1. JavaFX Tutorial
2. JavaFX Overview
3. Your First JavaFX Application
4. JavaFX Stage
5. JavaFX Scene
6. JavaFX Node
7. JavaFX Properties
8. JavaFX FXML
9. JavaFX CSS Styling
10. JavaFX ImageView
11. JavaFX Text
12. JavaFX Fonts
13. JavaFX Hyperlink
14. JavaFX Label
15. JavaFX Button
16. JavaFX MenuButton
17. JavaFX SplitMenuButton
18. JavaFX ToggleButton
19. JavaFX RadioButton
20. JavaFX CheckBox
21. JavaFX ChoiceBox
22. JavaFX ComboBox
23. JavaFX ListView
24. JavaFX DatePicker
25. JavaFX ColorPicker
26. JavaFX TextField
27. JavaFX PasswordField
28. JavaFX Slider
29. JavaFX TextArea
30. JavaFX ToolBar
31. JavaFX Tooltip
32. JavaFX ProgressBar
33. JavaFX FileChooser
34. JavaFX DirectoryChooser
35. JavaFX Accordion
36. JavaFX TitledPane
37. JavaFX SplitPane
38. JavaFX TabPane
39. JavaFX ScrollPane
40. JavaFX Group
41. JavaFX Region
42. JavaFX Pane
43. JavaFX HBox
44. JavaFX VBox
45. JavaFX Separator
46. JavaFX FlowPane
47. JavaFX TilePane
48. JavaFX GridPane
49. JavaFX MenuBar
50. JavaFX ContexMenu
51. JavaFX WebView
52. JavaFX PieChart
53. JavaFX TableView
54. JavaFX TreeView
55. JavaFX TreeTableView
56. JavaFX HTMLEditor
57. JavaFX Pagination
58. JavaFX BarChart
59. JavaFX StackedBarChart
60. JavaFX ScatterChart
61. JavaFX LineChart
62. JavaFX AreaChart
63. JavaFX StackedAreaChart
64. JavaFX Color
65. JavaFX 2D
66. JavaFX Effects
67. JavaFX 3D
68. JavaFX Transformation
69. JavaFX Animation
70. JavaFX Media - JavaFX Video and Audio Support
71. JavaFX Canvas
72. JavaFX Drag and Drop
73. JavaFX Concurrency

• Creating a DirectoryChooser
• Showing the DirectoryChooser Dialog
• Setting Initial Directory

A JavaFX DirectoryChooser is a dialog that enables the user to select a directory via a file explorer from the user's local computer. The JavaFX DirectoryChooser is implemented in the class javafx.stage.DirectoryChooser. In this JavaFX DirectoryChooser tutorial I will show you how to use the DirectoryChooser dialog.

Here is an example screenshot of how a JavaFX DirectoryChooser looks:

Creating a DirectoryChooser

In order to use the DirectoryChooser you must first create a DirectoryChooser instance. Here is an example of creating a JavaFX DirectoryChooser:

DirectoryChooser directoryChooser = new DirectoryChooser();

Showing the DirectoryChooser Dialog

In order to make the DirectoryChooser visible you must call its showDialog() method. Here is an example of showing a JavaFX DirectoryChooser:

File selectedDirectory = directoryChooser.showDialog(primaryStage);

The File returned by the showDialog() method represents the directory the user selected in the DirectoryChooser.

The stage parameter is the JavaFX Stage that should "own" the DirectoryChooser dialog. By "owning" is meant what Stage from which the DirectoryChooser dialog is shown. This will typically be the Stage in which the button sits that initiates the showing of the DirectoryChooser.

Showing a DirectoryChooser is typically done as a result of a click on a button or menu item. Here is a full JavaFX example that shows a button that opens a DirectoryChooser when it is clicked:

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.Button;
import javafx.scene.layout.VBox;
import javafx.stage.DirectoryChooser;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

import java.io.File;

public class DirectoryChooserExample extends Application {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        launch(args);
    }

    @Override
    public void start(Stage primaryStage) {
        primaryStage.setTitle("JavaFX App");

        DirectoryChooser directoryChooser = new DirectoryChooser();
        directoryChooser.setInitialDirectory(new File("src"));

        Button button = new Button("Select Directory");
        button.setOnAction(e -> {
            File selectedDirectory = directoryChooser.showDialog(primaryStage);

            System.out.println(selectedDirectory.getAbsolutePath());
        });


        VBox vBox = new VBox(button);
        //HBox hBox = new HBox(button1, button2);
        Scene scene = new Scene(vBox, 960, 600);

        primaryStage.setScene(scene);
        primaryStage.show();
    }

}

Setting Initial Directory

You can set the initial directory of the JavaFX DirectoryChooser, meaning the root directory the DirectoryChooser will be located at when opened. This is also shown in the example above. You set the initial directory via the method setInitialDirectory(). Here is an example of setting the initial directory of a JavaFX DirectoryChooser:

directoryChooser.setInitialDirectory(new File("data/json/invoices"));

This example will set the initial directory of the given DirectoryChooser to data/json/invoices .