Enhancements: Rename dialog

Preset name overwrite works for me too. Would be nice to just type Ctrl-S though.

you want my glasses ?

The full preview button only appears when more than 100 files are selected...well, that's what's happening here at least.

Yes please.

This is so obvious that I thought it must exist, but that I had not found it.

Yes please.

This is so obvious that I thought it must exist, but that I had not found it.[/quote]
...well, maybe it's there already and you just need Albator's glasses...

And yeah, I wonder why I had it in my head that I needed to save new, delete and rename to update a preset. Stupid... :slight_smile:.

I would like to add a 5) point here, while we're busy.
Something I already asked about before.

While in "Regular Expressions" mode, have the down-arrow do exactly what one would expect it to do, open the history, which now can only be done by clicking the little arrow at the end of the "Old name" & "New Name" field.

F4, not down-arrow, is the standard key in Windows for opening drop-downs, and works here as well.

I just added this feature to my Dynamic renamer script. Check it out.

[quote="MrC"]These are great additions. I added a 4th in my list too, and happened to see you replied. Another one:

  • Allow the Rename dialog to remain Open and provide an Apply button. This way, you can use lots of presets quickly. This allows lots of little presets that do little things be called upon quickly. It is very time consuming to keep calling up Rename and scrolling the the preset list. Apply would make the changes, and update the file list with the newly named files.[/quote]

Hi MrC
You mean to say similar to this request? Donot close rename window after rename
An option that can be tagged?

Something like..


That's the idea, but I'd use two buttons. 1. Apply, 2. Close, or alternatively, 1. Apply, 2. Apply and Close. Of course there still needs to be a Cancel button.

I am not sure if this is on the developer's list at all, but I hope it will be implemented soon...

Oh gosh, please don't go adding unnecessary check boxes to that dialog... it's a very standard UI convention to have an "Ok" button that applies a change(s) and closes the dialog, and an "Apply" button that applies the change(s) but leaves the dialog open. Such as is used in Opus' Prefs dialog...

About "Apply" and "Skip" buttons

For me, I would expand the request here for an "Apply" button to tie into my previous request to be able to exclude specific files from the current rename operation. What I mean is, just as I would like to be able to 'exclude' some files already loaded into the rename dialog from the current rename operation... I'd also really want to be able to selectively "Apply" the current rename operation to some files but not all - leaving the rename dialog open. PRESUMABLY, if I've selected a list of files to rename, and see that some of the items on the list would be renamed to something other than what I really want if I were to just hit OK, then I might want to EITHER Apply the operation to the files that result in what I want - OR - Skip one or more files from the current rename operation.

The ability to do this from just a UI perspective is teasingly almost there. You can in fact 'select' a file from the list of files in the rename dialog... meaning, you can click on one of the files in the list and it gets highlighted in the way that is indicative of it being "selected". But no operation available in the dialog actually then ~operates against that seemingly selected file. I'm sure others just want a simplistic "Apply" such as has been asked for here. But I would really like to be able to:

a.) Make the current "Skip" and the requested "Apply" buttons able to operate against selected file(s) in the list. So "Skip" would skip the selected file(s) and remove them from the list and a new "Apply" button would apply the current rename only to the selected file(s). If there is no explicit selection, then the buttons would presumably operate like they do today...
b.) Allow multiple file selections (using standard keyboard + mouse conventions - Shift for range select, Ctrl for individual multi select) from the file list in the Advanced rename dialog...

My rationale is that I have many cases where - from the Preview of the rename operation I am about to perform - I can see that my intended rename isn't going to result in what I want for ALL files. With more refined control in the Advanced dialog, I would love to be able to go through a series of actions like:

  • many files selected and loaded into advanced rename dialog
  • potentially complicated regex does the job for MOST of the files selected, so may be I select EVERYTHING in the dialog, de-select the few that won't meet my needs, then hit a new "Apply" button
  • rename was applied to most of the files, I'd love for all of the those files that were just renamed by the "Apply" button to REMAIN SELECTED, at which point I might then hit the "Skip" button to get pop them off the list - leaving just the few that I might then handle separately, either in the rename dialog that's still open, or back in the lister.

Right now, the "Skip" button also causes the Old name and New name fields to be populated with the full string of the now topmost filename in the list (after the skip button pops the previous topmost filename off the list). That approach actually works fairly well for the use-case I just stepped through - where I might be left with a smaller number of files that I want to rename individually. But I would prefer those fields to keep the previous rename criteria that I had just applied to the initial set of files. Maybe I just might need to make a relatively small tweak to the previously used criteria to get it to "work" the way I'm happy with for the remaining files in the list. What WOULD make sense to me is if you were to double click on on a file in the file list - maybe THEN load that filename into the Old name (and maybe the New name) field(s).

