The standard way, in pygtk, to create a FileChooserDialog is something like: fc = gtk.FileChooserDialog() fc.add_buttons(gtk.STOCK_CANCEL, 0, gtk.STOCK_OK, 1) resp = fc.run() But what if you want the current selection to be chosen when you * double click it, or * press Enter? Simple: call FileChooserDialog.set_default_response(), giving it the response you passed to the desired button: fc = gtk.FileChooserDialog() fc.add_buttons(gtk.STOCK_CANCEL, 0, gtk.STOCK_OK, 1) fc.set_default_response( 1 ) resp = fc.run()