File Dialog Boxes In Expression Blend

Manoj Singh Panwar
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File Dialog Boxes In Expression Blend

Hi guys you would be happy to know that Expression blend not only provides a platform for creating interactive graphics and next generation user interfaces but you can also create file handling applications through this. In this article I would be cover the three main and most important aspects of file handling i.e. opening a text file, opening a image file and saving the text file.It is very easy handling files in Expression Blend too. Just go through this article and you will, for sure, learn the basic concepts of handling dialog boxes without much effort.

So here we go:

Step 1 : First of all you need to create a new project of WPF application with C# language using Expression Blend and name it as Dialog Boxes.

Step 2 : Now you land up into a white screen called artboard, this is where you have the designing rights. Now First and foremost thing is to divide the artboard into two rows( upper and lower) and then divide lower row into two columns such that the left column covers 80% row and rest the other. For this, move the mouse on the boundaries of the artboard and you will find straight lines bisecting the artboard these are grid lines that creates rows and columns. Using these lines divide the artboard as told above. This artboard now appears as below:

Step 3 : Go-to assets and select Menu and drag it into the artboard on the upper row. Do this three menus i.e. File menu, Edit menu and View menu.

Step 4 : Select TextBox from the toolbox (or assets if its not in toolbox) and drag it onto the lower row first column and name it as "tb1".

Step 5 : Again visit the toolbox/assets and add an image control to the next column of the lower row.

Step 6 : Now Right click on the menu and in the window that pops up select add menuitem name this menu item as "File".

Similarly rename the Edit menu and View menu then to the File menu add three menuitem namely Open, Open Image and Save Text. It may happen that while adding these menu items these menuitem may fall out of main menu control for this hold ALT and drag the item to the parent menu.

Step 7 : Next task is to set area for the text field. For this select the textbox and go to --> Objects--> Autosize --> Fill. This fills the entire column with the textbox.

Step 8 : Then select the Textbox and go to --> Layout property--> Vertical scrollbar visibility--> Set this as auto. This is done so that the text is completely wrapped into the textfield.

Step 9 : Now you have to build the project for this go to project and select Build.

Step 10 : Now the main work starts. First of all we'll use Open file dialogbox for opening and displaying text files into the textfield. For this select the "Open" menuitem from the object and timeline window and goto the even palette and on "Click" event type the name of the click event or click method name. Here I have named it as openfile. As soon as you press enter you see this screen. It is here to add OpenDialogBox coding to make the Open menuitem in working state.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Data;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
using System.Windows.Shapes;

namespace openfiledialogboxx
{       /// <summary>
       /// Interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml
       /// </summary>
       public partial class MainWindow : Window
        {
            public MainWindow()
            {
               this.InitializeComponent();
               // Insert code required on object creation below this point.
            }
       private void openfile(object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
           {
                     // here Add event handler implementation for Open file dialog box.
           }
      }
}

Step 11 : Now we start coding in the openfile() method. Type the following lines but before adding these lines include the folowing namespace

using System.IO; at the top. After this start writing the following lines:

private void openfile(object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
{

      // here Add event handler implementation for Open file dialog box.
      Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog fd = new Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog();
      fd.InitialDirectory = "D:\\";
      fd.Filter ="All Files (*.*)|*.*|Text files (*.txt)|*.txt";
      fd.RestoreDirectory = true ;
       bool? result = fd.ShowDialog();
       if(result==true)
       {
            String mypath = fd.FileName.ToString();
            if(File.Exists(mypath))
            tb1.Text = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(mypath);
       }
}

Thats all for Open file Dialog box, this code above fetches the text files into the textfield that we have defined in the artboard.

Step 12 : Now we have to insert the image into the image control using file dialogbox. For this select the openimage menuitem from the Object and timeline and and goto Events --> Click--> Type here the name you would like to give to your method of importing image file into the image control. In this project I have named it as imagopen and we have to code in imagopen() method. Type the following lines below:

private void imagopen(object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
{
      // Add image event handler implementation here.
       Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog imgfd = new Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog();
       imgfd.InitialDirectory = "D:\\";
       imgfd.Filter ="All files (*.*)|*.*|Windows Bitmaps|*.bmp|JPEG files|*.jpg|Tiff Files |*.tif";
       imgfd.RestoreDirectory = true ;
       imgfd.FilterIndex =1;
       imgfd.Title = "My Image ";
       bool? result = imgfd.ShowDialog();
       if(result==true)
       {
            String mypath2 = imgfd.FileName.ToString();
            if(File.Exists(mypath2))
            imgbox.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri(mypath2) );
       }
}

