Some questions (Multi-Rename Tool and Custom Columns)

[Wojtek]

Hi everybody,

I have some questions for my workflow, but since there are several tools/features involved I have chosen one single topic title to cover them all.

1) I want to rename and move files based on their filenames
File Name Variations:

• "qwerty - asdf.ext"

• "qwerty abc - asdf.ext"

• "qwerty def - asdf.ext"

• "qwerty xyz - asdf.ext"

a.s.o.

Now, all files starting with "qwerty" should be moved to a subfolder named "qwerty"
Results:

• "qwerty\qwerty - asdf.ext"

• "qwerty\qwerty abc - asdf.ext"

• "qwerty\qwerty def - asdf.ext"

• "qwerty\qwerty xyz - asdf.ext"

As you can see, the logic is "FILENAME_PART1 [OPTIONAL_TEXT] - FILENAME_PART2"
will be moved to "FILENAME_PART1\FILENAME_PART1 [OPTIONAL_TEXT] - FILENAME_PART2"

2) Create custom columns where each column is a part of the filename
File Name: "blah _ qwerty - asdf.ext"
Columns: "blah" | "qwerty" | "asdf"
or at least: "blah" | "qwerty - asdf"

Here the main separator is an underscore "_" whereas the (optional) secondary separator should be a dash "-"

Can this be done?

[Dalai]

Use this as rename mask:

Code: Select all

[N1-6]\[N]

Change the length according to your needs. Note that the length is fixed, so you can only move files whose first word is of the same length in a single step.

Regarding the second question: No, this is not possible. Columns can be set to show only a filename part, but that can only be done with indices, i.e. a string from position X to position Y (similar to the MRT). What you want/need is a dynamic index based on specific characters.

Regards
Dalai

[Wojtek]

Use this as rename mask:

Code: Select all

[N1-6]\[N]

Change the length according to your needs. Note that the length is fixed, so you can only move files whose first word is of the same length in a single step.

Thank you Dalai,

I know the syntax with fixed length filenames, but unfortunately the "qwerty..." was only an example and all my files vary in filename length.

So basically it looks something like this:

qwerty - asdf.etx1
qwerty - asdfg.ext2
qwerty abc - ghjkl.ext1
qwerty xyz - hjgztrfde.ext3
qwerty bgvf - kijuhzgtre.etx2
qwertz - asdfg.etx1
qwertz - cvbnm.ext2
asdf - xyz.ext4
abcdefg - qwert.ext1

... and many many more kinds of combinations

What I want to do is to separate files starting with the same text string - regardless of additional suffixes - into subfolders.

Hence, this is how it should look afterwards:

qwerty\
qwerty - asdf.etx1
qwerty - asdfg.ext2
qwerty abc - ghjkl.ext1
qwerty xyz - hjgztrfde.ext3
qwerty bgvf - kijuhzgtre.etx2
qwertz\
qwertz - asdfg.etx1
qwertz - cvbnm.ext2
asdf\
asdf - xyz.ext4
abcdefg\
abcdefg - qwert.ext1


I hope now you get the picture of what I'm trying to do.

[Dalai]

Well, you can only move groups of files of the same length. You may want to use the search function to find files whose names contains a word of specific length, e.g. this RegEx

Code: Select all

^\w{5}\s

or

Code: Select all

^\w{5}\W

Then rename the search results with the fixed length above. Repeat these steps with different lengths.

Regards
Dalai

[white]

What I want to do is to separate files starting with the same text string - regardless of additional suffixes - into subfolders.

Assuming a space separates the first part form the rest, you can do it in the Multi-Rename Tool like this:

Code: Select all

Search for:   ^\S+
Replace with: $0\\$0

☐ [E}
☑ Regex

2) Create custom columns where each column is a part of the filename
File Name: "blah _ qwerty - asdf.ext"
Columns: "blah" | "qwerty" | "asdf"
or at least: "blah" | "qwerty - asdf"

Here the main separator is an underscore "_" whereas the (optional) secondary separator should be a dash "-"

You need a plugin for that like:
Regexp_wdx (old, small, 32-bit only)
PCREsearch 2.5 (big, is for searching in files but can also search in filenames only, 32-bit and 64-bit available)

If you want to have a go at either of these and need help, let me know.