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Author Topic: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement  (Read 14903 times)

xtekian

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IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« on: December 23, 2005, 12:33 PM »
A lot of word processing programs have a "replace" function where you can replace for, example, all "hello.world" to "hello w." I was wondering if anyone could do a more advanced version of this kind of functionality?

1) not only rename & replace words, but also folders and files
2) ability to replace/rename words only under certain circumstances
     a) for example, if i had "hello.world.v1.2", i would want to remove all the periods "." except for the ones between v1.2, so that it would become "hello world v1.2"
3) for renaming, have a special shell extension that lets you rename files and folders with one click instead of two, as with windows explorer?

anyone with other ideas for this little prog can add in, but that's all i can come up with for now. cheers =)

-xtekian
TkR

mouser

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #1 on: December 23, 2005, 01:09 PM »
i think i remember a renamer that worked similar to this.
but its an interesting idea - what if you hade a program that let you drag and drop file and folder names into a "memo" field (like a text editor) where you could perform any kind of search and replace or manual editing of the list of files and folders just as if you were in a text editor (you could even copy text into a text editor and work on it there and then paste it bacl), and then hit GO to have it rename all files and folders to their new changed values.

brotherS

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #2 on: December 23, 2005, 04:23 PM »
A lot of word processing programs have a "replace" function where you can replace for, example, all "hello.world" to "hello w." I was wondering if anyone could do a more advanced version of this kind of functionality?

1) not only rename & replace words, but also folders and files
2) ability to replace/rename words only under certain circumstances
     a) for example, if i had "hello.world.v1.2", i would want to remove all the periods "." except for the ones between v1.2, so that it would become "hello world v1.2"
3) for renaming, have a special shell extension that lets you rename files and folders with one click instead of two, as with windows explorer?

anyone with other ideas for this little prog can add in, but that's all i can come up with for now. cheers =)

-xtekian
I tried to understand why you would need a new tool for this, but I failed :( Would you mind to explain?

Oh yeah, and have a look at https://www.donation...dex.php?topic=1167.0 please, first post there :)

nudone

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #3 on: December 23, 2005, 05:17 PM »
er, could this be the reason, lots of warez files are named with the '.' instead of spaces - can't honestly remember but i think newsgroup attachments are also named this way.

i wrote about 'ninotech copy path' that did something along the lines of the request.

nudone blog in the archive: https://www.donation...ninotech_copy_p.html

program home: http://home.worldonl...inotech/freeutil.htm

AbteriX

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #4 on: December 23, 2005, 05:56 PM »
mouser wrote:
>  what if you hade a program that let you drag and drop file and folder names into a "memo" field

like eRename ?

http://hansjoerg.rei...t-online.de/erename/
Hmm, seams like his side is down?

I have the Standalone file and the source code from Mr. Reister if anyone want it...
« Last Edit: March 22, 2008, 02:18 PM by AbteriX »

AbteriX

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #5 on: December 23, 2005, 06:02 PM »
Hmmm, on the other side, ...here you are:

eRename
Software Author :      Hans-Jörg    Reister         http://hansjoerg.rei...t-online.de/erename/  ( side is down?)
Software ScreenShot :           See below
Software License :         Freeware         
Operating Systems :         Win 2000 XP     
Date Date :         2003-07-28         
Software Price :         $0.00    
Download Size :         353kb / 867kb         
Free Download :         Download below

Here is an Google cache:
http://64.233.183.10...reister%22&hl=de

"About eRename"
About eRename:
eRename is a tool that helps you to easily and quickly rename files.

Why?
You all know that situation: you downloaded a lot of files to a directory e.g.
photos from your digital camera, MP3 music files, images from internet pages .... but
all the file names are messy. Renaming those files using the build in OS support is painful!

With eRename it is much easier!

Simply drag the directory with the files in it onto its main windows.
On the left hand side the list of the original file names will be loaded.
On the right hand side there is a multi line memo control.
Edit the file names on the right hand side.
Having edited the file names - simply click the Apply button - the files will be renamed.
This way renaming files becomes as easy as editing text!

The only thing you have to take care about is to keep the files in the original sequence. Certainly you can not add new files.

But what about powerful tools like search and replace or numbering list of items ...?
Know its all in there! Just right click on the editor and choose from

Find - call search function
Replace - call search and replace function
Number Lines - easily number lines using a counter
UPPERCASE, lowercase - to convert seleciton to UPPER or lower case
Capitalize - to make each word start with a captial letter
... - the usual copy, paste, stuff

But i need a different function...
So what? Simply copy everything to the clipboard and paste in your most powerful editor
or spreadsheet application to do even more sofistitcated processing.
Once done processing transfer it back to eRename using the clipboard again. Then click Apply.

That sound great - but is there more?
Oh yes! Need MP3 ID tag info?
Use the context menu of the original file list on the left and choose "File Info".
A new panel with all the file info and MP3 ID tag stuff will open. You can even change the ID settings for each file.
The context menu can also be used to call simple file handling function like "Delete", "Destroy", "Open" and "Open with...".
eRename editing functions eRename editing functions

What makes eRename outstanding compared to similar tools?
Well, most of the other tools are using on a rule based approach.
This is e.g. add date to each file name and then append a counter,
or something even more complex (not such a great idea because the several file dates are already stored along with the file)

I actually do use such a tool myself (not standalone but nicely integrated into the best file manager available: Total Commander).

