FluentFileFilterBuilder

A lightweight fluent builder that easily creates file filter strings used in the various WinForms and WPF file dialogs.

Filter strings overview

The various file dialogs in WinForms (OpenFileDialog / SaveFileDialog) and WPF (OpenFileDialog / SaveFileDialog) all use file filter strings to control how they filter files. These strings are set in the Filter property of the various dialogs.

File filter strings are described as follows:

For each filtering option, the filter string contains a description of the filter, followed by the vertical bar (|) and the filter pattern. The strings for different filtering options are separated by the vertical bar.

Here are some example file filter strings:

Text files (*.txt)|*.txt|All files (*.*)|*.*

Image Files(*.BMP;*.JPG;*.GIF)|*.BMP;*.JPG;*.GIF|All files (*.*)|*.*

Installation

PM> Install-Package FluentFileFilterBuilder

Usage

The first example filter string described above can be created as so:

var filter = new FileFilterBuilder()
    .Add("Text files", "txt")
    .Add("All files", "*")
    .ToString();

The second example filter string described above can be created as so:

var filter = new FileFilterBuilder()
    .Add("Image files", "BMP", "JPG", "GIF")
    .Add("All files", "*")
    .ToString();

License

FluentFileFilterBuilder is distributed under the MIT license.