Multiple instances, wildcards, and other suggestions.

Would you like Bulk Rename Utility to offer new functionality? Post your comments here!

Multiple instances, wildcards, and other suggestions.

Postby Renamox » Fri Nov 19, 2021 10:45 pm

Hi, I've been a loyal and grateful BRU user for almost a decade. It's easily one of my top 3 favorite and most used utilities, right along with Everything. I do have a couple of suggestions that I would find insanely useful. I hope you'll consider at lease some of these and thank you very much for your undying dedication and generosity.

1) The most common issue I usually encounter is the inability to quickly switch between tasks. I know it may sounds like bad multitasking, but it's not it at all. When I pasively work on something like organizing my music or book library, I usually have BRU running the entire day, and throughout that day, I occasionally need to use it for something more urgent. So I often need to do one thing, then do another (often on an entirely unrelated set of files), then re-do the first one, and so on. Because of that, I'm forced to re-enter the parameters over and over again. The only other way I know is saving a preset as .bru and opening it Recent, but it's kind of clumsy and only works for recent files.

• Allowing multiple instance of the program to run simultaneously would largely solve this issue and could be fantastic for some cases, since you could keep the preset and file selection in one instance and just do whatever quick task you needed to do in another.

• It would also help if the program had an ability to save and load presets in a more convenient manner. For example, an extra "Presets" or menu on the top (File, Actions, etc) toolbar, to have a 5-10 slots for saving preset options and quickly opening them via a keyboard shortcut like CTRL+SHIFT+(1..9).

• Another related note is that .bru files don't work when the program is open. If it's closed, clicking a .bru file opens the program with its saved preset, but when the program is already running, clicking a .bru file does nothing. Would be helpful if it activated its preset in the opened window.


2) As for other suggestions, these are less important and I actually forget most of the "minor annoyances" I've had over the years. I'll try to recall a few off the top of my head.

• Wildcards in Replace (3) would be a godsend. Something like:
Code: Select all
    * = match any number of characters.
    ? = match a single character.
    # = match a single numerical digit.

So if I wanted to find specific 4-digit year values like "2001 1080p", "2002 or "2016" and replace them to something like "(2001) 1080p", "(2002)" and "(2016)", with this system I'd simply use "Replace: 20?? with (20??) or "20## with (20##)". I admit, it may be ignorance on my part and not the program's shortcoming, but I'm used to using wildcards in other software and don't know a similarly quick way to do it in BRU. The help doesn't seem to have any info on wildcards and using * in Replace (3) has no effect.

• I wouldn't mind seeing a "Clear List" button in the the address bar, right next to "Up". A keyboard shortcut (CTRL-SHIFT-N, perhaps?) for clearing the file list would also be nice. The problem with File->New (CTRL-N) is that it resets everything, not just the file selection.

• I think I've had cases where the Replace (3) box could use "First Numeric" and "Last" (start searching from end) options. Hardly a priority.

• Another extremely minor thing: using boolean operators in Filters (12). This is not a missing feature, just a minor convenience option for people who don't know how to use it. When I first tried masking mkv and mp4 files, I tried "*.mkv | *.mp4", as I would usually do in other programs like Everything. When this and "*.mkv || *.mp4" didn't work, my first reaction was that you couldn't mask several extensions at once, which is, of course, completely false. I had to look up Help to come up with the right "*.mkv *.mp4" syntax. I would even mention it except for the fact that you could simply drop the "|" while parsing the mask with a 5-minute code tweak and make both input options viable.

I think I'll stop for now. This is mostly meant as a constructive criticism, to help move an already great program even closer to perfection. If you can use any of these, perfect. If not, I'll remain just as thankful to you nevertheless. Happy Holidays!
Renamox
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:47 pm

Re: Multiple instances, wildcards, and other suggestions.

Postby Admin » Sat Nov 20, 2021 1:26 am

Hello Renamox,

This is great feedback, thank you very much. 8)
We will review it all in detail for the next update.

Re the Replace suggestion, I think you can do that with RegEx (1) (use a mask, *, ?, etc) but for Replace (3) indeed more easy syntax could be supported.

Code: Select all
* = match any number of characters.
? = match a single character.
# = match a single numerical digit.


Is this syntax you are suggesting from a standard, # = match a single numerical digit ?

thanks
Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2343
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:39 pm

Re: Multiple instances, wildcards, and other suggestions.

Postby Renamox » Sat Nov 20, 2021 9:51 pm

Admin wrote:...Is this syntax you are suggesting from a standard, # = match a single numerical digit ?

