wxFileDialog and Windows Vista

Posted on October 08, 2006 by Ryan Norton

There are some changes regarding the native file dialog in Windows Vista. If one changes properties of the native file dialog, one gets the “old” file dialog from Windows XP.

Here’s an example of the difference: (“Old” is the first menu option from the filedialog portion of the dialog sample, “New” is the second.)

“Old”:

“New”:

The problem is that the dialogs sample uses

dialog.CentreOnParent();

which causes Vista to revert to the “old” file dialog.

So, if you are using common dialogs just keep an eye out if you customize it all; as even centering it with its parent could change the appearance of it. In fact, calling any wxWindow method can be problematic as it can make the look of a common dialog non-native, or it may not work at all (in some cases on some platforms setting the background color doesn’t work, for example).

I posted on the mailing list awhile back, but sometimes it is a lot better with pictures :D.

Also, it still happens with RC2, which is supposively the last release before RTM (Release To Market), so it is likely that this will stay.

For those to wish to interact with the new Windows Vista file dialog API, they can use the IFileDialogXXX COM interfaces. This also includes derivatives such as IFileOpenDialog. Hopefully wxWidgets won’t end up having to support a seperate file dialog interface; but then I guess one could just pImpl it as well.