Setting the start position for OpenFileDialog/SaveFileDialog

c# winforms openfiledialog multiple-monitors
Michael Sorens picture Michael Sorens · Aug 10, 2009 · Viewed 32.9k times · Source

For any custom dialog (form) in a WinForm application I can set its size and position before I display it with:

form.StartPosition = FormStartPosition.Manual;
form.DesktopBounds = MyWindowPosition;

This is particularly important when dealing with multiple monitors. Without such code, when you open a dialog from an application that you have dragged to a second monitor, the dialog appears on the primary monitor. This presents a poor user experience.

I am wondering if there are any hooks to set the position for the standard .NET OpenFileDialog and SaveFileDialog (which do not have a StartPosition property).

Answer

Marc Gravell picture Marc Gravell · Aug 10, 2009

I suspect that the best you can do is make sure you use the overload of ShowDialog that accepts an IWin32Window to use as the parent. This might help it choose an appropriate location; most commonly:

using(var dlg = new OpenFileDialog()) {
    .... setup
    if(dlg.ShowDialog(this) == DialogResult.OK) {
        .... use
    }
}

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