Installing Java

Windows users will first need to install Sun's Java 2 on their Windows PC unless your PC supplier has pre-installed Java 2 before delivery.

Java 2 is a free download from SUN Microsystems. It's recommended you install the smaller "JRE" unless you are writing code. Click on the latest J2SE version and you will see the "JRE" download listed. Desktop Java can also be installed from Java.com.

fileRename

A java program to rename, edit, tag & ftp your files. A few features are: ease of use, fully editable property file, multiple options to correct file names, search & replace inc regex, mp3, flac, ogg, file rename filters, optimised for music collections.

-- This has been drafted to give some idea of the scope of usage of fileRename capabilities.
-- Work is in progress however to update the web site www.filerename.co.uk with a comprehensive list
-- of flash based demos and examples along with a fully detailed help page.

Development

fileRename was developed in Netbeans 5.5 purely to try out the Matisse Gui Builder. Eclipse being the usual IDE of choice.
Tags are by the sourceforge project Entagged. http://sourceforge.net/projects/entagged/
Currently I only tag mp3, flac, & ogg files. According to the Entagged project, others such as monkeys ape are supported but I have not implemented these as yet.

Getting Started

copy the property file 'uk.co.filerename.properties' [henceforth refered to as PROPERTY] to c:\temp (linux /tmp/), by default there is a property file bundled with the dist, but a copy in c:\temp will take precedence.
Note: its worth having a read of PROPERTY file, this will give you some idea of what processing takes place on files, the options you can change etc...

in windows double click FileRename.jar or from the command line 'java -jar FileRename.jar'

default look & feel is jgoodies PlasticXPLookAndFeel (https://looks.dev.java.net/)

- there are a couple of options you can pass in to have a play around with different look & feel, these are
1:BubblesWatermark
2:KatakanaWatermark
3:PlanktonWatermark
4:MetalWallWatermark

1:SteelBlueTheme
2:LightAquaTheme
3:BarbyPinkTheme
4:EbonyTheme
5:RaspberryTheme
(see https://substance.dev.java.net/ for more details on this library)

ie.
java -jar FileRename.jar 1 5
will launch fileRename with Bubbles watermark, Raspberry theme look & feel

Note: for windows, create a text file, rename to 'run.bat' and edit with a single line similar to the following
'java -jar C:\netbeans\FileRename\dist\FileRename.jar 2 2'. Then double click the 'run.bat' file to invoke with look & feel.

Basics

-- Note that No changes are made to actual files until either 'Write Tag' or 'Rename & Tag' button is pressed.

Press 'Directory' and select the root directory, once selected a recursive search is done for all files of the type listed in the 'Filters' panel.
default filters can be specified in PROPERTY or selected from 'Filters' panel

As we are optimised for music files, for every file of correct type found we take that files current directory as the album and the parent directory as the artist. This is the case regardless of folder iteration.
ie...for file '(01) Cyndi Lauper - At Last.mp3' found in the path structure
C:\temp\FOR TESTING\cindy lauper\At Last\(01) Cyndi Lauper - At Last.mp3
with C:\temp having been selected as root.
the Album would be the 'At Last'
and the Artist would be 'cindy lauper'

Note::
However regardless of the fact that this optimisation takes place, we can just as successfully edit & rename a directory full of .jpg files, or any files come to that. We simply ignore the artist/album detail and process the required text edits, regex replaces & renames.
(ticking the 'Apply to original filename' checkbox on the 'Replace' tab

As the files are loaded they go through processing as specified on the 'Text Process' tab. These options can be selected on load through editing PROPERTY, or manually from the 'Text Process' panel. Changes to selections are visible in the 'New File' window pane. Note that these changes are done in memory and are not committed until you press 'Rename & Tag'

On selecting a root folder, The main window shows a number of usefull things, the main one being a 2 pane window, original name to left, parsed name to right. The parsed name is as it suggests the original name run throught all processing specified on 'Text Process' tab. This processing can also be specified in PROPERTY.
Similarly 'Replace' tab search & replace works on the parsed name, and not on the original file name. (unless 'Apply to original filename' is checked)

...to be continued.