Open dialog is where you can load images into the Gimp for viewing or editing. The left hand window shows the directories and the right hand side shows the files in the selected directory. To open a file, select it in the files listing, then choose what file type it is - if the file has an extension which defines it's filetype (such as .xcf) you can select "Automatic" and Gimp will open the file in that format. Alternatively, you can force Gimp to open the file as a specific format by choosing one of the other options in the drop down list.

Some images have a preview associated with then so you can see what the image is before opening it. This is particularly useful for larger images, where opening the full image will take a while. If an image doesn't have a preview, you can click "Generate Preview" to create on. This preview image is stored in the a sub-directory of the current one, called .xvpics. This preview image will be used in future when using the open dialog. Clicking OK opens the image with the selected settings, Cancel aborts.

A useful feature of the Load Image dialog is autocompletion of filenames. Type the first few letters of the filename and pressing the Tab key will complete as much of the filename as is uniquely defined by what has already been typed. The side of the dialog will display all files that match the letters in the selection box. You can then type more letters and press Tab again to update the window. You can load multiple images by pressing Shift key and clicking on each file you want to open.

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