization

When I create classes that can be reused, I always create a lot of #defines. This class is no exception. Here is the defines list:

//#1
#define BROWSE_WIDTH            640
#define BROWSE_HEIGHT            420
#define BROWSE_LISTVIEW_SIZE        0.65
#define BROWSE_BORDER_VERT        4
#define BROWSE_BORDER_HORI        2
#define BROWSE_MAXENTRIES        20

//#2
//This is the message that we start with
#define BROWSE_MESSAGE            10101

//#3
//The name of our hypertext class
#define STATIC_HYPERTEXT_WINDOW_CLASS    "STATIC_HYPERTEXT"

//#4
//This is the font & size we use for showing the info
#define BROWSE_FONTNAME            "Verdana"
#define BROWSE_FONTSIZE            12

//#5
//The colors used
#define BROWSE_SELECTCOLOR        RGB(0,0,255)
#define BROWSE_SELECTCOLORHOVER        RGB(50,105,255)
#define BROWSE_DIRCOLOR            RGB(0,0,200)
#define BROWSE_DIRCOLORHOVER        RGB(100,100,250)

//#6
//The registry variables
#define BROWSE_REGISTRY_ROOT        HKEY_CURRENT_USER
#define BROWSE_REGISTRY_PATH        "Software\\DirBrowser"

//#7
//Strings used
#define BROWSE_TEXT_SHORTCUTS       "Shortcuts"
#define BROWSE_TEXT_HELP            "Please select a folder in the list and press the
                                    arrow to save the directory for a quickpick later on"
#define BROWSE_TEXT_HELP_CAPTION    "Browse for folder help"

#define BROWSE_TEXT_HELP_TOOLTIP    "Press this to save selected path as a shortcut"
                                    //Must not exceed 79 chars!!! 

Each group is explained below:

Points of Interests

I found a little bug while compiling the release version of the project. Take a look at this code:

if(pMe->MessageIsOdd == FALSE)
{
    if(nID % 2 == 0)
        MsgIsOdd = FALSE;
    else
        MsgIsOdd = TRUE;
}
else
{
    if(nID % 2 == 0)
        MsgIsOdd = TRUE;
    else
        MsgIsOdd = FALSE;
}

There shouldn't be any errors in this, but after some research I noticed that the first part of the if-sentence is the only one that gets called. I needed to split it to avoid this bug like this:

if(pMe->MessageIsOdd == FALSE)
{
    //...
}
if(pMe->MessageIsOdd == TRUE)
{
    //...
}

If someone has a good answer to this, please let me know. I'm using Visual Studio 6.0 C++ with SP5 + UINT64 Processor pack Patch.

History

• v1.0 - Initial release