Rename Chain Operations (Macros)

Help & Support
,
1

The current Rename Dialog is quite powerful and I really enjoy it :slight_smile:
There is only one thing missing and I would be totally happy: a new mode which allows putting multiple presets into a chain (macro preset) so that each of the operations gets executed one after the other.

E.G.:

Lets assume I have three presets for renaming:
(A) Lowercase.
(B) Replace every word "two" by "2".
(C) Script: Remove certain words like date info or codec information.
(D) Add the word " HD" at the end of the name.

While each of the presets may be useful on its own it would beceome much more powerful to combine them in a chain (=a macro). Each of the presets which are part of the chain are then executed for each filename. When a presets is changed then also the chain is changed slightly as the presets is only referenced by the chain so that all changes of a preset are reflected by changes to the individual presets.

So the new mode shall display a different editor which allows picking and sorting presets. In the given example I would like to add (A), (C) and (D) which shall be part of my chain preset "E".

So the resulting presets are:
(A) Lowercase.
(B) Replace every word "two" by "2".
(C) Script: Remove certain words like date info or codec information.
(D) Add the word " HD" at the end of the name.
(E) Perform (A) then (C) and finally (D) on each file.

The new preset (E) is only made of references to other presets. It executes each of them in the defined sequence A-C-D. Because the order in which presets are executed can make a difference it shall be possible to reorder presets in a chain preset to achieve a different effect.

Nesting chain presets into other chain presets should be allowed. This would allow to derive presets from each other and do a little more.

With nestable chain presets (macros) all my renaming wishes would come true :slight_smile:
Managing and assigning such preset chains to buttons etc. would become easier. Reuse of presets would allow families of renaming functions. Cool stuff ahead :smiley:

Hope you like it and maybe in 12.11..... :wink:

Thanks =)

2

You can do that from toolbar buttons and hotkeys, if you want a one-click button for applying several presets to files (without opening the Rename dialog):

@nodeselect
Rename PRESET="Year Bracket" NOMATCHNOFAIL
Rename PRESET="Year Strip" NOMATCHNOFAIL
Rename PRESET="Dots to spaces" NOMATCHNOFAIL 
Rename PRESET="Titlecase (Opus 12)" NOMATCHNOFAIL

(The @nodeselect line isn't required, but is usually nice when renaming things.)

NOMATCHNOFAIL ensures that if a preset does not apply to a file, the other presets will still be considered for that file.