FileDialog Properties

Hi again,

I have another question!

I have written this function to open a dialog box to allow the user to select the text file to read

Function getFile() As String
    Dim fd As FileDialog
    Dim ffs As FileDialogFilters
    Dim fname As String
    
    
    Set fd = Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen)
    
    With fd
        Set ffs = .Filters
        
        With ffs
            .Clear
            .Add "Text Files", "*.txt"
        End With
        
        .AllowMultiSelect = False
        
        If .Show = False Then Exit Function
        
        getFile = .SelectedItems(1)
    End With
End Function

which works fine. My question is, how can I update this function to also allow files without extensions to be shown?

The researcher who will be applying my macro usually forgets to save the data in a .txt file and instead leaves them without extensions.

I'm currently running the function without the line

 .Add "Text Files", "*.txt"

which shows all files, but if the folder in question contains a lot of other files this seems needlessly messy.

Many thanks

Change the filter from "*.txt" to "*.*"

Originally Posted by jlt199

I'm looking to only see files with a .txt extension or without any extension at all

I really don't think that creature exists. The option above is the best fall back I can think of.

Actually, if you do this, you can keep the txt default, and give yourself an "All Files" option in the File Type drop window:

        With ffs
            .Clear
            .Add "Text Files", "*.txt"
            .Add "All Files", "*.*"
        End With

hi,

I think the same as JB - that there probably is no creature like this. An alternative may (?) be to loop through each file & only Add it to the list if there is no "." in the filename string. Or create a list box which opens instead of the standard dialog box that is also populated by looping. I'm just guessing as I haven't tested either of these approaches.

Here's another guess... Could you eradicate the problem by asking your researcher to change their settings?
Ask them to open Windows Explorer - Tools - Options - View - Files & Folders, untick "hide extensions for known file types", then press [Apply to All Folders] & [ok].

I've been told this is good practice for the unrelated reason that some viruses etc duplicate file names & icons but can often be identified if the extension is shown b/c they will end in ".exe" (instead of the expected ".doc" or ".txt" etc).

hth
Rob

Hey, back again. From a suggestion given by someone on another forum, try this:

Sub test()

Dim fPath As String
ChDir "C:\2010"

    With Application.FileDialog(msoFileDialogOpen)
        .AllowMultiSelect = False
        .Filters.Clear
        .Filters.Add "All Files", "*.*"        'everything
        .Filters.Add "Text Files", "*.txt", 1  'default
        .InitialFileName = "*."
        .Show
        If .SelectedItems.Count > 0 Then
            fPath = .SelectedItems(1) & "\"
        Else
            Exit Sub
        End If
    End With
End Sub

I've underlined the idea suggested, it sets the initial display to only show files with no extension at all.

I can't speak to your version, but my version will show all the text files, as long as I press the DELETE key first to remove that default entry of "*." then the filters work again.