Open File Dialog Asp.Net

Question

I am creating an excel report in vb.net using the office interop. When the report is completed I am saving the excel file on the C drive. The users have asked to save file anywhere they want not just the c drive. Can someone give me some code to popup an opend file dialog in asp.net?

I want the dialog to popup in a saveAs in ASP.NET. I know how to do it in win forms, but I am creating an excel report in asp.net and calling the worksheet objects SaveAs property that excepts a fileName. So right now I just hardcode a file name in there. The users want to choose a file location

Answer 1

Assuming you are actually talking about a desktop, winforms app then you can use the built in FileSaveDialog.

Official documentation is here:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.windows.forms.savefiledialog.aspx

but there are tons of tutorials explaining it out there:

• http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=vb.net+savefiledialog

Answer 2

You can server files with the Open / Save dialog by using Response.TransmitFile().

The user is then presented with a save as dialog where they can choose the filename and the location on their computer.

You normally do this inside a HttpHandler. A simple one is described here:

• http://blogs.msdn.com/petel/archive/2005/12/01/499189.aspx

Answer 3

I think what you want is actually rather simple.

You can't save a file to the user's computer due to security restrictions (would you want a website saving a file to your computer?)

What you need to do is:

1. Complete report
2. Save report file to location on server, IE (.../myWebsite/files/GUID/myReport.rpt)
3. Display link on next screen pointing to the report file

Doing this the user can right-click and save the file to wherever they want on their computer.

You can clean up these files on whatever schedule you would like.