Orla Finnegan

The preview comes first, every time, and it is not a formality. A rename applied across a directory tree cannot be undone by a second rename. Batch renaming has two approaches and they are not equivalent. A template applies a pattern to the existing name, which preserves what was there. A counter replaces it, which produces tidy sequential names and discards the original. The second is better for a set of files with meaningless names and worse for everything else. Collisions are the danger in both. Two files whose names differ only by case, or that a pattern maps to the same name, produce a conflict, and how the tool resolves it determines whether a file is silently replaced. Pattern matching for selection is separate from the rename itself, and it is where mistakes happen. A pattern that matches more files than intended selects them, and the selection is what gets renamed. Duplicate detection compares content rather than name, so the same document under two names is found and the empty file is not. Finding them is easy; deciding which to remove is a decision rather than a tool, and it depends on whether they are referenced anywhere. I finish on reversibility, because renaming done as a script can be undone by a script if the original names were recorded, and they usually were not. Sorting is separate from both, and it is the operation most easily reversed, since a sorted folder can be returned to its original order only if the original order was recorded somewhere.