File Open dialog box

[charles]

I have a question about the file Open dialog box.

I would like to be able to make the dialog box bigger by
selecting the bottom right-hand corner and dragging/expanding the
box.

I am told by my colleagues that this is not "standard" but find it
hard to believe.

Opening a file in MS word for example, the dialog has
an "expansion" corner on the bottom right corner.

Is it true that this is not standard.

Can you tell me how to enable and disable this
windows file Open dialog feature and would there be
any difference in the creating the dialog using vc and vb.


Thanks


Charles W

 

[Scot T Brennecke]

It's sadly true that the standard FileOpen dialog does not have the resize thumb in the corner. It
would not be different between VC and VB. The Office apps clearly do not use the standard shell
dialogs offered to the rest of us mere mortals. In order to get this functionality, you'd need to
customize the dialog.

 

[Tamas Demjen]

Opening a file in MS word for example, the dialog has
an "expansion" corner on the bottom right corner.

Perhaps you will find this article helpful:
http://www.codeproject.com/dialog/select_all_button.asp

Although it may be a radical solution to completely replace the standard
open/save dialogs, there are components available that help with that.

In .NET:
http://www.ssware.com/megapack.htm

In Win32:
http://plasmatech.com/scpax.htm

I'm just trying to offer an alternative way, which may or may not be
acceptable for you.

Tom

 

[charles]

Tom

It's a pity Microsoft didn't do this in the first place.....
Thanks for your comments.



Charles W

 

[David Wilkinson]

I have a question about the file Open dialog box.

I would like to be able to make the dialog box bigger by
selecting the bottom right-hand corner and dragging/expanding the
box.

I am told by my colleagues that this is not "standard" but find it
hard to believe.

Opening a file in MS word for example, the dialog has
an "expansion" corner on the bottom right corner.

Is it true that this is not standard.

Can you tell me how to enable and disable this
windows file Open dialog feature and would there be
any difference in the creating the dialog using vc and vb.

Charles:

I am puzzled by this question. At least in XP, isn't the "new" Open file
dialog box (the one with the Places bar) resizable by default?

What version of Visual Studio (or the PSDK) are you using? I use VC6
with the Feb 2003 SDK, and use (a slightly modified version of) Paul
diLascia's CFileDialogEx class, which allows use of the new style File
dialog on Me/2000/XP/Vista, while giving the old style one on older
platforms.

[This is with MFC of course. But if you use the PSDK directly, you just
need (I would think) to control the lStructSize member of the
OPENFILENAME structure.]

Or do you want to make the old style open file dialog resizable? That
takes work, I think.

David Wilkinson

 

[Tamas Demjen]

At least in XP, isn't the "new" Open file
dialog box (the one with the Places bar) resizable by default?

Yes, that's true. It still has the bug that places multiple selected
items in the opposite order (the most recently selected item last). So
let's say if you want to open files 0001.tif through 0099.tif, then they
will be opened in the wrong order, 0099 first, and 0001 last. That's
pretty inconvenient at times, users have to select the last item first
and the first item last. Personally I sort the selection in my own
applications to work this bug around.

Tom