presets in context menus & masks in presets

fjord · 2006-08-25 13:44

ReNamer's presence in the Windows Explorer context menu (right click on directory and select "Add to ReNamer") is one of the great features of the program. How about if you added ReNamer presets to the Windows Explorer context menu, so I could directly run a preset on a directory with one click? That would be awesome! One-click renaming!

There could be a checkbox for each preset in the Preset Manager dialog to include a preset in the context menu. The context menu could then have a "Run ReNamer preset..." entry with a submenu of the enabled preset names.

I suppose it would be safest if the ReNamer window opened after the completed preset operation, just in case the user needed to undo it.

The one thing ReNamer doesn't seem to do automatically is to filter the files, such as only running on .jpg files etc. I see that your context menu for the file list includes "Selecting..." and "Marking..." submenus which allow the files to be filtered by extension name, mask, etc. But this filtering is not saved with a preset, as far as I can see. I suggest to add a "filter" feature which could be saved with a preset, to automatically select appropriate files for renaming. (Correct me if I've missed something ReNamer can already do!)

One way to do this would be to add a filter section above the rules section. In it's simplest form this could just be a textbox for a mask, which would be *.* by default. Maybe with a checkbox to enable/disable the mask.

A more sophisticated approach could be be to add a "Filter" or "Select" rule, which would only let files continue processing if they matched the filter requirements (mask, extension, date range, etc.). It would sort of be an If..then statement in the rule list. Since a filter rule could appear anywhere in the list of rules, it could provide an easy way to omit some of the rules for certain kinds of files.

If some kind of file filtering could be included in the preset, then the one-click ReNamer presets in the context menu could really be powerful and practical.

dloneranger · 2006-08-25 16:15

fjord wrote:

ReNamer's presence in the Windows Explorer context menu (right click on directory and select "Add to ReNamer") is one of the great features of the program. How about if you added ReNamer presets to the Windows Explorer
context menu, so I could directly run a preset on a directory with one click? That would be awesome! One-click renaming!
<snip>
Add a filter section above the rules section. In it's simplest form this could just be a textbox for a mask, which would be *.* by default. Maybe with a checkbox to enable/disable the mask.

Nice ideas
I especially like the filter idea - very handy if you drag a folder that contains multiple file types

I can see one slight area of confusion with the presets on the context menu though

Say you right-click a folder and add to renamer using preset 1, then right-click on another folder and add using preset 2
Only one set of rules can be used, so Denis would have to pick either the first or the second
Another option would be to only have the preset context items enabled if the program isn't running or if the rules list is blank

Glad I wouldn't have to do it, I looked at doing a similar shell extension once and then ran screaming from the building
There's 2 kind of context extensions I know of
1) the simplest is just a registry entry that sends the files to the program
2) the hardest one is for interactive menu entries and that's pretty much entails writing a program in it's own right
I guess you could use a couple of named mutexes to signal if a preset has been loaded so that the shell extension could enable/disable the 'Use preset' submenu ?

Just thinking aloud

fjord · 2006-08-25 17:07

The context-preset idea would be to IMMEDIATELY RUN the preset on all the files in the selected directory directly from the context menu, not to add the files to ReNamer with the selected preset. Hence the need for including a filter/mask in the preset to automatically select files if necessary.

I visualize the sequence of operations when context-preset is clicked on to be (without regard to programming details ):
1. open ReNamer if not already running
2. clear file list
3. add files from new directory
4. load the preset
5. run rename
6. display changed names in file list
7. stop

An alternative possibility would be to just leave the existing rules and files alone, with the context-preset running "in the background" without changing anything in the ReNamer window. Maybe that could be an option. Maybe just open a new instance of ReNamer to do the context-preset operation.

An "quiet" option could be to leave ReNamer minimized.
Another option could be to exit when done, if ReNamer was not already running.

A question that comes to mind is, is it possible to specify "include subfolders" when adding files via the "Add to ReNamer" context menu item?

I'm also just brainstorming.

dloneranger · 2006-08-25 17:15

You may be just brainstorming, but you give very good descripions of what you'd like
Kudos to you

[edit]
You also picked the easiest way to program it - and you gotta love the easy way

Last edited by dloneranger (2006-08-25 17:17)

dloneranger · 2006-08-25 17:24

fjord wrote:

A question that comes to mind is, is it possible to specify "include subfolders" when adding files via the "Add to ReNamer" context menu item?

