netbeans.apache.org/src/content/wiki/DevFaqNodePropertyForFiles.asciidoc

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= DevFaqNodePropertyForFiles
:jbake-type: wiki
:jbake-tags: wiki, devfaq, needsreview
:jbake-status: published
:keywords: Apache NetBeans wiki DevFaqNodePropertyForFiles
:description: Apache NetBeans wiki DevFaqNodePropertyForFiles
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== I have a Node.Property for a file. How can I control the file chooser that is the custom editor?

A number of the built-in property editors in NetBeans can have their behavior controlled by passing "hints" to them.  Hints are providing by calling link:http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/docs/api/java/beans/FeatureDescriptor.html?is-external=true#setValue(java.lang.String,%20java.lang.Object)[setValue("something", someValue)] on the Node.Property.  For example, to suppress the custom editor button for a property, use

[source,java]
----

 Node.Property<String> myProp = new MyStringProp();
 myProp.setValue ("suppressCustomEditor", Boolean.TRUE);

----

The built-in property editors for files and arrays of files support a number of hints:

|===
|String Hint Name |Value Type |Effect 

|`filter` |`java.io.FilenameFilter` or `javax.swing.filechooser.FileFilter` or `java.io.FileFilter` |Sets the file filter used by the file chooser 

|`directories` |`java.lang.Boolean` |Set the file chooser to accept only directories.  If combined with the "files" hint set to true (see below), will accept both directories and files. 

|`files` |`java.lang.Boolean` |Set the file chooser to accept only files (unless combined with the "directories" hint set to true above - in which case simply not using either hint has the same effect 

|`currentDir` |`java.io.File` |The directory the file chooser should default to when it is first opened 

|`baseDir` |`java.io.File` |The _base directory_ for the file property.  This is needed only if the file has a relative path.  Java files are just wrappers for a path name, and need not exist on disk.  So if the file property is `foo/MyFile.txt` that is a perfectly legal file name (presumably the Java Bean or Node the property belongs to knows how to find the parent directory of "foo").  The file chooser needs to know the full path to `foo/` - so you would pass a file here to provide the parent folder for `foo/`.  For example, if the complete path to `MyFile.txt` is `/Users/tim/Documents/foo/MyFile.txt`, you would call `setValue("baseDir", new File("/Users/tim/Documents")` 

|`file_hiding` |`java.lang.Boolean` |Value to call `JFileChooser.setFileHidingEnabled()` with (remember, if your filter filters out directories and you set file hiding enabled, the user will not be able to usefully change directories) 
|===

The built-in bean property editors in NetBeans are found in the package `org.netbeans.beaninfo` editors in the module `o.n.core` in NetBeans' sources.

=== Apache Migration Information

The content in this page was kindly donated by Oracle Corp. to the
Apache Software Foundation.

This page was exported from link:http://wiki.netbeans.org/DevFaqNodePropertyForFiles[http://wiki.netbeans.org/DevFaqNodePropertyForFiles] , 
that was last modified by NetBeans user Jtulach 
on 2010-07-24T19:22:43Z.


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