Howto Use TOpenDialog

Simple and short guidelines:

1. Place a TOpenDialog widget on your form. It can be placed anywhere on your form as it is not visible during program run time but only during design time.

[![Component Palette Dialogs.png](/wiki-images/7/72/Component_Palette_Dialogs.png)](</File:Component_Palette_Dialogs.png>)

It is located in the Dialogs tab of the component palette and is the leftmost component.

2. In your code write something similar to:

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
    begin
      OpenDialog1.InitialDir := 'C:\';
      OpenDialog1.Filter := 'Binary files (*.bin;*.hex)|*.bin;*.hex|Text Files (*.txt)|*.txt|All Files (*.*)|*.*';
    end;
    
    procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
    begin
      if OpenDialog1.Execute then
        begin
          if fileExists(OpenDialog1.Filename) then
            ShowMessage(OpenDialog1.Filename);
        end
      else
        ShowMessage('No file selected');
    end;

The dialog Execute method displays the file open dialog. It returns true when user has selected a file, false when user has aborted.

The dialog Filename property returns the full filename including drive and path.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/Nuvola_apps_ktip.png Note: This control only collects the filename. It does not actually open the file. Your code must do that.

See also

• Howto Use TSaveDialog
• CopyFile

From the Free Pascal wiki, page "Howto Use TOpenDialog", as the Internet Archive kept it on 2025-06-16, last changed on 2025-03-19. Copyright stays with the author who wrote it, according to the old wiki's Licensing page. If you have concerns about this material, message the admin.