That's what my text editor uses. If I need to search for an actual "#" there, I'd use a backslash like this: \#, \*, or \?. With filenames it's easier since you can't use * or ? in names. You can still use # though, so if you decide to implement this wildcard, it would probably make sense to also add a "Wildcards" toggle next to "Match Case" and "First". So people can search for the character with "#" with the toggle off but have to use "\#" when it's on (an example of this would be renaming #99 to #099: \### -> \#0##).

Microsoft Office uses this as well. Here's their documentation page:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/examples-of-wildcard-characters-939e153f-bd30-47e4-a763-61897c87b3f4
Renamox
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:47 pm

Re: Multiple instances, wildcards, and other suggestions.

Postby Admin » Mon Nov 22, 2021 8:57 am

Thank you :)
Admin
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2343
Joined: Tue Mar 08, 2005 8:39 pm

Re: Multiple instances, wildcards, and other suggestions.

Postby Renamox » Wed Dec 01, 2021 6:08 pm

Just remembered another thing that I'd find very useful: a dropdown history menu on the path/address bar with the -10 or so paths last entered manually. If you use Everything, its history dropdown has a good example of what I have in mind. You can even delete unwanted entries manually by hovering mouse over them and pressing DEL.

If you don't use it, I didn't find a good picture of the menu but here's one of the program's main UI. On the right side of the address bar, "X" clears the path's text entry and "V" opens the history dropdown.

Image

I hope I'm not too annoying with these suggestions. It's only meant as food for thought, just something to consider.
Renamox
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:47 pm

Re: Multiple instances, wildcards, and other suggestions.

Postby Renamox » Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:39 pm

Just encountered another recurrent bug/inconvenience I forgot to mention:

When you create a subfolder in the folder that's already open in the navigation pane, manually entering that new subfolder's path in the address bar doesn't work until you refresh the navigation pane. If it's sounds confusing, here's an easy example to recreate the issue:

1. Navigate to C:\ in the navigation pane.
2. Leave BRU open and create a new folder in C:\ through File Explorer. Let's call it XXX.
3. Switch back to BRU and enter C:\XXX in the address bar.

Instead of going to newly created C:\XXX, the program stays in C:\. The easiest solution here is probably to make a check whether the manually entered path exists and automatically refresh the navigation pane if it does.

Speaking of which, the navigation pane refresh process is also a bit too tedious. Maybe I missed something obvious, but the quickest way I manage to go around the problem described above is by collapsing the opened folder by clicking "-" next to it, then clicking on an unrelated folder, then expanding the original folder again ("+"). Doing so will refresh the directory and make the new folder(s) accessible and visible in the navigation pane. Not that big of a deal, but some kind of a Refresh button or right-click menu would probably be a good idea, along with the auto-refresh mentioned above.
Renamox
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:47 pm

Re: Multiple instances, wildcards, and other suggestions.

Postby Renamox » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:23 pm

Didn't realize that you can't edit posts here (unless it's my browser acting up). After rereading what I wrote, here are some additions to my last post:

The behavior I described applies to creating/renaming folders outside BRU. I just tried doing it inside and remembered some additional details. First, there's no rename submenu when you right-click a folder in the navigation bar (v3.4.3.0, Win10). Pressing F2 on the selected folder there doesn't work either. Second, if you rename a folder on the right (the file list pane), its new name will not show up in the navigation pane.

To demonstrate, let's continue with the above example C:\XXX\ and create a subfolder there: C:\XXX\aaa.

1. Navigate to C:\XXX through the left pane and expand it.
2. In the file list pane on the right, manually rename the "aaa" subfolder to "bbb".

The navigation pane will still be showing C:\XXX\aaa, even if you click F5 (refresh files). Entering C:\XXX\bbb in the address bar will do nothing. Clicking CTRL-F5 (refresh tree) will finally refresh the tree, but it'll also collapse the selected path. That's what I meant when I said it collapsing and briefly switching to another folder was the quicker way to do it for me.

(Incidentally, you can force a refresh of the navigation pane by navigating to the renamed folder through the right pane, but it obviously only works for folders you can see and not "invisible" new folders created outside BRU.)
Renamox
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:47 pm

Re: Multiple instances, wildcards, and other suggestions.

Postby Renamox » Thu Dec 30, 2021 7:43 pm

Yet another minor suggestion that seems to be worth considering:

Code: Select all
"Item could not be renamed. Error: The process cannot access the file because it is being used by another process. Ignore this error and continue processing?"

More often than not, it's very easy to get the file(s) in question unlocked before continuing (closing a media player that is playing the file, for example, or using LockHunter for more advanced cases), but the error pop-up doesn't offer a retry option. When this type of error pops up, the only available options are IGNORE, IGNORE ALL, and CANCEL. Adding RETRY to the bunch would be a nice little time-saver that shouldn't be too difficult to implement.
Renamox
 
Posts: 10
Joined: Fri Nov 19, 2021 6:47 pm


Return to Suggestions