>My guess, you have to toll you own. You can do it in 2 steps:
>1. Form with list of MRU folders in any order you or user likes with option to select a folder not on the list

Yup... and if they navigate elsewhere, well, that's another entry in the MRU.

>2. Regular Open File dialog using folder selected in previous form
>
>You can go all the way in , and combine those 2 in one form of your making

I was coming to that... I guess I'll put the MRU as a series of wide buttons, so each would open the dialog in its own folder. The rest of the form would hold the images selected, have other controls related to them. So I'd have multiple "add from folder" buttons.

I don't like getfile() and getpict() for being unable to start from a predefined folder - and saving current folder, CD to the desired folder, CD back when done... works like it always did, and I still don't like it. I'll try common dialog, see if that would help.

I kind of expected this would be already resolved at the world level - the disks becoming larger and larger and more and more computer work now involving combination of existing files - that there would be standard shortcuts to your favorite places in all file dialogs. But no, not even on linux - LibreOffice has some of its own hand-rolled solution, Gimp has another, file managers have their own...