Note : Keep in mind that for this method to work properly just make it sure you have included the following namespace :-

using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;

Step 13 : Now finally its time to save the text file you have opened into your storage memory using Save File Dialog box, for this also you have to do the same thing i.e. select the save menuitem from the Object and timeline palette and goto Click event, type the name of the save method,here I have named it as "saveitem" and in this method write the following code :

private void saveitem(object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
{
     // Add save event handler implementation here.
     Microsoft.Win32.SaveFileDialog svfd = new Microsoft.Win32.SaveFileDialog();
     svfd.InitialDirectory = "D:\\";
     svfd.Filter ="All Files (*.*)|*.*|Text files (*.txt)|*.txt";
     svfd.RestoreDirectory = true ;
     bool? result = svfd.ShowDialog();
     if(result==true)
     {
             String mypath3 = svfd.FileName.ToString();
if(File.Exists(mypath3))
          {
                System.IO.File.Delete(mypath3);
          }

using( FileStream fs = File.Create(mypath3))
{

               //here the text content is read byte by byte and saved to the file
               Byte[] txtcontent = new UTF8Encoding(true).GetBytes(tb1.Text);
              fs.Write(txtcontent,0,txtcontent.Length);
          }
     }
}

Step 14 : Now press F5 and see the project opening Text files and image files in the fields defined and also saves the text file. The final coding becomes like this:

using System;

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows;
using System.Windows.Controls;
using System.Windows.Data;
using System.Windows.Documents;
using System.Windows.Input;
using System.Windows.Media;
using System.Windows.Media.Imaging;
using System.Windows.Shapes;
using System.IO;

namespace openfiledialogboxx

{

/// <summary>

    /// Interaction logic for MainWindow.xaml
    /// </summary>
    public partial class MainWindow : Window
    {
        public MainWindow()
        {
           this.InitializeComponent();
            // Insert code required on object creation below this point.
        }
        private void openfile(object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            // here Add event handler implementation for Open file dialog box.
            Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog fd = new Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog();
            fd.InitialDirectory = "D:\\";
            fd.Filter = "All Files (*.*)|*.*|Text files (*.txt)|*.txt";
            fd.RestoreDirectory = true;
            bool? result = fd.ShowDialog();
            if (result == true)
            {
                String mypath = fd.FileName.ToString();
                if (File.Exists(mypath))
                    tb1.Text = System.IO.File.ReadAllText(mypath);
            }
        }
        private void imagopen(object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
        {
            // Add image event handler implementation here.
            Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog imgfd = new Microsoft.Win32.OpenFileDialog();
            imgfd.InitialDirectory = "D:\\";
            imgfd.Filter = "All files (*.*)|*.*|Windows Bitmaps|*.bmp|JPEG files|*.jpg|Tiff Files |*.tif";
            imgfd.RestoreDirectory = true;
            imgfd.FilterIndex = 1;
            imgfd.Title = "My Image ";
            bool? result = imgfd.ShowDialog();
            if (result == true)
            {
                String mypath2 = imgfd.FileName.ToString();
                if (File.Exists(mypath2))
                imgbox.Source = new BitmapImage(new Uri(mypath2));
            }
        }
        private void saveitem(object sender, System.Windows.RoutedEventArgs e)
         {
            // Add save event handler implementation here.Microsoft.Win32.SaveFileDialog svfd = new Microsoft.Win32.SaveFileDialog();
            svfd.InitialDirectory = "D:\\";
            svfd.Filter = "All Files (*.*)|*.*|Text files (*.txt)|*.txt";

svfd.RestoreDirectory = true;

            bool? result = svfd.ShowDialog();
            if (result == true)
            {
                String mypath3 = svfd.FileName.ToString();
                if (File.Exists(mypath3))
                {
                  System.IO.File.Delete(mypath3);
                }

using (FileStream fs = File.Create(mypath3))

                {
                     //here the text content is read byte by byte and saved to the file
                    Byte[] txtcontent = new UTF8Encoding(true).GetBytes(tb1.Text);
                    fs.Write(txtcontent, 0, txtcontent.Length);
                 }
            }
        }
    }
}

Step 15 : The final Output looks like this:

The fig below is for Opening a text file using Open menu.