Solved Any tips on how to rename 40 or 50 pictures simultaneously?

pparks1 · Oct 11, 2023

antspants said:
Everyone has their own methods, everyone likes to share them with others. I don’t think criticising someones method is the point. I think the point is @Firas finds the method he likes best. We all gave suggestions, he’s all fixed

Thank you. Yeah, i figure why not demonstrate another way to get it done.

barreleye said:
Nothing about the OP's question screamed "PowerShell!"

The question was very vague, they asked for tips on how to rename 40/50 files simultaneously. While it didn't scream powershell, I guess one could argue that it didn't scream i want a third party GUI tool that I can install and then click around in various dialog boxes and buttons to accomplish the task either.

barreleye said:
he confirmed he shouldn't be using it in his reply to the suggestion, which only prompted two more responses to show him how! It was only after seeing the third such message that I said something.

He didn't confirm he shouldn't use commands, he asked for details on what he should cut and paste as he wasn't very good with commands. The only way you get better with something is to practice and use it. I didn't feel he was saying in no circumstances was the command line out of the question based on his lack of skill/confidence.

When I provided a little more detail and a screenshot he said "Thanks". He didn't say there was no way he was going to go that route. Therefore, for anybody who might be interested in what the end result would have looked like, I made another post and I tagged the OP in it to make sure that he saw that I provided a little more clarity.

barreleye said:
Even if you take my constructive criticism as something else, I defy anyone to say that my showing that you need to always include -LiteralPath in these "simple one-liners" was anything other than a very good thing. It eliminates the chance that some files are bizarrely missed by the operation, and if you bother to read a command that includes it instead of mindlessly copy/pasting, you might wonder what a "non-literal path" is, and that might lead you to learn a little more about PowerShell.

End of the day, he was renaming 40/50 files. And these were just background image files....it's not something super sensitive like his entire financial history for the past decade. Even if he had a few files that contained block characters, the script would have completed all of the rest of them. Maybe he would have to go in and correct 2 or 3 files that it didn't get perfectly. Maybe he would have fixed them manually, maybe he would have researched more about powershell and why files with the [ ] characters in the name weren't renamed. Who knows????

Seems simple enough to me. User wanted suggestions on how to do it. I provided one. I like my solution because I don't need to download another piece of software and install on my machine. But that's me. I didn't go on a diatribe about how awful these other software based solutions were, I didn't say they were garbage, I didn't say it was dumb to use them, I didn't say anything bad about them or those who suggested them whatsoever.

johnlgalt · Oct 11, 2023

What is it with people getting all antsy about someone else's suggestions?

Seriously - this ish has to stop. Just because it is not what you want to see, use, or suggest does not mean it has no place here..

Arguing about it, though, does qualify for the has no place here.

antspants · Oct 11, 2023

johnlgalt said:
What is it with people getting all antsy about someone else's suggestions?

Seriously - this ish has to stop. Just because it is not what you want to see, use, or suggest does not mean it has no place here..

Arguing about it, though, does qualify for the has no place here.

When you have a member interacting with the sole purpose of antagonising others because of their opinion, or even just because they have an opinion, things are bound to go south.

Solidjeuh · Oct 11, 2023

Advanced Renamer - Batch renaming utility for files and folders

Batch rename files and folders in a snap. Perfect for any kind of file renaming including music and photo files. Preview your files before renaming and undo erroneous renaming jobs.

www.advancedrenamer.com

antspants · Oct 11, 2023

Solidjeuh said:
Advanced Renamer - Batch renaming utility for files and folders

Batch rename files and folders in a snap. Perfect for any kind of file renaming including music and photo files. Preview your files before renaming and undo erroneous renaming jobs.

www.advancedrenamer.com

Also a good program

barreleye · Oct 11, 2023

pparks1 said:
The question was very vague, they asked for tips on how to rename 40/50 files simultaneously. While it didn't scream powershell, I guess one could argue that it didn't scream i want a third party GUI tool that I can install and then click around in various dialog boxes and buttons to accomplish the task either.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that someone who wanted to do this programmatically would have said so and probably would have chosen a different forum in which to ask the question.

He didn't confirm he shouldn't use commands, he asked for details on what he should cut and paste as he wasn't very good with commands. The only way you get better with something is to practice and use it. I didn't feel he was saying in no circumstances was the command line out of the question based on his lack of skill/confidence.

The fact he couldn't even ID the code in your post is kind of a major red flag.

When I provided a little more detail and a screenshot he said "Thanks"

The guy said "Thanks" to everyone who recommended something, including me.

