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The Main Dialog

The main dialog of A Better Finder Rename 7 is subdivided into a number of distinct areas:

The Change: popup menu (at the top) allows you to choose which part of the file name is going to be changed:

  • Change entire file name The whole file name including any file extensions (the characters behind the full stop, e.g. image.gif) will be change
  • Change file name only Only the file name is going to be changed. The file extensions (e.g. .gif will not be affected)
  • Change file extension only (including separator) Only the file extension is changed, the separator (the full dot) is included (e.g. ".gif")
  • Change file extension only (excluding separator) Only the file extension is changed, the separator is not included (e.g. "gif")

The Action: popup menu allows you specify which renaming action will be applied.

As soon as you select a renaming action its parameters will be displayed below it in the dialog (on the screenshot this is the area with "Prefix:" and "Suffix:" fields).

Clicking on the "Advanced Options" disclosure triangle will reveal advanced options discussed on their own respective pages.

At the bottom of the dialog you will find a number of buttons.

The OK button applies the currently selected action and parameters to the selected files. Press the return key or click on the button to rename the selected files.

The Cancel button leaves the application without changing the file names. You can press the Esc key instead of clicking the button.

The Create Droplet... button allows you to save the current settings to a droplet application.

The Save File List... button allows you to save the old file names and the new file names to a text file.

The Preview Drawer

To the right of the main dialog, you see the "preview drawer".

This shows the "current name" of the file in the left column and previews the "new" file name in the right column. You can customize these columns in the menus.

At the bottom of the preview window are three checkboxes, which allow you to rename files and folder separately and to include or exclude files in sub-folders.

  • files All the selected files will be renamed. This setting does not affect the selected folders!
  • folders All the selected folders will be renamed. This setting does not affect the selected files.
  • subfolders and their contents A Better Finder Rename will process not only the selected files or folders, but will also rename the files and folders inside of all of the selected folders. In other words it will rename everything within the folder hierarchy of the selected folders.

The settings of the three check boxes can be combined. Ticking all three check boxes, for instance, means that all files and folders inside of the file hierarchy of all selected folders will be renamed. Unticking the folder check box will mean that only the files inside of the folder hierarchy will be processed, etc..

Clicking on the paperclip icon at the bottom left of the preview drawer allows you to detach the preview drawer and presents the preview in a separate, re-sizable window.

This may be more convenient for working with large numbers of files or long file names. The separate preview window can be docked onto the left-hand side of the main dialog and will then move together with it.