Renaming Wishes

[lukescammell]

I thought I'd move this to a separate thread to avoid cluttering up the "Wishes Poll" even further than I have already

Luke, if you read this, I'm curious, how extensive would you want XYplorer's renaming ability to be? You mentioned the excellent Flash Renamer (I love how Bulk Rename Utility which puts everything on one screen).

Mostly I'm interested in the preview (cos I make mistakes) and the ability to insert a string (specified), x characters from the start or the end. Or remove a number of characters, x characters from the start or end.

Both ExplorerPlus and Directory Opus have quite thorough renaming options, but I rarely use them.

Meh, I didn't even realise this as I never had them installed long enough to find these features. They didn't do the basics to my liking, so I never found the clever stuff they did.

Maybe it's because I'm doing true batch renaming, by folder or many, many files. I just don't want to cycle through several tabs just to perform a basic renaming option on a set of files or a folders. It just seems that when I need a specific utility, I reach for that tool rather than what might be found in a file manager or graphics app, etc.

If I only have a couple of files to rename, then I just use good old F2 and ^C and ^V. More than that I almost find it faster switching to a renamer app. If I'm just renaming my digital photos, then XY does the job since I'm completely replacing all the filenames. However, with the lack of decent file system tagging, I've resorted to sensible, but lengthy file naming. This really saves me loads of time when I'm trying to find files from a specific project as I include the project code in each and every filename associated with it.

The main reason for wanting this kind of thing in XY or whatever file manager I'm using is that it seems logical to have extensive file renaming in there to me. Since Flash Renamer uses quite a different interface to XY and most windows apps (that I don't *entirely* enjoy) it takes me a second or two to change my thought processes to be able to use it.

Something like thumbnailing, I don't actually believe that needs to be in a file manager, and I rarely use the capability in XY. I leave that to the professionals (Adobe Bridge) as I work in CS and, no offence meant Donald, it does thumbnailing far better and more flexibly (^F1, ^F2, ^F3, ^F4, ^F5).

Also, (god I go on don't I?) since most of the renaming capability that I use on a regular basis is already in XY, it seems to make sense to add one or two more things to make it "complete" (just my definition ). I'm sure Donald will disagree with me on this one, but it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult a thing to add, compared to replicating and improving on the thumbnailing abilities of something like Bridge/ACDSee/IFranView.

At the end of the day, I'm lazy and want to make my life lazier

Oh, and Luke, welcome to the XYplorer forums!

Thanks, seems like a nice place to be A developer who listens to his users? Who would have thought it? Most refreshing.

Edit: Incidentally, I'll give BRU a look, as at first glance, it may be better for me than FR. Thanks zridling.

[zridling]

Thanks Luke, I appreciate the thoughtful response. My preference for Bulk Rename Utility lies in its simplicity, ease, and the fact that everything is right in front of me. It's overwhelming at first, but when you peruse the UI, it begins to make sense pretty quickly, and you can save any number of "favorites" (renaming profiles) to call on in an instant.

It doesn't hurt that it's actively developed, too.