Seems simple enough to me. User wanted suggestions on how to do it. I provided one. I like my solution because I don't need to download another piece of software and install on my machine. But that's me. I didn't go on a diatribe about how awful these other software based solutions were, I didn't say they were garbage, I didn't say it was dumb to use them, I didn't say anything bad about them or those who suggested them whatsoever.

That's a rather unfair thing to say. You clearly mean to imply I did those things, when I certainly did not, and I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings, either. If you had pointed out subtle traps and pitfalls with something I recommended, I would have been grateful to learn of those things, and especially grateful to learn of alternatives that avoid them. However, I think your only concerns have been about "3rd partyness" and "GUIness"; the first thing I haven't commented on because I can't see how it's a legit issue, and the latter, I identified as an advantage because it's easy to figure out and expand one's usage of compared to getting into the PowerShell weeds.

Archigos · Oct 11, 2023

I know it's a little late on this topic and I hope the original poster solved their issue, but I'd like to throw in one more alternative. I use Total Commander (it's a 2 pane File Explorer alternative) and you can use it free (although there's a paid option to stop the nag screen).

I know the poster wasn't asking about these kind of alternatives, but the point here is you highlight your files in the directory and press Ctrl+M and it gives you dialog for multi-rename. You can just type in a name you want with a counter for example and get everything you asked for, but it also allows for RegEx replacement and other fine tuning to get exactly what you want.

antspants · Oct 11, 2023

Archigos said:
I know it's a little late on this topic and I hope the original poster solved their issue, but I'd like to throw in one more alternative.

It may help someone in the future when they search this issue.

pparks1 · Oct 11, 2023

barreleye said:
I think it's pretty safe to assume that someone who wanted to do this programmatically would have said so and probably would have chosen a different forum in which to ask the question.

For pete's sake man, he didn't say he wanted to do it programmatically, he didn't say he wanted to do it with third party software, and he didn't say he wanted to pay somebody to do it. He just asked if anybody had suggestions for renaming 40/50 files.

People ask about all things Windows related here on this forum, and Powershell is a core component of Windows. Seems 1000% legit that somebody here might use Powershell. It's not like I taught him how to do this using Ruby on Rails on a Linux box.

barreleye said:
The guy said "Thanks" to everyone who recommended something, including me.

True, but he also quoted my post directly and said thanks. (as shown below).

barreleye said:
That's a rather unfair thing to say. You clearly mean to imply I did those things, when I certainly did not, and I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings, either.

I was not clearly implying that you did those things, I wasn't even remotely suggesting you did those things.

I was a little taken aback by how you criticized everything in my method when I just said that was how I would do it and I never mentioned anything negative about any other post. I wasn't sure why you seemed so triggered by my post. I was perplexed as to why you reacted the way you did......I certainly wasn't trying to call you out for bad behavior.

barreleye said:
However, I think your only concerns have been about "3rd partyness" and "GUIness"; the first thing I haven't commented on because I can't see how it's a legit issue, and the latter, I identified as an advantage because it's easy to figure out and expand one's usage of compared to getting into the PowerShell weeds.

It's not that 3rd party software is an issue per se.....but for ME personally, I would rather not install something that I didn't absolutely need on my machine. It's just the way I roll. Powershell is already there and for a simple file rename...not terribly hard to figure out with about 5 minutes of Googling.

This way I don't have to worry about any spyware/malware integrated, the potential for it to come with added things I don't want, I don't have to worry about any security vulnerabilities, I don't have to worry about whether it's a free trial, or free forever, or can only be used in a personal setting versus in an corporate environment, I don't have to worry about uninstalling it and it leaving traces behind on my machine, or crap in my registry.....therefore maybe persuading me to have to use something like Revo Uninstaller to clean up after any potential mess it left behind and the list can go on and on.

As far as the GUI goes, it's not an issue either. But rather than opening a tool and clicking around in a bunch of places, I'm comfortable just opening a terminal window, which opens powershell by default and dropping my command there. For me, it's quick. For the background image files on MY computer, I have no special characters and thus don't require any extra flags in that Powershell. Others mileage may vary.

I'm very comfortable at a command prompt. I manage Linux servers, and configure networking gear....all of which doesn't have any type of GUI. I do nearly everything at the command line. Again, that's just me, and I took the liberty to share what I know and a method that I might use myself.

Or I might have done this. I might have opened WSL launching my Ubuntu instance, and run the following 1 liner, accomplishing the same thing.

