egui-file-dialog

Table of contents

1. Features
2. Example
3. Keybindings
4. Customization
5. Multilingual support
6. Persistent data

This repository provides an easy-to-use and customizable file dialog (a.k.a. file explorer, file picker) for egui.

The file dialog is intended for use by desktop applications, allowing the use of a file dialog directly within the egui application without relying on the operating system's file explorer. This also ensures that the file dialog looks the same and provides the same functionality on all platforms.

The latest changes included in the next release can be found in the CHANGELOG.md file on the develop branch.

Features

• Select a file or a directory
• Save a file (Prompt user for a destination path)
  • Dialog to ask the user if the existing file should be overwritten
• Select multiple files and folders at once (ctrl/shift + click on linux/windows and cmd/shift + click on macOS)
• Open the dialog in a normal or modal window
• Create a new folder
• Keyboard navigation
• Option to show or hide hidden files and folders
• Option to show or hide system files
• Navigation buttons to open the parent or previous directories
• Search for items in a directory
• Add file filters the user can select from a dropdown
• Shortcut for user directories (Home, Documents, ...) and system disks
• Pin folders to the left sidebar
• Manually edit the path via text
• Customization highlights:
  • Customize which areas and functions of the dialog are visible
  • Customize the text labels used by the dialog to enable multilingual support
  • Customize file and folder icons
  • Add custom quick access sections to the left sidebar
  • Customize keybindings used by the file dialog
  • Add a right panel with custom UI using

Example

Detailed examples that can be run can be found in the examples folder.

The following example shows the basic use of the file dialog with eframe to select a file.

Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
eframe = "0.29.1"
egui-file-dialog = "0.7.0"

main.rs:

use std::path::PathBuf;

use eframe::egui;
use egui_file_dialog::FileDialog;

struct MyApp {
    file_dialog: FileDialog,
    selected_file: Option<PathBuf>,
}

impl MyApp {
    pub fn new(_cc: &eframe::CreationContext) -> Self {
        Self {
            // Create a new file dialog object
            file_dialog: FileDialog::new(),
            selected_file: None,
        }
    }
}

impl eframe::App for MyApp {
    fn update(&mut self, ctx: &egui::Context, _frame: &mut eframe::Frame) {
        egui::CentralPanel::default().show(ctx, |ui| {
            if ui.button("Select file").clicked() {
                // Open the file dialog to select a file.
                self.file_dialog.select_file();
            }

            ui.label(format!("Selected file: {:?}", self.selected_file));

            // Update the dialog
            self.file_dialog.update(ctx);

            // Check if the user selected a file.
            if let Some(path) = self.file_dialog.take_selected() {
                self.selected_file = Some(path.to_path_buf());
            }
        });
    }
}

fn main() -> eframe::Result<()> {
    eframe::run_native(
        "File dialog demo",
        eframe::NativeOptions::default(),
        Box::new(|ctx| Box::new(MyApp::new(ctx))),
    )
}

Keybindings

Keybindings can be used in the file dialog for easier navigation. All keybindings can be configured from the backend with FileDialogKeyBindings and FileDialog::keybindings.
The following table lists all available keybindings and their default values.

Name	Description	Default
submit	Submit the current action or open the currently selected folder	Enter
cancel	Cancel the current action	Escape
parent	Open the parent directory	ALT + ↑
back	Go back	Mouse button 1 ALT + ← Backspace
forward	Go forward	Mouse button 2 ALT + →
reload	Reload the file dialog data and the currently open directory	F5
new_folder	Open the dialog to create a new folder	CTRL + N on linux/windows or CMD + N on macOS
edit_path	Text edit the current path	/
home_edit_path	Open the home directory and start text editing the path	~
selection_up	Move the selection one item up	↑
selection_down	Move the selection one item down	↓
select_all	Select every item in the directory when using the file dialog to select multiple files and folders	CTRL + A on linux/windows or CMD + A on macOS

Customization

Many things can be customized so that the dialog can be used in different situations.
A few highlights of the customization are listed below. For all possible customization options, see the documentation on docs.rs.

• Set which areas and functions of the dialog are visible using FileDialog::show_* methods
• Update the text labels that the dialog uses. See Multilingual support
• Customize file and folder icons using FileDialog::set_file_icon (Currently only unicode is supported)
• Customize keybindings used by the file dialog using FileDialog::keybindings. See Keybindings
• Add a right panel with custom UI using FileDialog::update_with_right_panel_ui

Since the dialog uses the egui style to look like the rest of the application, the appearance can be customized with egui::Style and egui::Context::set_style.