Side Note: the Skip button currently only ever pops the topmost file off of the list. If I have one or more files that I want to Skip that are sporadically placed within the list... I want a more refined way of applying my changes or skipping certain files. The current "Skip" button behavior works in a weird enough way that I sort of fail to understand how it's even of practical use. There's actually a BUG here that I'll open a separate topic on.

Frankly, I have never used 'Skip' - have no idea about the use.

Bottomline for me:
If you have a list of files in the rename panel and you wish to rename certain files this way, some other files that way, you must then be able to select those files (whilst using shift/ctrl key) and do the renames.
The rename panel should not close, so one can perform the various rename steps, without having to select the files and re-open the rename panel.

+1 @ Steje
You described my exact feelings and whishes when doing mass-rename with reg-ex stuff!
Regex is not always forseeable when renaming hundreds of files at once. So having a look over the preview and being able to skip/remove entries would be kind of mega-powerful.
Right now, you need to remember all files which shall not be renamed, close the rename, recall ALL of those filenames (impossible) and deselect them, reopen the rename dialog and load the preset again. Then another "preview", another search through the list and then go for "OK", hoping to really have deselected all those files, which did not "fit" into the rename the first time.

[quote]My rationale is that I have many cases where - from the Preview of the rename operation I am about to perform - I can see that my intended rename isn't going to result in what I want for ALL files. With more refined control in the Advanced dialog, I would love to be able to go through a series of actions like:

  • many files selected and loaded into advanced rename dialog
  • potentially complicated regex does the job for MOST of the files selected, so may be I select EVERYTHING in the dialog, de-select the few that won't meet my needs, then hit a new "Apply" button
  • rename was applied to most of the files, I'd love for all of the those files that were just renamed by the "Apply" button to REMAIN SELECTED, at which point I might then hit the "Skip" button to get pop them off the list - leaving just the few that I might then handle separately, either in the rename dialog that's still open, or back in the lister.[/quote]

[quote="MrC"]These are great additions. I added a 4th in my list too, and happened to see you replied. Another one:

  • Allow the Rename dialog to remain Open and provide an Apply button. This way, you can use lots of presets quickly. This allows lots of little presets that do little things be called upon quickly. It is very time consuming to keep calling up Rename and scrolling the the preset list. Apply would make the changes, and update the file list with the newly named files.[/quote]

Yes for the love of God, an Apply button that leaves the Rename window open without changing any settings, please.

Working on a long list of files or folders where I have to use a different regex each time - for example ^s(.) to \1, then on the same list of file/folders ^r(.) to \1, ^x(.*) to \1 ad infinitum. For EACH rename I have to 1) hit Rename button which I have put on a toolbar, 2) click Type: Regular Expressions, 3) paste and edit in the Old Name regex, or use the drop down to select an old one and edit, 4) do the same with New Name, 5) click Case Sensitive, 6) click OK and repeat.

Would save a LOT of time and clicking to have a good 'ol Apply button :stuck_out_tongue:

Until GP Software reworks the Rename dialog, try the Dynamic Renamer.

Dynamic Renamer

It will allow you to chain transformations one after the other in the Rename dialog.

[quote="chazcon"]
Yes for the love of God, an Apply button that leaves the Rename window open without changing any settings, please.

Working on a long list of files or folders where I have to use a different regex each time - for example ^s(.) to \1, then on the same list of file/folders ^r(.) to \1, ^x(.*) to \1 ad infinitum. For EACH rename I have to 1) hit Rename button which I have put on a toolbar, 2) click Type: Regular Expressions, 3) paste and edit in the Old Name regex, or use the drop down to select an old one and edit, 4) do the same with New Name, 5) click Case Sensitive, 6) click OK and repeat.

Would save a LOT of time and clicking to have a good 'ol Apply button :stuck_out_tongue:[/quote]

As it stands, likely it will still take a while .. :frowning:
regretfully so.

"DO11 Enhancements: Rename dialog (2)"

[quote="MrC"]Until GP Software reworks the Rename dialog, try the Dynamic Renamer.

Dynamic Renamer

It will allow you to chain transformations one after the other in the Rename dialog.[/quote]

I love it! Thank you!

Well not love... I like it a lot!

If it's not there already, you can add @nodeselect to your Rename button, and then do one Rename, click OK, then click Rename again to do another on the same files.

Thanks Leo I will try this.