AppleScript choose file dialog box with default location not working

applescript

So there goes four hours of my life that I will never get back.

I'm trying to do something seemingly simple…

I want to open a file select dialog box and specify the default location.

I actually got this to work using the following…

choose file with prompt "Please choose a file:" of type {"XLSX", "APPL"} 
default location "/Users/lowken/Dropbox/"

This works and does exactly what I want (the file dialog opens up in the Dropbox folder).

However when I try to use a string variable it doesn't work…

set strPath to "/Users/lowken/Dropbox/"

choose file with prompt "Please choose a file:" of type {"XLSX", "APPL"} 
default location strPath

Now the dialog box opens in the root directory of the hard drive 🙁

It seems that the default location is being ignored however if the path is not correct Applescript does raise a error.

I've tried casting the value as a string. I even tried to use the POSIX format…

"Macintosh HD:Users:lowken:Dropbox"

This didn't format didn't work at all.

I'm running OS X Yosemite 10.10.4 on a mid 2012 MacBook Pro.

Can anyone help me?

Best Answer

Both scripts don't work for me. The problem is that the default location parameter needs to be of type alias. You can fix it by adding POSIX file in front of your path (the path does need to exist, otherwise you also get an error message):

set strPath to POSIX file "/Users/lowken/Dropbox/"

choose file with prompt "Please choose a file:" of type {"XLSX", "APPL"} ¬
    default location strPath

Or you could use the "old style" HFS format:

set strPath to alias "Macintosh HD:Users:lowken:Dropbox"

choose file with prompt "Please choose a file:" of type {"XLSX", "APPL"} ¬
    default location strPath
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