My feelings aren't hurt. And sorry to those who had to wade through my retorts. I think I'm pretty much done on this topic.

barreleye · Oct 12, 2023

pparks1 said:
For pete's sake man, he didn't say he wanted to do it programmatically, he didn't say he wanted to do it with third party software, and he didn't say he wanted to pay somebody to do it. He just asked if anybody had suggestions for renaming 40/50 files.

People ask about all things Windows related here on this forum, and Powershell is a core component of Windows. Seems 1000% legit that somebody here might use Powershell. It's not like I taught him how to do this using Ruby on Rails on a Linux box.

Again, suitability. What about next time? Is he supposed to save the snippet of code and try to adapt it to his future needs without developing a good understanding of PowerShell? Programs like I and others mentioned have various high concept rules such as Insert, Replace, Serialize, Case, etc, which don't require one to understand a programming language to use, which by default incorporate domain-specific restrictions such as not applying to filename extensions, and which can be applied as a series of separate rules to simplify complex operations. Myself, I've been using regexps since the 80s, and there was no learning curve for me to use ReNamer's regexp rules. I'm sure you can do the same things in PowerShell, but there's such tremendous, effortless value here for a pretty common task with essentially limitless variations.

True, but he also quoted my post directly and said thanks. (as shown below).

He did the same for me and everyone else. It's nice, but I don't see the relevance.

I was not clearly implying that you did those things, I wasn't even remotely suggesting you did those things.

Then I have literally no idea why you said those things, but OK.

I was a little taken aback by how you criticized everything in my method when I just said that was how I would do it and I never mentioned anything negative about any other post. I wasn't sure why you seemed so triggered by my post. I was perplexed as to why you reacted the way you did......I certainly wasn't trying to call you out for bad behavior.

Everything I said had to do with ease of use, both now and in the future (learning curve for adapting to new problems), avoiding errors (e.g. instant visual preview), and correctness (not potentially skipping files due to failing to account for special characters in filenames), stuff that just comes naturally for free with programs like ReNamer. Some people here clearly regarded this as a personal attack, and that's unfortunate.

It's not that 3rd party software is an issue per se.....but for ME personally, I would rather not install something that I didn't absolutely need on my machine. It's just the way I roll. Powershell is already there and for a simple file rename...not terribly hard to figure out with about 5 minutes of Googling.

This way I don't have to worry about any spyware/malware integrated, the potential for it to come with added things I don't want, I don't have to worry about any security vulnerabilities, I don't have to worry about whether it's a free trial, or free forever, or can only be used in a personal setting versus in an corporate environment, I don't have to worry about uninstalling it and it leaving traces behind on my machine, or crap in my registry.....therefore maybe persuading me to have to use something like Revo Uninstaller to clean up after any potential mess it left behind and the list can go on and on.

I wouldn't have recommended an encumbered or otherwise problematic program, and ReNamer has a portable edition, which goes in the bin folder at the root of all my C: drives. It's also free for typical use as I believe I noted earlier, with some very generous restrictions that have never hindered me in any way, i.e. a limit of 5 rules in a preset, IIRC.

As far as the GUI goes, it's not an issue either. But rather than opening a tool and clicking around in a bunch of places, I'm comfortable just opening a terminal window, which opens powershell by default and dropping my command there. For me, it's quick. For the background image files on MY computer, I have no special characters and thus don't require any extra flags in that Powershell. Others mileage may vary.

I'm very comfortable at a command prompt. I manage Linux servers, and configure networking gear....all of which doesn't have any type of GUI. I do nearly everything at the command line. Again, that's just me, and I took the liberty to share what I know and a method that I might use myself.

Again, suitability. I started using shells, scripting languages, and various programming languages professionally back in the 80s. Even so, my first choice is to use high-level, task-specific programs that account for the various issues I'd have to account for in code, like the ones I've talked about here. I would have considered PowerShell if the problem had been something like, "I have a list of fully qualified filenames in a text file, and those paths are preceded by a tab character for whatever reason, and I need to delete them," which is actually something I've used PowerShell for. I'm glad to have thought of this right now, because I've thought of a new way to do it this infrequent thing using software I already have. I'd delete the tabs in Notepad++, either through search/replace or a column tab selection, and then I'd use a feature of XYplorer (a very nice alternative File Explorer program) called "paper folders", which allow one to load a text file containing fully qualified paths as a folder, letting you do everything you can to items in a normal folder in the file system. This would work nicely with minimal thought and risk of mistakes in naive hands, but I'd still recommend PowerShell over it, because it requires multiple pieces of software, one of them (XYplorer) paid, and I don't know offhand what the restrictions are for its free/trial version. Suitability.

My feelings aren't hurt. And sorry to those who had to wade through my retorts. I think I'm pretty much done on this topic.

