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[MusicHawk]

I just applied my standard Rename rules to a bunch of files, and (surprisingly) ended up with about 12 thousand files getting renamed/moved. Why so many is a separate matter (very puzzling). But regardless of the quantity, there's a challenge in the Rename process... and a hope that it can be improved.

When MC finds that the renaming will result in a duplicate file name, a dialog called Confirm File Replace pops up, and I must choose Yes, replace the existing file with the file that is about to be given the same name, or No, which I assume skips the current new file, then continues with the next new file.

The challenge is that I usually need both files -- they are NOT duplicates. So the real need is to rename without duplication, such as by adding (1) to the new file, as is often done by MC on its own.

There's also a big risk, because the Rename process runs in the background, yet pops this dialog into the foreground whenever a duplication situation is encountered. More than once I was typing something else in the foreground, when the Confirm File Replace Yes/No popped up and I inadvertently "answered" it by my next keystroke -- losing a file because the default response is Yes, overwrite. Dangerous.

Further, there's apparently no way to bail out of the Rename process. It's working on thousands of files, and I can't stop it. I'm stuck to respond to hundreds of Confirm messages. Or I have to kill MC and risk file/database damage.

One ideal solution to this unpleasant scenario is to add options to the Confirm File Replace dialog, such as this:

Renaming file AAA in folder BBB, a
file named XXX already exists in folder YYY.
Options:

• Rename this new file automatically, preserving both files
• Rename ALL new files when necessary, without asking
• Delete this existing file and add this new file
• Skip this new file and continue with the next file
• Cancel this entire Rename process

Also odd is the outcome of saying No to a bunch of Confirm File Replace questions. At the end of the entire rename process, MC shows me a dialog listing many (but not all) of the files I said No to. But MC doesn't say they were skipped/not replace, it says "Tagging Error: Media Center encountered errors while tagging and moving files. Check that the files exist, are not read-only, and are not in use by other programs."  This message is misleading, because the "error" was that the user manually said "No", don't replace the file -- apparently MC didn't recognize WHY these files were not "moved" and though it was due to one of the stated problems.

Also, the displayed list could be very helpful, but its not. I could use it to go to the files that were skipped, manually rename them, then move them without conflict. But while I can view the list I can't copy the text from it (also, it only displays some of the files, in my case saying <...33 more files...>). And since it seems to be modal, I can't keep the list open while fixing the files. The entire dialog is scary ("errors"!) and yet not helpful.

[darichman]

I think these are all fabulous suggestions...
I try to get around this by making sure all the filenames will be unique to begin with, which is a pain in the proverbial backside as it is.

[hit_ny]

The suggestions are good, but 12k files !!!!

i mean thats asking begging for trouble now isn't it

If i were doing any renaming/moving i'd be all attentive to make sure it went ok, its still quite a draining process that i try to keep these actions to a minimum as much as possible.

[darichman]

I run the same massive expression on 30,000+ photos... for both the directory and the filename... using Date (filename friendly) to make sure none have the same filename. Takes about an hour to run and I run it weekly.

Works fantastically well! BUT you have to make sure there'll be no duplicate filenames or, as musichawk says, that's a lot of button presses.