Is there a native “file explorer” in Qt that I can use to have the user select path to a specific file?

Question

I have a small application that requires the pathway to a specific file that will be given at run-time by the user. All I need is the path. I image this to be some form of a file explorer in which the user may traverse through the directory tree.

Is there a way to do this in Qt, or must I call the native OS implementation (if that is possible). If not in Qt, how can I make use of the local OS implementation?

Answer 1

This is what QFileDialog is trying to achieve, so I would suggest to use that if it is a widget based application. All you will need to write is something like this:

fileName = QFileDialog::getOpenFileName(this,
tr("Open Image"), "/home/jana", tr("Image Files (*.png *.jpg *.bmp)"));

This will bring up a dialog for selection that the user can use for navigation.

If you happen to use QML, you could give a try to the FileDialog component . Then, you would write something like this:

import QtQuick 2.2
import QtQuick.Dialogs 1.0

FileDialog {
    id: fileDialog
    title: "Please choose a file"
    onAccepted: {
        console.log("You chose: " + fileDialog.fileUrls)
        Qt.quit()
    }
    onRejected: {
        console.log("Canceled")
        Qt.quit()
    }
    Component.onCompleted: visible = true
}