How To Pick Text File In Windows 10

Introduction 

 

In Windows 10 we have OpenFileDialog which opens a dialog to pick the files. Here we are going to pick the text file in Windows 10.

Create a new Windows 10 project and create a button and image control to perform File Picker operation.

 

Firstly, create a new instance for FileOpenPicker as in the following code snippet:

FileOpenPicker openPicker = new FileOpenPicker();

Next, we have to set file picker ViewMode, you could ignore this, but if you would like to add, there are two options, such as List and Thumbnail. Here I will set thumbnail.

openPicker.ViewMode = PickerViewMode.Thumbnail;

Then set the suggested location as you wish. I am going to set the default location as a document library.

openPicker.SuggestedStartLocation = PickerLocationId.DocumentsLibrary;

We need to add FileTypeFilter; it is a mandatory field that you should add. It requires at least one type.

 

The FileTypeFilter is a read-only collection. We would be able to add values.

Here I am setting filter type for .txt files.

openPicker.FileTypeFilter.Add(".txt");

Finally, we are going to show the file picker dialog as in the following code snippet and we have the option to select single or multiple file selection.

StorageFile file = await openPicker.PickSingleFileAsync();

Finally, we are going to read the selected file using a stream and assign it to the text block.

var stream = await file.OpenAsync(Windows.Storage.FileAccessMode.Read);
using (StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream.AsStream()))
{
   textBlockShow.Text = reader.ReadToEnd();
}

The whole code looks like the following code:

private async void buttonPick_Click(object sender, RoutedEventArgs e)
{
    FileOpenPicker openPicker = new FileOpenPicker();
    openPicker.ViewMode = PickerViewMode.Thumbnail;
    openPicker.SuggestedStartLocation = PickerLocationId.DocumentsLibrary;
    openPicker.FileTypeFilter.Add(".txt");
    StorageFile file = await openPicker.PickSingleFileAsync();
    if(file != null)
    {
        var stream = await file.OpenAsync(Windows.Storage.FileAccessMode.Read);
        using(StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(stream.AsStream()))
        {
            textBlockShow.Text = reader.ReadToEnd();
        }
    }
    else
    {}
}

Now run, debug and run the app and here is the following output,

 

 

 

Summary

 

In this article, we learned about how to pick the text files in Windows 10.