Am I using the GUIKit package FileDialog Widgit properly?

Questions
1

In a Mathematica notebook, I execute the following lines,

Needs["GUIKit`"];
GUIRun[Widget["FileDialog"]];

What looks like a standard File Dialog window appears. Using the dialog, I select a file and then click the “Open” button and nothing happens. The dialog remains on the screen and there is no indication of any activity on the notebook. Normally when I use a file dialog in Java or a dot net language the dialog disappears when I click the open button and the file path/name string are placed in a variable and I use that string to open the file.

I looked at the documentation on FileDialog and it is anything but clear which doesn’t surprise me too much.

So, does anyone know how to use the FileDialog in Mathemetica?

Thanks.

2

Here is some earlier code

Needs["GUIKit`"];

assuming that “test” is a direct subdirectory of NotebookDirectory[] and that there are 2 files bertGraph*.jpep and morleyS18*.jpeg in subdirectory test. If you run the following cell and click in the appearing window

GUIRunModal[
 Widget["Panel", {
   Widget[
    "Button", {"text" -> "bert", 
     BindEvent["action", Script[showB[1]]]}, Name -> "button1"],
   Widget[
    "Button", {"text" -> "morley", 
     BindEvent["action", Script[showB[2]]]}, Name -> "button2"],
   Widget["ImageLabel", Name -> "Bilderleiste"],
   Script[showB[n_Integer] := 
     SetPropertyValue[{"Bilderleiste", "data"}, Block[{files, ims},
       SetDirectory[NotebookDirectory[] <> "\\test"];
       files = If[Mod[n, 2] == 1,
         FileNames["bertGraph*.jpeg"],
         FileNames["morleyS18*.jpeg"]
         ];
       ims = Import /@ files;
       (* Print["Es war Schalter: ", n]; *)
       ExportString[GraphicsRow[ims], "JPEG"]
       ]]]
   }, Name -> "myPanel"]]

on “bert” or on “morley”, it opens the corresponding jpeg File in the window as shown here

commBert.JPG
commBert.JPG539×480 26.5 KB

using this you should be able to use FileDialog[] too.

3 
In[23]:= SystemDialogInput["FileOpen"]

Out[23]= "N:\\Udo\\Abt_N\\test\\bertGraph.jpeg"

simple and direct; the interactive examples in Mma 9.0.1 Help GUIKit/ref/widget/FileDialog need some effort to be intelligible, I’ve to confess.

4

Thank you for the help.

I’m not too keen on the first response. I really wanted a ready made file dialog solution. Call me lazy. :slight_smile:

I like the second response. I tried it and it worked just fine.

I wonder why Wolfram went to all the trouble to make that Widget “FileDialog” that doesn’t work and in fact, does absolutely nothing?

5

Which version of Mathematica are you trying this with, and which operating system and level?

6

One cannot state that it is not working, because there is an example in the Help GUIKit/tutorial/TextImportWizard if you call it it opens a file dialog

commWidget.JPG
commWidget.JPG921×776 119 KB

and in the Code section above in the manual you see where the code comes from: it is in directory (drive letter depends on local installation)
S:\Program Files\Wolfram Research\Mathematica\9.0.1\AddOns\Packages\GUIKit\GUI\Wolfram\Example

and there are files TextImportWizard.m and TextImportWizardScriptCode.m and in the latter one there is BrowseFilename[] which works and uses a Widget[“FileDialog”, …] and can serve as a starting point.