But for me it turned out that almost every time some of the files did not mach any rules.
This is actually very often the case when you copy MP3 files.
I discovered that i had to think about finding a good matching rule for a long time.
With eRename you simply edit those 20 file names and you are done even before you would have finished thinking about finding a rule to do the same job.
I also discovered that too often the rule i used did not work properly - and then i had to fix the wrong result manually - not very efficient :-(

The approach of eRename is to get the file names into a text editor. Once you got them in there you got 'em in the clip board.
Having it there you can use ALL the functions of your OS! No standalone rule base approach can even get close to that!
So the approach of eRename is to make reusage possible using the most common interface available - the good old text file.

License
eRename is freeware!

It uses Delphi components of the JEDI project. Check out the JEDI JVCL home page, located at http://jvcl.sourceforge.net/. Those components are really great!
If also uses a control named TLsDirTreeCombo28 created by Leo D. Shih
The great memo on the right hand side with the makro recorder support is copyright © TMemoEx.com team, 2001-2. Offical wibe site


Usage
OK. Most of the handling is already explained above.

Drag & Drop support
eRename supports drag & drop.
To rename the files of directory drag the directory from the explorer onto it's main window.
The files contained in the directory will be listed.

Filtering
If you want to edit just a subset of the files e.g. the MP3 files use the filter list.

Excluding file extensions
Most of the time you do not want to change the file extensions. So get rid of them.
Just check the "Exclude Extensions" option. eRename will automatically leave them away copying the file names from the original file names.
Applying changes the file extensions will be appended from the original file names.

Undo
Damned everything went wrong again - take me back to where I started.
Click the "Refresh" button. Discard all changes choosing the option "No" in the message box popping to your face.
All changes will be lost... loosing something can sometimes be a good thing :-)

Directory navigation
You can simply enter the name of the directory into editor "Directory".
If you think typing all those directory names is boring click on the button "..." on the right of it.
Or open the list. The first item will always be the parent directory. The other items are the sub directories.

File Info
Right click on the list of the original file names.
 From the context menu choose the option "File Info".
A new panel will show at the bottom of the window having three sheets:

File Info
Shows the elementary stuff: size, date, attributes,...

ID3 V11
Read, write and clear ID3 V11 tags (experimental!!).

ID3 V21
Yet to be done...

Download
Ok here we go. There are 4 ZIP archives plus the logo files you can download:
Version 1.1.0.14

    * Standalone version (zipped, 360k)  [see below for an download link]
    * Normal version. Requires VCL50.BPL (zipped, 122k)
    * VCL50.BPL (zipped, 632k)
    * German user interface (zipped, 17k)
    * eRename Icon


If you already have the Borland Visual Component 5.0 runtime library installed
on your system (c:\windows\system32\vcl50.bpl) then you can download the normal version.
Else download the larger standalone version.


Installation
As easy as using it - simply unzip the downloaded archives to somewhere
e.g. c:\winnt\system32 (this way you can call it from the command line as well ;-) )

If you are using the normal version and did not already have the VCL50.BPL installed
on your computer then download this as well and unzip it to c:\windows\system32\vcl50.bpl.

Else take care you have the right version installed: must be 5.0.6.18 or later.


Shell registration
Click on the button "Etc..". Choose the option "Shell register".
This will register eRename for directories (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\eRename\command)
and for all other file types (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\Shell\eRename\command).


Contact
Send me an e-mail. Click on the button "Etc..". Choose the option "Contact". Choose the item "eRename Homepage" to open this page.


.



I have the Standalone file and the source code from Mr. Reister if anyone want it...

...here
« Last Edit: March 22, 2008, 04:49 PM by AbteriX »

mouser

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #6 on: December 23, 2005, 07:17 PM »
looks like exactly what i had in mind - nice find!

xtekian

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #7 on: December 23, 2005, 08:51 PM »
eRename is a pretty cool file but it works only with filenames that have the same filename. i'm actually looking more for a small proggie that can change folder names too?

maybe have a text field where you can drag folders into and then edit with a batch renamer or by just clicking on the folder?

thanks for the help guys
TkR

mouser

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #8 on: December 24, 2005, 12:42 AM »
ah, only works with filenames huh?  well then sounds like there is still a need for this.

xtekian

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #9 on: December 24, 2005, 10:45 AM »
did a internet-wide search, this is what i found

SkyJuice has two programs that can do this, but they're both shareware (fast folder renamer is a 300k prog selling for $15!!!! no way!)
link: http://www.skyjuices...tware.com/index.html

FoldMonkey also seems to do the trick, except it's shareware too
http://www.monkeyjob.com/FoldMonk.html

if i could do this myself i would, but i haven't touched vb or c++ in 3 years =|
TkR

mouser

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #10 on: December 24, 2005, 11:07 AM »
i think we'll get this written in the next week or so; if no one else does it i will.
it's definitely a snack.

xtekian

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #11 on: December 24, 2005, 11:31 AM »
Hey wait,
i found a prog =D and it's free!!! =)

link: http://www.albert.nu/default.asp

the prog is called Renamer 6.0. works on files and folders, allows you to do macros, and has a lot of very customizable functions. an extremely helpful program. i just tinkered around with this for about 30 min ago, and it does just about anything i need; the kicked is the macro thingie.

to do what i wanted i did this:
1) created a macro that replaced all "." after letters (26 steps for 26 letters) with spaces, so "hello.world.v1.2" becomes "hello world v1.2" this is especially helpful because it keeps the "." between the version numbers
2) you can do the same thing for underscores

have fun =)

thanks for the help mouser =)
TkR

mouser

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Re: IDEA: Advanced Text Replacement
« Reply #12 on: December 24, 2005, 11:35 AM »
very interesting find..

i should say that there are other folder renamers that will do what you want also im sure..
im still interested in a generic text-editor based renamer, so i may write something anyway.