Renaming files

A collection of especially useful xplorer² topics and ideas. New users may find it helpful to look here before searching the other forums for information. >>>>>> Please post new material in the relevant forum. (New stuff posted here will be removed.) Thanks. -fg-

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medic5608d
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Renaming files

Post by medic5608d »

=====================================================================
May 19, 2010 - preamble to topic having been moved here to "Favorites" forum:

Renaming files is a frequently recurring theme in file management.  Our users have asked more questions and contributed more solutions and recommendations on this subject than any other single subject.  
Users' favorite recommended third party tools continue to change as better tools are written for advanced tasks.  
I have selected the following single topic thread from the archives as an extensive sample of the questions and suggestions that have been posted on this subject over the years.
More discussion of current favorite renaming tools can be found in in the x2 Pro forum.
For further examples, see here, and here.   
Enjoy!
-fgagnon-
===================================================================


Sorry...it's Sunday morning and while I've tried searching the Forum first for this solution, I am just going in circles. I know there is a simple answer, so here goes:

I want to rename every file in multiple folders such that when I am done, I have eliminated the first 15 characters, including spaces. Every filename has the same first 15 characters (including spaces).

Example:
paramedic dave 01 Skybox 113.jpg needs to be changed to:
01 Skybox 113.jpg

Please get me started.

Dave
Demetris
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Post by Demetris »

I think you need a dedicated mass renamer for this (removing n characters from the start of the filename). The ones I like the most are:

* Rename Master, and
* Flexible Renamer.

The one recommended in the x2 Help is:

* THE Rename

All are free, and I know that the first two can scan recursively to a defined depth of directories, and can also use metadata for renaming audio files or images.

Greetings,
Demetris
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medic5608d
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Renaming files en masse

Post by medic5608d »

I went here, http://mediachance.com/free/renamer.htm and downloaded a file renaming utility, as recommended elsewhere in this forum. It worked great!

Thanks,

Dave
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fgagnon
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Post by fgagnon »

x2 does not support the sort of renaming you are looking for, medic5608d.

However, any of several third-party renamer utilities should do the trick for you, as Demetris mentioned in his post.

PS - (I didn't see you post before I added mine.) I am glad you found a solution.
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Post by BRX »

Good opportunity to bring another renamer utility to x2 users' attention which IMO compliments x2 own renaming functions very well.

Narayan, please test and decide if it's worth a mention in the manual.

What IMHO is essentially lacking in x2's renaming functionality is s/p of parts of the files and regular expressions (which is due to the design).

If you need that and don't want to start a seperate renaming program you can use an nice shell extension called awxrename.

You can download it from

http://www.arniworld.de/downloads.htm

(some more interesting shell extensions are there too. Don't bother with version number. The page isn't updated, but the download you get is v0.0.5.2)

Sadly it doesn't work on scrap panes (like other shell extensions). But it's still a major help.
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Post by Gandolf »

And, if you're not already spoilt for choice, I like LupasRename http://www.azheavymetal.com/~lupasrenam ... rename.php
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Post by narayan »

I checked awxrename out.

I thought it would somehow integrate with x2. But it has its own simple GUI that does nothing but RegEx replacement. Then the other applications are better, because they offer many things (besides RegEx replacement).

Any thoughts?
BRX
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Post by BRX »

Well, it does for me. That's why I brought it up.

Don't you have a menu entry for awxrename in right-click context menu?

There you can directly rename the selected files with some preselected (and editable) actions or go to the "advanced" entry which pops up a mask for entering the search and replace string.

Doesn't it work this way for you?
narayan
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Post by narayan »

Sorry-- Didn't notice it at first.

Yes, it's lovely! These are the most-often needed options. Definitely worth adding to the User Manual!
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Post by Demetris »

narayan wrote:Sorry-- Didn't notice it at first.

Yes, it's lovely! These are the most-often needed options. Definitely worth adding to the User Manual!
I agree. Thanks, BRX, for this suggestion. :) I was looking for this for a long time. It does not work with Unicode filenames, but, then, I don't know of any such tool that does. :(
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Post by Brig »

Hey folks:

I tried out awxrename and found it pretty good--the best thing is having those common renaming options right in the context menu. The problems I had, though, were speed--it works very slowly--and, when it finishes, the renamed files disappear; only a refresh (ctrl-r) brings them back. Did anybody else see this behavior?

I'm sticking with The Rename (for photos--great exif manipulation) and Lupas for most everything else.

Thanks,
Brig
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Post by supster »

best file renamer ive found:

Sherrod FileRenamer

definitely the most intuitive,  allows you to quickly decide on file renaming schemes and easily figure out how to get them done.   the others i tried were either not flexible enough or not intuitive enough

it also renames audio files using tag information enmasse.  there arent many utility programs that i demo that i actually pay to register,  x2 is one,  FileRenamer is another

.
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Post by narayan »

Brig wrote:it works very slowly--and, when it finishes, the renamed files disappear; only a refresh (ctrl-r) brings them back. Did anybody else see this behavior?
It is not slow in my case, but it does require a refresh. The old entries do not vanish--They don't change, either.

BTW  I believe this "sentence case" is the most required thing, and that is missing from the context menu! What's the script for making the entire name in lowercase, except for the first letter in Uppercase? (Even if the rest of the letters are uppercase, they should get converted to lowercase).

What language is used in this script? Doesn't look like RegEx!
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Post by FrizzleFry »

awxrename uses Perl by default although it looks like it supports JScript and VBScript.  The following function caps the first character and lowers the rest:

use locale;$file =~s/(.+)/\u\L$1/;

This one caps the first alpha character and lowers the rest:

use locale;$file =~s/(\W*)(.+)/$1\u\L$2/;

so "1 - see dog run" will become "1 - See dog run"
narayan
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Post by narayan »

Thanks! The manual can now include the complete set of tricks!

One more, please!

Some file names merge all words, but put caps at the beginning of each word. How do I enter a space between those words and then make the first letter capitalized?


Example: HowToFindDuplicates  to How to find duplicates
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