wailsapp/wails · error

use ShowAndGetResult for open single file dialog

Error message

use ShowAndGetResult for open single file dialog

What it means

ShowAndGetResults() (plural) panics when the dialog was NOT created as a multi-select dialog. The single-select COM API path cannot return multiple results, so mixing them is treated as a developer programming error and panics immediately.

Source

Thrown at v2/internal/go-common-file-dialog/cfd/iFileOpenDialog.go:68

	}
	if isMultiselect {
		// We should panic as this error is caused by the developer using the library
		panic("use ShowAndGetResults for open multiple files dialog")
	}
	if err := fileOpenDialog.Show(); err != nil {
		return "", err
	}
	return fileOpenDialog.GetResult()
}

func (fileOpenDialog *iFileOpenDialog) ShowAndGetResults() ([]string, error) {
	isMultiselect, err := fileOpenDialog.isMultiselect()
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	if !isMultiselect {
		// We should panic as this error is caused by the developer using the library
		panic("use ShowAndGetResult for open single file dialog")
	}
	if err := fileOpenDialog.Show(); err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}
	return fileOpenDialog.GetResults()
}

func (fileOpenDialog *iFileOpenDialog) SetTitle(title string) error {
	return fileOpenDialog.vtbl.setTitle(unsafe.Pointer(fileOpenDialog), title)
}

func (fileOpenDialog *iFileOpenDialog) GetResult() (string, error) {
	isMultiselect, err := fileOpenDialog.isMultiselect()
	if err != nil {
		return "", err
	}
	if isMultiselect {
		// We should panic as this error is caused by the developer using the library

View on GitHub (pinned to 0e754b1b40)

Solutions

1. Call ShowAndGetResult() (singular) on single-select dialogs
2. If multi-selection is intended, enable the multiselect option when creating the dialog

Example fix

// before
results, err := dialog.ShowAndGetResults() // single dialog: panics

// after
result, err := dialog.ShowAndGetResult() // returns string

// single-select dialog: use the singular helper only
if !multi { path, err := dialog.ShowAndGetResult() } else { paths, err := dialog.ShowAndGetResults() }

func openOne(d cfd.Dialog) (string, error) {
    return d.ShowAndGetResult() // Dialog interface cannot even see plural methods
}

When it happens

Trigger: Creating a default/single-select open dialog and calling ShowAndGetResults() instead of ShowAndGetResult().

Common situations: Reusing multi-select code from another feature for a plain 'open file' dialog, or copy-paste between the two code paths.

Related errors

• use ShowAndGetResults for open multiple files dialog
• use GetResults for open multiple files dialog
• use GetResult for open single file dialog
• use ShowAndGetResults for open multiple files dialog
• use ShowAndGetResult for open single file dialog

AI-assisted analysis of wailsapp/wails@0e754b1b40 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/03cfc9e6092d609c. Report an issue: GitHub.