Question

So I am looking for a method of opening a browsers file dialog, and allowing users to either select a directory and have it populate the path, or select a file or set of (within the same directory). The isn’t a Java Applet. Is there a means of this type of dialog? That can support IE 7 and up? Or am I stuck with a Java solution?

We currently have a Java Based solution that was written by someone years ago, which is starting to fail more and more due to new versions of Java coming out, due to OS’s getting more tighter on security, and so on and so forth. So I am trying to find alternative solutions that will hopefully be a bit more easy to maintain, that don’t require (preferably) java to do it.

I am ultimately just stuck with where to look to even begin to start finding any of the right methods to do this if its possible in the first place. Seems every search I do, just brings me in circles with answers that dont apply

EDIT
I should put emphasis, that the only goal of this dialog is so I can get a directory and or file path from the user on their local machine, without having the user key in the full path themselves.

Answer 1

As far as my knowledge go, it’s only Java or possibly some AIR+Flash hybrid in this case, really. Reason for this being that you will need some technology to:

• recognize your selection as file or directory
• read all files and possibly sub-folders from the selected directory
• queue them for upload and then be possibly able to recover their structure on the server-side

Therefore you at least need something that can natively work with file structure of the client, as well as optionally something that will re-create the same structure on your server.

EDIT: you may also want to check this: Upload a folder in ASP.NET of Flash or Silverlight