Automator has a Rename Items thingie that's fairly good.
Apparently it's not so great for bulk renaming. Or at least, that's what his experience has been so far.
Oh, God. Oh, God. My hair. My hair! The government gave me bad hair!
Cordelia ,'The Cautionary Tale of Numero Cinco'
Buffistechnology 3: "Press Some Buttons, See What Happens."
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Atropa - Oct 27, 2009 10:25:37 am PDT #11523 of 25501
The artist formerly associated with cupcakes.
Tom Scola - Oct 27, 2009 10:27:36 am PDT #11524 of 25501
Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.
It's one of the weaknesses in Mac OS X. There are 3rd party programs available to do batch renames, notably Name Mangler and A Better Finder Rename.
If it's a one-off thing, let me know what you want done, and I can write a script for you pretty quickly.
Pete, Husband of Jilli - Oct 27, 2009 11:07:16 am PDT #11525 of 25501
"I've got a gun! I've got a mother-flippin' gun!" - Moss, The IT Crowd
Tom, what I need is to select all the items in a folder and add the name of the folder to the file names as a prefix.
If that's doable, great! If not, I'll try out one of the programs. Gotta say, Name Mangler is not an enticing name.
le nubian - Oct 27, 2009 11:13:14 am PDT #11526 of 25501
"And to be clear, I am the hell. And the high water."
try Hazel. I think you'll like it.
Pete, Husband of Jilli - Oct 27, 2009 11:20:12 am PDT #11527 of 25501
"I've got a gun! I've got a mother-flippin' gun!" - Moss, The IT Crowd
Thanks. I've got a couple of hours before I'm ready to name the files, but I may check it then.
As for Automator, I tried to do it but ridiculously it would only allow me to select one file to change at a time so it was actually slower than manual renaming. I probably was using it wrong, but it certainly didn't give me any clues on how to use it right.
Tom Scola - Oct 27, 2009 11:21:07 am PDT #11528 of 25501
Remember that the frontier of the Rebellion is everywhere. And even the smallest act of insurrection pushes our lines forward.
Pete, I'll be home around 7:30pm ET. Can I call you then?
Pete, Husband of Jilli - Oct 27, 2009 11:25:22 am PDT #11529 of 25501
"I've got a gun! I've got a mother-flippin' gun!" - Moss, The IT Crowd
Tom, don't worry about it. By that time I will have to have sent the files, so I'll just grab one of the available programs.
Thank you for the offer though.
tommyrot - Oct 27, 2009 11:35:03 am PDT #11530 of 25501
Sir, it's not an offence to let your cat eat your bacon. Okay? And we don't arrest cats, I'm very sorry.
Gotta say, Name Mangler is not an enticing name.
I wonder if that's riffing off "File Mangler," which is what some Mac people called the "File Manager" of Windows 3.1....
Pete, Husband of Jilli - Oct 27, 2009 11:45:30 am PDT #11531 of 25501
"I've got a gun! I've got a mother-flippin' gun!" - Moss, The IT Crowd
Would you beieve it, I found a thread on the Apple forums that explained what to do in Automator.
Tried it, ran it, and it works. Thank grud, it's nice to be spared any more fussing on this tight deadline.
Thanks everyone.
§ ita § - Oct 29, 2009 6:49:01 am PDT #11532 of 25501
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.
I have a Philips DVP region-free DVD player that's decided it doesn't want to open anymore. It's sitting on my Netflix copy of American History X, perhaps sensing my reluctance to finish viewing it. I had thought that my next DVD player purchase should be Blu Ray, but I have a considerable portion of my collection in other region codes. Are there good Blu Ray/region-free players out there? Or should I consider the two functions separately? I think I've run out of digital inputs on my TV.