There's two ways to do that
1)make it a program option
2)make it a rules option

For flexability i'd personally do a combination of both
Have a program option that could be overridden by a rule

<Ha> Listen to us, you'd think we were writing the program ourselves

dloneranger · 2006-08-28 00:18

fjord wrote:

The context-preset idea would be to IMMEDIATELY RUN the preset on all the files in the selected directory directly from the context menu,

Not sure about the immediate part

That would be way easy to accidentaly click on ?
You could really screw up a whole load of files if it was that easy - I know that for one I'm so tired of the 'create a new shortcut' wizardard appering when I'm tired, but I'd rather that it popped up and I could cancel it than something sillly happened
The thought of accidentally renaming a load of files when all I wanted to do was copy a file name is kind of scary

fjord · 2006-08-28 11:28

dloneranger wrote:
The thought of accidentally renaming a load of files when all I wanted to do was copy a file name is kind of scary

Yes, that thought occured to me, too. Either it should require a "confirm" before renaming, or provide an immediate "undo" if it was a mistake.

For the confirm option, I can imagine 2 approaches:

1. clicking on the context-preset could open ReNamer, load the files and preset, and show the Preview. The user would then have to hit Rename (F6) to complete the operation. This is pretty safe, but it doesn't save many clicks over the present "Add to ReNamer" context item. You also have to switch back to Explorer to continue working, and maybe also clear or close ReNamer.

2. when the user clicks a context-preset, a pop-up message box opens asking the user to confirm the operation, similar to the standard "confirm file deletion" pop-up. It could have a title bar like "ReNamer - xyz preset" and say something like "Are you sure you want ReNamer to rename 163 files using preset xyz?", and have 2 buttons: "Yes" and "Cancel", where Yes is the default, and ESC also cancels, as usual. Then the user could click Yes or press "Y" or enter key to execute, or click Cancel or press ESC to quit. [a third choice could be "Open ReNamer", which would be like #1 above]. I like this approach because it only adds 1 click, I would remain in Windows Explorer and I would just see the filenames change without having to go into ReNamer.

For the undo option:

3. like #1 above, but the rename operation would be executed. The user would be left in ReNamer, and could undo the operation if it was a mistake. This doesn't seem too elegant, as I think about it.

I like #2. The whole idea is to enable a quick short-cut to frequently-used (and presumably well-tested) renaming operations. And the user would have to be experienced enough to create a preset AND go into Preset Manager and enable the context-preset checkbox on the preset before a context-preset would appear in the context menu.

In any case, the approach to use could also be an option in ReNamer. The option could be "silent context-presets" as in #2, or "open ReNamer on context-preset" as in #1.

ps. I check "Subscribe to this topic", but I don't get any emails. Does the subscribe function work?

dloneranger · 2006-08-28 20:21

I think I'd go for option 2 as well
A possiblility would be to show a dialog that also displayed the rules about to be applied - for double checking against misclicks

Nice explaination by the way - if your Danish then you have an outstounding grasp of English!
Your remarks are so detailed that they make me think you must be a programmer

ps I've subscribed to this topic and I'll let you know if I get an email the next time there's a reply - if you could just post a 'test' message that would speed it up a bit

fjord · 2006-08-28 21:12

testing, 1, 2, 3...

Thanks for the compliment. I lived in New Jersey, New York state, and Wisconsin for a few years (my first 35 to be exact) before moving to Denmark. I gave up programming some time ago...but I'm still pretty good at discovering other people's bugs.

dloneranger · 2006-08-28 21:23

Yust so you know, I did get an email reply from the forum

den4b Forum

#1 2006-08-25 13:44

presets in context menus & masks in presets

#2 2006-08-25 16:15

Re: presets in context menus & masks in presets

#3 2006-08-25 17:07

Re: presets in context menus & masks in presets

#4 2006-08-25 17:15

Re: presets in context menus & masks in presets

#5 2006-08-25 17:24

Re: presets in context menus & masks in presets

#6 2006-08-28 00:18

Re: presets in context menus & masks in presets

#7 2006-08-28 11:28

Re: presets in context menus & masks in presets

#8 2006-08-28 20:21

Re: presets in context menus & masks in presets

#9 2006-08-28 21:12

Re: presets in context menus & masks in presets

#10 2006-08-28 21:23

Re: presets in context menus & masks in presets

Board footer