Increase the Size Limit of the Title Case Exception List

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Increase the Size Limit of the Title Case Exception List

Postby MilesOldfield » Sat Nov 14, 2020 9:52 pm

First, thank you so much for creating a first-rate, free, utility that I've made great use of for the last several years. I mainly use it for organizing my hoard of book, movie, and music files.

Like many people here, I use the Excep. list to prevent articles, prepositions, and conjunctions from being capitalized when using Title case. The exception list size is apparently limited to about one thousand characters, which isn't nearly enough to contain all of the exceptions I'd like to use. Can you increase the size of the exception list buffer, or better yet, add the option of using a .txt or .ini file for the exception list, so that it can hold a few hundred exceptions?

Thanks!
MilesOldfield
 
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Re: Increase the Size Limit of the Title Case Exception List

Postby Admin » Mon Nov 16, 2020 1:24 am

I think that is a very useful idea, do you maybe have a standard list of exceptions we could include in BRU as a basic file? thanks
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Re: Increase the Size Limit of the Title Case Exception List

Postby MilesOldfield » Thu Nov 19, 2020 9:36 pm

Admin wrote:I think that is a very useful idea, do you maybe have a standard list of exceptions we could include in BRU as a basic file? thanks


You can find a list of words for title exception anywhere, so I'm guessing you're looking for it in BRU's format. I could just copy/paste the one I use by default, but it's specialized for my needs and would be unsuitable for most users. If you'd like, I could make a more useful list of exceptions in BRU's syntax and explain how it works while I'm at it. Teach a man to fish?
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Re: Increase the Size Limit of the Title Case Exception List

Postby Admin » Fri Nov 20, 2020 12:25 am

If you'd like, I could make a more useful list of exceptions in BRU's syntax and explain how it works while I'm at it. Teach a man to fish?


That would be very useful, thanks!
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Re: Increase the Size Limit of the Title Case Exception List

Postby MilesOldfield » Fri Nov 27, 2020 1:30 am

Admin wrote:That would be very useful, thanks!


CREATING TITLE CASE EXCEPTIONS IN BRU

Making a workable exception list for BRU's title case is tricky--and lengthy--with all of the "always, unless" rules
involved in capitalizing titles. The exception list I describe below will cover the majority of users' requirements,
and although not comprehensive, filenames in half-assed title case look better than in don't-give-a-rat's-ass case.
Hopefully, no one will notice that the occasional subordinate conjunction isn't properly capitalized.

Using BRU's title case with no exceptions will capitalize all of the words in the title:

"The Andrews Theology Book, Volume A Part A. An Exercise And The Afterlife.txt"

English has three articles (a, an, the) so I'll start with those for simplicity. In title case, articles should be
uncapitalized unless they are the first or last word in the title. Articles are more often somewhere within the
title so I'll add the articles, in lower case, to the exception list:

:a:an:the:

Note that colons (:) are used for separating the individual entries in the exception list. Using the exception list
shown above changes the title's capitalization to:

"the andrews theology Book, Volume a Part a. an Exercise and the afterlife.txt"

The main reason the title's capitalization is so botched is because the words in the exception list have nothing
between them and the colons to either side. The colon means, "ignore everything that comes before or after me." This
results in every instance of 'a', 'an', and 'the' being uncapitalized no matter where they are located in the title,
even if they are part of a another word. The word "Theology" was uncapitalized because it matched with :the: in the
exception list.

To make the exceptions function properly, the words must be separated from the colons by some other character,
usually a space. You can use other characters, such as periods, which I'll explain later. Because the articles we
don't want capitalized will be in the middle of the title, these articles will most likely have spaces to either
side of them. By adding spaces between the words and the colons, the exception list will look for <space>WORD<space>
rather than every occurrence of the letters. Changing the exception list to:

: a : an : the :

the title becomes:

"The Andrews Theology Book, Volume a Part A. an Exercise And the Afterlife.txt"

By adding the spaces between the excepted words and the colons, only the articles were uncapitalized, as desired.
You will also see that 'The' at the beginning of the title and the 'A' in 'Part A' are capitalized. This is because
the spaces in the exception list represent not only spaces but punctuation marks (including the dot of an extension)
and the first and last words in the filename as well. Now to fix the 'an' in 'an exercise' and the 'a' in 'Volume
a'.

