To get started, choose a current folder and a name filter. Insert pre-defined commands or regular expressions (regex's) into the custom list. Manually edit the list if required. Press the scan button to produce a preview window. The preview shows how the names will be changed. Edit and remove entries if required and then carry out the renaming.
There is a context-based Help for every feature. Click on the '?' button, and move the resulting '?' image to an area for which you want information. Then click the left mouse button.
You can insert pre-defined renaming commands in the custom renaming list by either 1) right-clicking the mouse over the custom renaming panel and selecting the 'insert pre-defined command' entry or 2) Choose a Command from the Pre-Defined Renaming Panel and then press the "Insert Command" button.
You can insert pre-defined regex sequences in the custom renaming list by right-clicking the mouse over the custom renaming panel and selecting the 'insert pre-defined sequences' entry. Use the sequences as templates. e.g. Use the 'remove 1st 4 characters sequence as a template for a new 'remove 1st 10 characters sequence.
Many useful commands can be accessed in the custom renaming panel by right-clicking the mouse while the cursor is over the panel.
Many useful commands can be accessed in the Detailed Information window preview list by right-clicking the mouse while the cursor is over the list.
There is a tooltip for every feature. Place the cursor over a button or other control object (e.g. pull-down list) for a few seconds and the tip will appear. Tooltips can be disabled if desired.
The thumbnail on the preview window can be resized by moving the sash located in the blank area between the thumbnail label and the preview list.
By default, the preview window does not show the files that will not have their names changed. This behaviour can be modified by selecting the 'Show Unchanged Files' configuration in the 'General Display Options'. After selecting this option, any new scans will show unchanged names in the preview window.
New names of the preview list can be manually edited by double clicking on the new name or by selecting the row and then pressing F8.
There is a shortcut key for commands in window menu bars and for many buttons. The shortcuts for menu selections appear when selecting the pull-down menu. If a shortcut exists for a button, the key sequence will be indicated in the tooltip for that button. A list of all shortcut commands can be found in the built-in Help pages.
You can move rows around by dragging them in the custom renaming list or the preview list.
There is a Column Display option to configure which columns are shown in the preview list. Fewer columns shown usually means a faster display. Some columns like the hash, image, or mp3 tag columns could slow down the display if the listed files are large since the entire file might have to be scanned for the meta-data.
Any Column of the preview list can be sorted by clicking the column header. Numeric-based or Alphabetic-based sorting can be configured.
You can temporarily hide columns of the preview list by right-clicking the mouse while the cursor is positioned over a column header of the preview list and then selecting from several hide options. The columns will reappear on the next new scan.
Regular expressions in the custom renaming support the use of standard flags like (?i) to ignore case and PFrank specific extensions like (?E) to ignore extensions or (?2) to replace the first 2 instances of a match. See the 'Regex Flags' sub-section of the 'Regular Expression' page of the built-in Help.
You can drag file/folder names from Explorer into the Detailed Information Window's Preview List.
You can drag file/folder names from Explorer into the Main Window's 'Current Folder' text field.
You can drag file/folder names from Explorer into the Main Window's Custom Renaming 'Sample Name' text field.
Double clicking the left button of the mouse while the cursor is positioned on a row of the preview list will open the 'old name' file specified in that row.
You can use the keyboard to navigate around a window. Use TAB to move ahead. Use Shift-TAB to move back. Other navigation keys are explained in the built-in Help pages.
The Music Scan ignores the name filter and instead uses a built-in filter so that only music files with the appropriate extensions are scanned.
Name filters can be configured to use unix wildcards or regular expressions. There is a difference. Choose the mode you are most comfortable with. eg. the unix wildcard '*' will match all file/folder names; the regular expression '.*' will match all file/folder names.
Name filters in regular expression mode can be used to exclude patterns. e.g. .*[.](?!bat$|exe$).*$ will match all file/folder names with a dot extension except for .bat or .exe. More information is in the built-in Help pages.
Using the name filter wisely could speed up your scan time by only letting files you care about into the scanner. e.g. if you only want to scan jpeg files, set your filter to *.jpg (assuming that you are using the Unix Wildcard matching method).
You can make a regular expression search ignore case be preceeding the search expression with: (?i). e.g. using '(?i).*[.]mp3' as a 'search pattern' will match all files ending in .mp3, .MP3, .Mp3, or .mP3.
You can create a folder path from the current folder to a new name by preceeding a search expression with: (?B). Then specify folders to the new name by using the forward slash character in the replace expression. This can be used to create a path like' 2006/01/30/name' from the name '20060130oldname'
You can use regular expression back referencing in the Custom Renaming to move around different parts of a string. e.g. to swap 2 parts of a string set the 'search pattern' to: (group1regex) - (group2regex); set the 'replace pattern' to: \2 - \1
There are many examples of regular expression usage in the built-in Help pages.
There is a general option to enable/disable the scanning of the content of subfolders.
There is a general option to enable/disable the renaming of subfolders
There is a general option to enable/disable the auto resolution of duplicate names which would be caused by renaming.
There are different display formats for the detailed information window. Vertical compare is especially useful when name changes are not obvious in the horizontally oriented displays.
There is a general option to choose whether to use "unix wildcard" format or "python style" regular expressions for the name filter.
There is an option for customizing the 'Custom Renaming Set x) titles displayed above the Load and Save buttons of the custom renaming panel.
There are options available for configuring the startup (i.e. default) values of the name filter list or the folder list.
Right clicking the mouse while over the detailed information window will bring up a 'Find' dialog.
There are music options available to enable/disable different types of string replacements.
There is a general option available to select which words you want to always have a specified case.
There is a general option available to select which words in the middle of a name that you always want to have in lower case.
The built-in Help is quite extensive and has a 'search' feature which should enable you to find any information you need. e.g. search for "command line' to find information on the comand line feature. If you can't find the information you need, then just email the PFrank developer.