The following example shows how a single file dialog can be customized.
If you need to configure multiple file dialog objects with the same or almost the same options, it is a good idea to use FileDialogConfig and FileDialog::with_config (See FileDialogConfig on docs.rs).

use std::path::PathBuf;
use std::sync::Arc;

use egui_file_dialog::FileDialog;

FileDialog::new()
    .initial_directory(PathBuf::from("/path/to/app"))
    .default_file_name("app.cfg")
    .default_size([600.0, 400.0])
    .resizable(false)
    .show_new_folder_button(false)
    .show_search(false)
    .show_path_edit_button(false)
    // Add a new quick access section to the left sidebar
    .add_quick_access("Project", |s| {
        s.add_path("☆  Examples", "examples");
        s.add_path("📷  Media", "media");
        s.add_path("📂  Source", "src");
    })
    // Markdown files should use the "document with text (U+1F5B9)" icon
    .set_file_icon(
        "🖹",
        Arc::new(|path| path.extension().unwrap_or_default() == "md"),
    )
    // .gitignore files should use the "web-github (U+E624)" icon
    .set_file_icon(
        "",
        Arc::new(|path| path.file_name().unwrap_or_default() == ".gitignore"),
    )
    // Add file filters the user can select in the bottom right
    .add_file_filter(
        "PNG files",
        Arc::new(|p| p.extension().unwrap_or_default() == "png"),
    )
    .add_file_filter(
        "Rust source files",
        Arc::new(|p| p.extension().unwrap_or_default() == "rs"),
    );

With the options the dialog then looks like this:

If you want to display your own information in the file dialog, you can update the file dialog with update_with_right_panel_ui instead of update. This allows e.g. to display custom image previews or further information about the selected item. See custom-right-panel for the full example.

fn update(&mut self, ctx: &egui::Context, _frame: &mut eframe::Frame) {
    // Update the dialog with a custom right panel
    self.file_dialog.update_with_right_panel_ui(ctx, &mut |ui, dialog| {
        ui.label("This is a custom label");
        ui.add_space(5.0);
        ui.label(format!("Currently selected item:\n{:?}", dialog.active_entry()));
    });
}

Multilingual support

For desktop applications it is often necessary to offer different languages. While the dialog currently only offers English labels by default, the labels are fully customizable. This makes it possible to adapt the labels to different languages.

The following example shows how the labels can be changed to display the file dialog in English or German.
Checkout examples/multilingual for the full example.

use egui_file_dialog::{FileDialog, FileDialogLabels};

enum Language {
    English,
    German,
}

fn get_labels_german() -> FileDialogLabels {
    FileDialogLabels {
        title_select_directory: "📁 Ordner Öffnen".to_string(),
        title_select_file: "📂 Datei Öffnen".to_string(),
        title_save_file: "📥 Datei Speichern".to_string(),

        // ... See examples/multilingual for the other labels

        ..Default::default()
    }
}

/// Updates the labels of the file dialog.
/// Should be called every time the user selects a different language.
fn update_labels(language: &Language, file_dialog: &mut FileDialog) {
    *file_dialog.labels_mut() = match language {
        // English labels are used by default
        Language::English => FileDialogLabels::default(),
        // Use custom labels for German
        Language::German => get_labels_german(),
    };
}

Persistent data

The file dialog currently requires the following persistent data to be stored across multiple file dialog objects:

• Folders the user pinned to the left sidebar (FileDialog::show_pinned_folders)
• If hidden files and folders should be visible (FileDialog::show_hidden_option)
• If system files should be visible (FileDialog::show_system_files_option)

If one of the above feature is activated, the data should be saved by the application. Otherwise, frustrating situations could arise for the user and the features would not offer much added value.

All data that needs to be stored permanently is contained in the FileDialogStorage struct. This struct can be accessed using FileDialog::storage or FileDialog::storage_mut to save or load the persistent data.
By default the feature serde is enabled, which implements serde::Serialize and serde::Deserialize for the objects to be saved. However, the objects can also be accessed without the feature enabled.

The following example shows how the data can be saved with eframe and the serde feature enabled.
Checkout examples/persistence for the full example.

use egui_file_dialog::FileDialog;

struct MyApp {
    file_dialog: FileDialog,
}

impl MyApp {
    pub fn new(cc: &eframe::CreationContext) -> Self {
        let mut file_dialog = FileDialog::default();

        // Load the persistent data of the file dialog.
        // Alternatively, you can also use the `FileDialog::storage` builder method.
        if let Some(storage) = cc.storage {
            *file_dialog.storage_mut() =
                eframe::get_value(storage, "file_dialog_storage").unwrap_or_default()
        }

        Self {
            file_dialog,
        }
    }
}

impl eframe::App for MyApp {
    fn save(&mut self, storage: &mut dyn eframe::Storage) {
        // Save the persistent data of the file dialog
        eframe::set_value(
            storage,
            "file_dialog_storage",
            self.file_dialog.storage_mut(),
        );
    }
}