I too would be more than happy to call it a day.

antspants · Oct 12, 2023

barreleye said:
Again…

johnlgalt · Oct 12, 2023

barreleye said:
Again, suitability. What about next time? Is he supposed to save the snippet of code and try to adapt it to his future needs without developing a good understanding of PowerShell? Programs like I and others mentioned have various high concept rules such as Insert, Replace, Serialize, Case, etc, which don't require one to understand a programming language to use, which by default incorporate domain-specific restrictions such as not applying to filename extensions, and which can be applied as a series of separate rules to simplify complex operations. Myself, I've been using regexps since the 80s, and there was no learning curve for me to use ReNamer's regexp rules. I'm sure you can do the same things in PowerShell, but there's such tremendous, effortless value here for a pretty common task with essentially limitless variations.

He did the same for me and everyone else. It's nice, but I don't see the relevance.

Then I have literally no idea why you said those things, but OK.

Everything I said had to do with ease of use, both now and in the future (learning curve for adapting to new problems), avoiding errors (e.g. instant visual preview), and correctness (not potentially skipping files due to failing to account for special characters in filenames), stuff that just comes naturally for free with programs like ReNamer. Some people here clearly regarded this as a personal attack, and that's unfortunate.

I wouldn't have recommended an encumbered or otherwise problematic program, and ReNamer has a portable edition, which goes in the bin folder at the root of all my C: drives. It's also free for typical use as I believe I noted earlier, with some very generous restrictions that have never hindered me in any way, i.e. a limit of 5 rules in a preset, IIRC.

Again, suitability. I started using shells, scripting languages, and various programming languages professionally back in the 80s. Even so, my first choice is to use high-level, task-specific programs that account for the various issues I'd have to account for in code, like the ones I've talked about here. I would have considered PowerShell if the problem had been something like, "I have a list of fully qualified filenames in a text file, and those paths are preceded by a tab character for whatever reason, and I need to delete them," which is actually something I've used PowerShell for. I'm glad to have thought of this right now, because I've thought of a new way to do it this infrequent thing using software I already have. I'd delete the tabs in Notepad++, either through search/replace or a column tab selection, and then I'd use a feature of XYplorer (a very nice alternative File Explorer program) called "paper folders", which allow one to load a text file containing fully qualified paths as a folder, letting you do everything you can to items in a normal folder in the file system. This would work nicely with minimal thought and risk of mistakes in naive hands, but I'd still recommend PowerShell over it, because it requires multiple pieces of software, one of them (XYplorer) paid, and I don't know offhand what the restrictions are for its free/trial version. Suitability.

I too would be more than happy to call it a day.

What about you let the OP decide to speak for himself instead of you making all these suppositions and delivering nonsense chatter?

If pparks has suggested something that does not work, great, It would be worth agonizing over. He didn't.

barreleye · Oct 12, 2023

johnlgalt said:
What about you let the OP decide to speak for himself instead of you making all these suppositions and delivering nonsense chatter?

If pparks has suggested something that does not work, great, It would be worth agonizing over. He didn't.

What about you stay out of discussions that don't involve you, which you are too emotional to judge and lack the competence to evaluate what's been said. Answer: You want to pick fights and mindlessly argue. It's so tedious.

johnlgalt · Oct 12, 2023

barreleye said:
What about you stay out of discussions that don't involve you, which you are too emotional to judge and lack the competence to evaluate what's been said. Answer: You want to pick fights and mindlessly argue. It's so tedious.

You obviously have lost a grasp on reality. My post was neither emotional, and my competence is perfectly fine, as evidenced with my posts, my knowledge level and other easily viewable aspects of my profile here, not to mention at many of DMG's other forums. Also, you're posting publicly, so expect anyone to join in any time they want. You want me to stay out of it? Take it private.

And speaking of the pot calling the kettle black, you're the one that has been picking fights at these forums, more than once in different threads.

And welcome to the ignore list. You join one other person there who is there for the exact same reason - picking fights for absolutely no reason.

barreleye · Oct 12, 2023

johnlgalt said:
You obviously have lost a grasp on reality. My post was neither emotional, and my competence is perfectly fine, as evidenced with my posts, my knowledge level and other easily viewable aspects of my profile here, not to mention at many of DMG's other forums. Also, you're posting publicly, so expect anyone to join in any time they want. You want me to stay out of it? Take it private.

And speaking of the pot calling the kettle black, you're the one that has been picking fights at these forums, more than once in different threads.

And welcome to the ignore list. You join one other person there who is there for the exact same reason - picking fights for absolutely no reason.

Blocked.