Ebook renaming

[Andsetinn]

I've been using BRU occasionally for few years and think it's the best utility in its class.
I have a suggestion for feature.

I'm trying to sort my Ebook collection, about 200 books, mostly mobi format. I will do them manually but it would be nice to be able to do this with few mouse clicks.

The books are named almost randomly but the way I want them to be named is by Author (first name or initials, second name (family)) and then title of the book, seperated by " - ".
Now they are named; "author (first name family name) - title", "author (family name, first name) - title", "title - author" or just "title".

If I could move what is after the "-" to the front of the name it would help me a lot. "Move last n" does not help because author names have different lengths.
Or if I could extract the information from the file, like mp3 files.

After reading through lot of post it seems that this is possible using RegEx(1) but I'm not a coder and god help me, I would have to think.

Best regards,
Helgi

[Jane]

If this is a Regex request it should be in the Regex section.
In the examples you give it appears as if most of them already begin with the Author.
If there is only a single dash in each name (or if you always want what is after the last dash in a multi dash title) , the simplest way to put what is after the dash to the front would be:
Regex(1)
Match: (.*)-(.*)
Replace: \2 \1
Include Ext. NOT checked.
If there is no dash, or you don't want all to be after the last dash, you should gave specific examples and I would be able to give you more specific help.

Jane

[Andsetinn]

Hi Jane.

I'm not looking for regex help. I've already renamed my Ebooks manually but it would've been nice to have been able, with few mouseclicks, to resort the order of text in the file name. I'm not talking about writing any "code", even the very simple one you suggested. I'd like to have the code you suggested in a menu. Or it would be nice if the information could be extracted from the Ebook file.

For more information about what I was trying to do. If we take the book "Sins of the fathers" which is the first book in the "Matthew Scudder" series by "Lawrence Block" I want it to be named "Lawrence Block - Matthew Scudder 01 - Sins Of The Fathers". It could have been named "Lawrence Block - Sins Of The Fathers"; "Block, Lawrence - Sins Of The Fathers", "Sins Of The Fathers - Lawrence Block", "Sins Of The Fathers - Block, Lawrence" or just "Sins Of The Fathers" in a folder named "Lawrence Block" or "Block, Lawrence". It could also have been named "Lawrence Block - Matthew Scudder 01 - Sins Of The Fathers", "Block, Lawrence - Matthew Scudder 01 - Sins Of The Fathers" and so on, depending on where I bought it.

[Jane]

I haven't looked closely at the internals of the various e book file types: (.aeh,djvu,.epub,.fb2,.html,.azw,.lit,.prc,.mobi,.pdb,.pdb,.exe,.rgo,.pdb,.tr2,.tr3, etc.) , but it would probably be a bit of work to set up and extract what you want, esp given the myriad of combinations you describe.
However, there is possibly a compromise solution. I save specific types of renaming processes as BRU favourites.
The help says

A Favourite is a collection of configuration values which can be used to provide quick access to commonly-used criteria.

If you get an ebook in one of the formats you listed, you would set up the proper file name process and save it as a favourite using a name that describes the rename action.
Next time, just go File/Open and select the appropriate bru process file and it will configure the renaming panel and you are ready to go.

The initial setup would require you to think through it, but after that it is a simple process.

[Andsetinn]

Thank you Jane. Making favourites can work quite well. I need to look into that for my next bulk renaming session.

For the formats, I understand that Mobi and Epub would cover more than 90% of what is out there. They are the MP3s and WMAs of E-books.