Posted by: Administrator
on March 03, 2007 01:24 AM
Mass-renaming (esp. music files which end up being named in a way that makes players mess up their order) can be really handy.
While this (Matamorphose) looks like a decent program and more powerful than I need, I've been very happy modifying filenames of late with the file manager called Thunar (part of the XFCE desktop environment project, but I usually use it under Gnome). The Thunar project's rather nice website: <a href="http://thunar.xfce.org/index.html" title="xfce.org">http://thunar.xfce.org/index.html</a xfce.org>
To use Thunar's Bulk Renamer, open a folder with Thunar, select all, choose "rename" by means of a right click on any file. The dialog box that opens up lets you insert, delete or modify text in patterns on every file, or include number sequences (so first file starts with 01, next file with 02, etc.). You can also use find-and-replace, so every embarrassing and display-eating instance of the full name "Britney Jean Spears" can be trimmed to the more discrete "bspears." And of course you can use the renamer on a smaller number of files as well -- just control click files you want to rename, and then choose the Rename option.
Note: though it's obvious been designed with some love, not the evident contempt of users that many computer programs seem to reflect, I don't find Thunar';s renaming interface completely intuitive -- in particular, the wording describing the effect of each option seems skewed somehow, gives me in some instances precisely the opposite result from what I expect. But it's much harder to complain, considering that the resulting changes are a) not committed until you specifically ask them to be and b) previewed in real time, so you can if necessary fool around with the parameters until you have exactly what you want, and then BAM! lock in the results. The learning curve is quite shallow!
I don't think Thunar's renaming capability can be used recursively, though -- which is too bad, but not an unreasonable limitation in a GUI file manager.
And Thunar is a nice file manager in general, actually, though I still use Nautilus most of the time. Very conveniently, since the renamer is my favorite part of the Thunar toolbox, once Thunar's installed, you can actually use Nautilus as the default file manager, but open a folder with Thunar by using a right click -- one of the options that right click brings up is the oddly phrased "Open folder with 'Open folder with Thunar.'" (Part of the exciting new film, "When Automated Phrase Joinder Fails!")
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Another good tool for file re-naming: Thunar
Posted by: Administrator on March 03, 2007 01:24 AMWhile this (Matamorphose) looks like a decent program and more powerful than I need, I've been very happy modifying filenames of late with the file manager called Thunar (part of the XFCE desktop environment project, but I usually use it under Gnome). The Thunar project's rather nice website: <a href="http://thunar.xfce.org/index.html" title="xfce.org">http://thunar.xfce.org/index.html</a xfce.org>
To use Thunar's Bulk Renamer, open a folder with Thunar, select all, choose "rename" by means of a right click on any file. The dialog box that opens up lets you insert, delete or modify text in patterns on every file, or include number sequences (so first file starts with 01, next file with 02, etc.). You can also use find-and-replace, so every embarrassing and display-eating instance of the full name "Britney Jean Spears" can be trimmed to the more discrete "bspears." And of course you can use the renamer on a smaller number of files as well -- just control click files you want to rename, and then choose the Rename option.
Note: though it's obvious been designed with some love, not the evident contempt of users that many computer programs seem to reflect, I don't find Thunar';s renaming interface completely intuitive -- in particular, the wording describing the effect of each option seems skewed somehow, gives me in some instances precisely the opposite result from what I expect. But it's much harder to complain, considering that the resulting changes are a) not committed until you specifically ask them to be and b) previewed in real time, so you can if necessary fool around with the parameters until you have exactly what you want, and then BAM! lock in the results. The learning curve is quite shallow!
I don't think Thunar's renaming capability can be used recursively, though -- which is too bad, but not an unreasonable limitation in a GUI file manager.
And Thunar is a nice file manager in general, actually, though I still use Nautilus most of the time. Very conveniently, since the renamer is my favorite part of the Thunar toolbox, once Thunar's installed, you can actually use Nautilus as the default file manager, but open a folder with Thunar by using a right click -- one of the options that right click brings up is the oddly phrased "Open folder with 'Open folder with Thunar.'" (Part of the exciting new film, "When Automated Phrase Joinder Fails!")
Cheers,
timothy
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