everything advanced renamer and other renamer programs

[jimspoon]

Everything Advanced Renamer can do some things that other "dedicated" renamer programs can't. For one thing, with Everything I can insert Everything Properties and Windows Property System properties into a new path / filename pattern. Also it seems that Everything is more flexible than some programs for transforming both the path and the filename, effectively giving a good way to move files.

I see that we now have a Multi-File Rename history dropdown, but it would be good to be able to save a renaming pattern as sort of a named bookmark that we could select as needed.

With Advanced Renamer i can create a complex step-by-step renaming sequence and save it as an .AREN file. Similarly a Bulk Rename Utility has .BRU files. I know it's probably "out of scope" for Everything to provide a similar complex tool, but if Everything could load the end result from an AREN file, that would be great. Or perhaps I can persuade one of these programs to call Everything to supply the Everything/WPS properties. Advanced Renamer and several other renamers can get metadata tags from Exiftool (not as good).

[void]

Everything is only designed for very basic multi-file renaming.

However, I do have on my TODO list to add some sort of bookmark system, or a save/load option.
I will consider support for importing AREN and BRU files.
Thank you for your suggestion.

[meteorquake]

I find the Everything renamer exceptionally helpful; I use it all the time. I had in the past written my own VBS one -- right-click a folder and allow Find-Replace -- but I find I don't use it often as the Everything one is very natural. There are some minor improvements I would do it it if ever it were looking to be slightly improved, but I would have to have a think about how to express what they would be though; and I see happily the Edit menu is developing a Find-Replace which would cover most of the renaming shortfall.
David

[raccoon]

I too adore the Advanced Rename/Move offered here, and wish I could migrate to it full time. Similarly the main thing holding me back is the ability to recite a sequence of rename patterns I use in my work flow. For this I've still stuck to RegexRenamer (2011). It uses SED formatting /regex-from/regex-to/flags and I've numbered each of my patterns using regex comments so I can quickly thumb through them from the history drop down. It also presents me with collision warnings before proceeding. The side-by-side view is also kind of nice.

One thing that does trip me up very often in Everything's Advanced Rename/Move is accidentally using the mouse wheel over the bottom New Filenames list while the New Format editbox is still in focus. This causes it to scroll through the New Format drop-down and I lose what I typed there, having to type it over again. I've gotten better at not doing this.

[jimspoon]

I wish the old and new path/file names were listed side-by-side instead of vertically separated boxes. It would be easier to compare the old and new names that way.

With maybe a toggle to see the full old/new paths, or just the old/new filenames (where files are remaining in the same folder).

Very useful as it is though, and now that I understand it a bit better, I plan on using it more, where it can do things better/easier than Advanced Renamer.

[meteorquake]

I've not found an issue with the current layout as I'm usually just typing text and it's obvious seeing from the new name what the original was but I suppose if there's a more complex rearrangement there may be a use, and I don't think a side-by-side view would detract from the aesthetics, the popup would just need to be widened on its default.

One thing I think would help me and presumably others would be to segregate numbers from letters; thus for example the two files
abc123def.txt
ghi456jkl.txt
if selected for rename would have the pattern
%1.txt
but often I would want it to be
%1%2%3.txt
for example I might hypothetically want to put hyphens in to achieve
abc-123-def.txt
ghi-456-jkl.txt

I'll see if I can think of other useful adjustments.

David

[raccoon]

.. but often I would want it to be
%1%2%3.txt

You can actually do this, even if Everything doesn't automatically do it for you, as long as there is a common delimiter (separator) character or text string that Everything can find in each of the files, then you can definitely create your own From/To variable numbers. You are allowed to invent your own.

Eg: Change the "From:" field from "%1" to "%1-%2-%3.txt" because hyphen (-) is a common delimiter in each of the files, then you can use each of these variables in the "To:" field, eg, "MyFile_%3_%1original%2.txt"

[meteorquake]

The example problem is where letters and numbers run together without a separator and I am wanting to enter something in their midst (hyphen being an example). So the interpreter would need to recognise numbers as a distinct class from letters...
David

[raccoon]

In that case, you will have to learn the dark arts of Regular Expressions. For example:

Old Filenames:

Code: Select all

aa22bb.txt
abcd123xyz.txt
efg456hij.txt

New Filenames:

Code: Select all

aa-22-bb.txt
abcd-123-xyz.txt
efg-456-hij.txt

This can be solved with any of the following Old Format/New Format pairs for the same results.

Code: Select all

(\d+)
-\1-

Code: Select all

^(\D*)(\d+)
\1-\2-

Code: Select all

^(\D+)(\d+)(\D+)\.txt$
\1-\2-\3.txt

Code: Select all

(.*?)(\d+)([^.]*)\.txt
\1-\2-\3.txt

Code: Select all

(?<=\D)(?=\d)|(?<=\d)(?=\D)
-

Lots of different ways to get the same thing done. (that last one is pretty neat and versatile for all letter/number situations. the darkest of arts!)

Everything 1.5