file_picker_cross 4.0.0

Select, open, choose or pick documents, images videos or other files on Android, iOS, the desktop and the web for reading, writing, use as String, byte list or HTTP uploads.

file_picker_cross

The only Flutter plugin to select, open, choose or pick documents, images videos or other files on Android, iOS, the desktop and the web for reading, writing, use as String, byte list or HTTP uploads.

The scope of this package

TL;DR: We provide a parallel, platform-independent implementation of a fake file system, in which you can create, open and save files for your app - even on the web. Moreover, we provide APIs to interact with the real file system as well to import and export files from and to your device.

It is very difficult to handle files in cross platform apps. While desktops have one files system used for all apps, mobile platforms have isolated file systems for each app. The web does not really have a working file system available on all browsers. Hence, it is hard to implement storage and access to files on all platforms - and you do not have to because we already did this for you.

With file_picker_cross, we provide a fake file system for use in your app. Unlike other packages, we do not only provide a dialog for reading or saving files, but we provide a whole file system inside your app's storage, in which you can use any operation like searching files, opening them and saving them. Of cause, there are APIs too for importing files from the shared storage (device storage, home folder, etc.) or exporting to these - even on the web.

Getting Started

file_picker_cross allows you to select files from your device and is compatible with Android, iOS, Desktops (using both go-flutter or FDE) and the web.

It also supports picking a file path for saving/export. This functionality is currently only available on Desktops.

This package was realized using file_picker (Mobile platforms and go-flutter) and 'file_chooser' (Desktops). We only added compatibility to the web and mixed everything.

Note: we recently had API changes. Please update your code accordingly.

// show a dialog to open a file
FilePickerCross myFile = FilePickerCross FilePickerCross.importFromStorage(
  type: FileTypeCross.any,       // Available: `any`, `audio`, `image`, `video`, `custom`. Note: not available using FDE
  fileExtension: '.txt, .md'     // Only if FileTypeCross.custom . May be any file extension like `.dot`, `.ppt,.pptx,.odp`
);

// save our file to the fictional directory. It is not necessary that it already exists.
myFile.saveToPath('/my/awesome/folder/' + myFile.fileName);

// save our file to the internal storage or share to other apps
myFile.exportToStorage();

// list all previously opened files
List<String> paths = await FilePickerCross.listInternalFiles();
print(paths);

// open an existing file
FilePickerCross anotherFile = FilePickerCross.fromInternalPath(paths[0]);

// delete our perfect file
FilePickerCross.delete(paths[0]);


// you can access the following properties on a FilePickerCross instance:

myFile.toString();

myFile.toUint8List();

myFile.toBase64();

myFile.toMultipartFile(filename: 'myFile.txt');

myFile.length;

myFile.path;

myFile.fileName;

myFile.fileExtension;

myFile.directory;

To get details about the certain properties and methods, check out the API documentation.

go-flutter and FDE

Flutter initially only supported Android and iOS. To add support for desktop platforms, some people started the go-flutter providing Flutter applications on Windows, Linux and macOS using the Go language.

Later, Flutter itself announced desktop support (FDE) but still, it's not stable yet.

We try to support both as much as possible.

Web

Of cause, it requires Flutter to be set up for web development.

Set up Flutter for Web

All Desktop platforms

Of cause, it requires Flutter to be set up for your platform.

Please note, Windows is not officially supported by Google. Linux and macOS support is in alpha state. Expect issues and sometimes incompatible versions requiring manual hand work.

flutter channel dev # or master
flutter upgrade
flutter config --enable-linux-desktop
flutter config --enable-macos-desktop
flutter config --enable-windows-desktop

More information

Set up go-flutter Set up FDE

Mobile platforms

No setup required 🎉.

macOS (using FDE)

You will need to add an entitlement for either read-only access:

 <key>com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-only</key>
 <true/>

or read/write access:

 <key>com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write</key>
 <true/>

depending on your use case.

Linux (using FDE)

This plugin requires the following libraries:

• GTK 3
• pkg-config

Installation example for Debian-based systems:

sudo apt-get install libgtk-3-dev pkg-config

Note: You do no longer have to modify any files unlike in previous versions.