The rename is a neat little freeware program, that renames individual files or groups of files. Uploaders as well as downloaders at the forum will find many of the features of this program very handy. Among many many other features . . .
It can be used to rename files prior to upload (including extensions), as well as to rename files after downloading (replacing extensions).
It can be used to search for patterns, and replace them with other patterns within filenames (including UNIX-style "regular expressions").
It can be used to automatically number selected files in sequence (0001, 0002, ..), with a specified number of digits (1, 01, 001, 0001, ..)
There are countless other features to this program, which are a bit beyond scope for now....
Here are the other sections that follow
Downloading
Installation
Choosing The Correct Directory Of Files
Making Multiple File Selections
"Start" And "Preview" To Perform The Action
Why Are There "RESET" Buttons ??
Changing File Extensions
Adding Number Sequences To Filenames
>> An Extensive Example For VirtualDub
Regular Expressions
Testing For Long Names [CD-R Burning]
MP3 and Picture Features
It can be downloaded from all over the Web.
Here's the author site. The site has both English and French paths.
http://www.herve-thouzard.com/therename.phtml
There's also a direct download link for the program from within the author site
http://www.herve-thouzard.com/therename.zip
You could also try www.download.com, using the specific search term "the rename" (with a space).
Download the .ZIP file, unzip it, then right-click the .msi file and choose "Install" within the pop-up menu that appears.
Note: if you have an older version of Windows, you might need to get the Microsoft Installer program to install this correctly.
Here's a screenshot of the program - the latest version right now is 2.0e
Here are some basic features that you will find useful right away
Navigating around and choosing files within The Renamer itself makes use of the visual hierarchy of files, like what you would find in Windows Explorer. Files or folders can be selected in this way. Click the "Folders" tab in the center of the program's window, and the hierarchy will replace the "Naming Rules" window.
Another option, which often proves to be much easier, is to simply open the folder that contains the files you want to edit using Windows (or, Windows Explorer...).
Then just Click-And-Drag any one of the file icons from the folder into The Rename's file window.
Simple!
From there, either use the CTRL or SHIFT keys, as is standard with Windows, to make multiple selections.
[CTRL does individual file selections, SHIFT does range selections]
You can also click-and-drag using the mouse, and make 'marquee' selections.
To immediately choose all of the files in the directory, simply press CTRL-A.
Notice the "Select All" option in the EDIT menu (last circled one below)
Whenever you want multiple files to be renamed, choose either "Start" or "Preview" from the RUN menu
"Start" performs the action immediately, without showing you what it's about to do.
The Rename has an UNDO feature (CTRL-Z), so you can undo any mistakes that "Start" may have introduced.
But, you might want to grow more accustomed to ALWAYS seeing the preview of what The Rename is about to do.
The "Preview" window also has a "Rename" button, that allows you to immediately perform the changes (it's exactly like choosing "Start"...).
"Preview" generally should be used more the first time you are going to make some changes. When you have to perform the same renaming action multiple times, and already know the exact changes that are going to be made, simply use "Start" and skip the preview window.
You'll notice that at the bottom-right of both the "Prefix" and "Extension" parts of The Rename's window, there is a "RESET" button.
As you use the program more, you'll come to appreciate this more and more.
The Rename remembers all of the changes you want to make to selected files.
So, if you changed Prefix to add a sequence, AND changed the extension, AND performed some "Find And Replace" action, but only want the latest of these to be remembered, you NEED to click "Reset" to erase the previous changes made. Either that, or simply close The Rename, and run it again...
These are some of the features in The Rename that will prove useful both before and after uploading and downloading.
With all of the files you want to rename chosen, click "Text" under the EXTENSION part of Rename.
Keep the default setting, "Replace with text". Fill the text-field with whatever extension you wish to change the files to.
In the example above, the index.html file will
be changed into a text-file, that is index.txt.
When everything's set up the way you want it, simply choose "Start" or "Preview" in the RUN menu.
(There are also shortcut keys -- CTRL-F5 for "Start", CTRL-F6 for "Preview".)