The 'an' should be capitalized because it begins a new sentence. Bulk Rename Utility can recognize the beginnings of
sentences by checking for a period or exclamation point at the end of the previous sentence. Create exceptions with
<period><space>WORD<space> and <exclamation point><space>WORD<space> for each of the three articles and add them to
the exceptions created earlier:

: a : an : the :. A :! A :. An :! An :. The :! The :

Now the title becomes:

"The Andrews Theology Book, Volume a Part A. An Exercise And the Afterlife.txt"

All that is left now is the lower case 'a' in 'Volume A'. To correct this this, you'll need to correct the
punctuation in the title; there should be a comma after 'Volume a'.

Thus far, for the three articles, we have created nine exceptions. Depending on the files you work with, you may
want to add several more exceptions for them as well. If you want to cut down the number of exceptions somewhat, you
can probably do without the period and exclamation point exceptions. Filenames don't usually contain multiple
sentences. However, many types of files will have multiple bits of information divided in some way. For example,
with books and music, it's common to use separators between author/band name and the title of the work. One of the
most common forms is the <space><dash><space>:

"Blind Blake - Complete Works - D1-4 - 01 - Dying Blues (Blind Blake & Leola B. Wilson).mp3"
"Agatha Christie - Roger Ackroyd - Chapter 01 - Dr. Sheppard at the Breakfast Table.m4a"

To capitalize articles following these separators, you must add:

: - A : - An : - The :

to the exception list. Also, as with the period and exclamation point described earlier, you will need to create
additional exceptions so that Bulk Rename Utility will recognize the end of a section so as to capitalize the
section following:

: A - : An - : The - :

Articles following an opening quote should also be capitalized. The double-quote mark isn't allowed in Windows
filenames, so one or two single quotes are used instead:

: 'A : 'An : 'The : ''A : ''An : ''The :


OTHER PARTS OF SPEECH

You should now be able to create your own exceptions for conjunctions, prepositions, abbreviations, acronyms, and
anything else to your exception list. What you add will depend on your personal opinion and whatever style guide you
may be using. Here is an excellent page with summaries from several different guides:https://titlecaseconverter.com/rules/#BB

Coordinating conjunctions should not be capitalized. There are only seven of these, for which you may remember the
acronym, FANBOYS from grammar class:

: for : and : nor : but : or : yet : so :

If you work for the New York Times, you'll need to capitalize "nor" and "so".

Prepositions include a large number of individual words as well as prepositional phrases and idioms. Some styles
require all prepositions to be uncapitalized, but they are in the minority these days. Most guides approach
prepositions 'with an eye towards' practicality, requiring prepositions to remain uncapitalized only if they are
less than a certain number of letters.

These are the most common two-letter prepositions:

: as : at : by : in : of : on : or : to : up : vs.

"as" might not be a preposition depending on its use in the title. I always leave it uncapitalized because it's such
a short word.

"vs." is an abbreviation for "versus", which is a preposition. If often appears without a period.

"up" is capitalized by the New York Times.

The most common three-letter prepositions:

: off : out : per : til : via

"off" and "out" are capitalized by the New York Times

The most common four-letter prepositions:

: amid : down : from : into : like : near : next : onto : over : past : than : till : upon : with :

"Down" is capitalized by--guess who.

The most common five-letter prepositions:

: about : above : after : again : along : among : below : forth : since : under : until : while :


OTHER EXCEPTIONS

You may want to put in some of the acronyms you use most, such as TV, CD, US, DVD, TNT, USA, BBC, CIA, FBI, UFO,
etc.

For collectors of old television shows, it's standard practice to designate the season and episode numbers of a show
in the filename. For example, S01E01 stands for "Season 1, Episode 1". Having an exception list cover hundreds of
episodes is unrealistic, but you can cover ten seasons with:

: S01E: S02E: S03E: S04E: S05E: S06E: S07E: S08E: S09E: S10E:

Note that there is no space between the 'E' and the ending colon because there will always be a number following the
'E' in the designator. Putting a space there would prevent the exception from recognizing 's02e05', for example.

Some band names, such as AC-DC and ZZ-Top can be added if you work with those bands a lot. For classical music, you
may want to add 'A Major' and 'A Minor' to prevent the article exceptions from uncapitalizing them. Classical music
also makes frequent use of Roman numerals. It helps to follow these with periods in your titles and use : II. :
III. :, etc. in your exception list. This will prevent 'Ivanka' from becoming 'IVanka', but you'll get 'Henry viii'
if it's not at the end of the title.

I hope this helps!
MilesOldfield
 
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Nov 14, 2020 9:26 pm


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