Application icon

Prompt for File or Folder

This function is used to select one or more files and/or folders from a standard OS X file open dialog. The paths of the selected items will be saved to a track or a named variable as a list delimited by the default list delimiter (\~).

When files can be returned, you can optionally supply a list of filename extensions which will be accepted. The extensions are separated by spaces, commas (,), slashes (/), newline characters or the default list delimiter (\~). Note, you do not have to include a leading . on an extension. Hint: enter public.image to accept all image files.

When files and folders can be selected and multiple items can be returned,you can enable the Identify folders with a trailing / option. This can be used to easily differentiate between folders and files. If you do not enable the option, you may have to use a Test If File Exists statement to determine if a returned path is a file or folder.

When only a single file can be selected, you can enable the New setting. This will allow you to specify a file which does not exist. Note that if the selected file exists, the OS may issue a File Already Exists warning. This can be ignored.

The supplied text strings may contain any of the escape sequences described in Escape Sequences. Only the first non blank line of the prompt will be displayed.

The statement supports additional configurability which is documented in Common Prompt Statement Functionality. These settings can be configured by clicking on small button with the gear icon.

You can elect to issue a beep with the prompt.

The prompt is only issued once per set of files when run stepwise.

The function is valid while batch processing but is intended to be used within the special Batch Start and Batch End inline actions.

By default, the statement will cause action processing to be terminated if the user selects Cancel as opposed to providing a selection. If the set state option is enabled, the action test state will be set to false if the user cancelled otherwise it will be set to true.