Example : Uploading And Downloading Extension Changes
During uploading, change the file extensions from
.AVI to .RAR.
This is useful, because it can be done even after the original files have been split.
After downloading, change the .RAR extension to the original .AVI extension, using The Rename as well.
This is particularly useful when the original movie was divided into several dozen files, and you don't particularly want to manually rename every single file's extension.
By now, this feature should be straightforward to use, since you are already familiar with the basic layout of the program.
Make sure the "Counter" tab is chosen, simply click the checkbox, change any of the values that you wish, and then incorporate those changes into your final filename changing action.
Note, the "Digits" setting indicates how many digits long the counter number will be. The default is 2, which means "01"; obviously, 5 would change that to be "00001", and so on.
Example: Preparing File Sequence For VirtualDub
If you have a list of .AVI files that you wish to join using VirtualDub, you may need to rename the files.
Say the original list of files was
movie1.avi, movie2.avi, movie3.avi, movie4.avi, ...
First, make sure the files are in their numbered order, from top-to-bottom (m1 first, m2 second, ...).
If they are not, click once on the "NAME" heading in the left section of The Rename to arrange them in 'chronological' movie order.
That way, when they are being renamed, they will remain in their original order.
Then, choose the "Text" tab of the Prefix section. Write in the filename prefix that you want to keep, in this case "movie". This will eliminate the original numbers from the filename! In the example below, a '_' character was also added for separation. For VirtualDub, you may also want to make that a '.' character.
Then click the "Counter" tab, and click the checkbox for "Add a counter". This 'activates' the counter feature.
Make the number add to the right (of the existing prefix). In this example, the beginning number will be "01". VirtualDub also accepts "00" as the first number in the sequence.
Here's a snapshot of The Rename doing the work for this feature -- note the "Add to the right"; radiobutton is selected
Three simple steps.
Now, to perform this change, first make sure you have chosen all the files (CTRL-A) that are going to be renamed.
Then choose Preview under the RUN menu, verify what's about to happen, then press the "Rename" button if you want to perform the renaming.
Or, press the "OK" button to cancel without changing the files. (Why wasn't that made a "Cancel" button?? No idea.)
Notice how above, the movie filenames have changed, with the original prefix intact, the '_' added, and they are all in their 'original' sequence.
When you're actually doing all of this, of course, it only takes a few seconds.
Reading about it takes a long time. (and writing about it, even longer....)
There are many features available in this program. Here are just a few examples.
This is actually more of an extension of "Find And Replace", which is like the feature you might find in a word processor.
Regular expressions are ways of indicating patterns in writing. Under Unix this has been standardized to certain special character sequences.
One common one is the * character, to mean anything else in
the rest of the phrase. This is used in Windows as well, as in
movie*.avi, to mean all files starting with 'movie',
having the extension .avi, and then the * means any other character
sequence in between. There are many such patterns for regular
expressions. It's a really powerful feature.
For many, the "Find And Replace" feature will be more than enough (in fact, just the tabs on the right side of the program are enough most of the time). But it's good to know that the author had a desire to provide feature-overkill, just in case.
Under the Preview window, there is a feature for "Find Long File Names" in the form of a button.
Some CD-R burning programs allow for only 64 character per filename. Some allow for just over 100. But all thus far have a limit that is less than what Windows permits, so a filename conflict may arise.
You may find this useful when burning CD's, because some audio CD's in particular produce enormous filenames. This feature instantly checks the selected files' names, and indicates which if any are too long.
Incidentally, there are probably other uses for finding long file names. I just don't know of any at the time.
As mentioned in the introduction, the tag information of MP3 files can be modified within The Rename.
Not to mention that entire albums' filenames can be renamed very easily with it as well.
The Picture feature is presently limited to inserting the size of the image into the filename, such as "480x320" for an image 480 across and 320 down.
Might prove useful for organizing preview images. But just maybe.
Experiment and find out what else is possible. You might find some new way of simplifying a repetitive renaming action.