You do not need to write an object that implements the gtk.file_chooser.FileChooser
interface unless you are trying to adapt an existing file selector to
expose a standard programming interface.
gtk.file_chooser.FileChooser allows for shortcuts to various places in the filesystem.
In the default implementation these are displayed in the left pane. It
may be a bit confusing at first that these shortcuts come from various
sources and in various flavours, so lets explain the terminology here:
Bookmarks: are created by the user, by dragging folders from the
right pane to the left pane, or by using the “Add”. Bookmarks
can be renamed and deleted by the user.
Shortcuts: can be provided by the application. For example, a Paint
program may want to add a shortcut for a Clipart folder. Shortcuts
cannot be modified by the user.
Volumes: are provided by the underlying filesystem abstraction. They are
the “roots” of the filesystem.
You can add extra widgets to a file chooser to provide options
that are not present in the default design, by using
gtk.file_chooser.FileChooser.addChoice. Each choice has an identifier and
a user visible label; additionally, each choice can have multiple
options. If a choice has no option, it will be rendered as a
check button with the given label; if a choice has options, it will
be rendered as a combo box.
gtk.file_chooser.FileChooser is an interface that can be implemented by file selection widgets.
In GTK, the main objects that implement this interface are gtk.file_chooser_widget.FileChooserWidget and gtk.file_chooser_dialog.FileChooserDialog.
You do not need to write an object that implements the gtk.file_chooser.FileChooser interface unless you are trying to adapt an existing file selector to expose a standard programming interface.
gtk.file_chooser.FileChooser allows for shortcuts to various places in the filesystem. In the default implementation these are displayed in the left pane. It may be a bit confusing at first that these shortcuts come from various sources and in various flavours, so lets explain the terminology here:
File Names and Encodings
When the user is finished selecting files in a gtk.file_chooser.FileChooser, your program can get the selected filenames as gio.file.Files.
Adding options
You can add extra widgets to a file chooser to provide options that are not present in the default design, by using gtk.file_chooser.FileChooser.addChoice. Each choice has an identifier and a user visible label; additionally, each choice can have multiple options. If a choice has no option, it will be rendered as a check button with the given label; if a choice has options, it will be rendered as a combo box.