REQUEST: Add (user input) to the beginning of file name

Help & Support
1

Here's one that comes up a LOT for me, maybe others. It's easy to do by hand, but I'd like to automate it, as sometimes I'm renaming thousands of files at a time.

Got filename like...

file title.ext

and I wanna add the author name (a couple dozen have the same author-name) to make it look like
author name - file title.ext
so I go (from the main RENAME window)

OLD NAME: .
NEW NAME: author name - .
and hit enter.
But because the RENAME field comes up with NEW NAME highlighted, the actions necessary to accomplish this are I have to go SHIFT-TAB (kinda awkward finger movement), replace old name with ., TAB (easy), replace new name with "author name - ."
and hit enter.

When you're doing this several thousand times, this repetitive action becomes bothersome.

Is there a way to automate it so it just asks for "author name" and plugs it in, to get the results above?

2

You could use this script posted by JohnZeman and modified by Kundal.

I personally use Kundal's three-way button. Left-button to start inserting from left. Right-button to start inserting from right.

Once you have that script/button, all you would need to do is select the files you want to add text, click the button, and type in:

1,author name -

This would insert the "author name - " (the text you typed in) at the beginning of the file names.

If you always want to insert at the beginning of a file name, you could also just use:

Rename PATTERN "*" TO "{dlgstring|Author Name?}*" @nodeselect
If you always want the " - " to be inserted so you don't have to type it, you could use:

Rename PATTERN "*" TO "{dlgstring|Author Name?} - *" @nodeselect

Hope this helps.

3

With Dynamic Renamer, the input would be:

-^/author name -/
4

[quote="ktbcrash"]You could use this script posted by JohnZeman and modified by Kundal.
Hope this helps.[/quote]

That looks exactly like what I'm after. Thank you!

Quick question. The link you provided, is it to the original (JohnZeman) version, or the modified (Kundal) version of the script?

5

If you just want to do what was in the first post in this thread, making a button or hotkey which runs ktbcrash's last 2-line command is all you really need.

Using a complex script is overkill if you just want to add text to the start of a name, with a prompt for the text. Ktbcrash's command does it all in just two lines.

The link is to a thread with both. You can see who posted what by looking on the right of each post.