Yet Another Status Update

ArsClip

Version 4.5 is now an official release. It has been ready for a while, but I've been side-tracked with other things. Like the previous version of Rename Master, it is mostly a bug-fix release but with one nice new feature. The pin-to-list option is a surprisingly useful feature that should have been added long, long ago.

Rename Master

The current Public Beta is mostly finished. I think I've met my goals and I've no current plans for new feature. The remaining changes will just be focused on polish and bug fixing.

The Renaming Script has received some much needed attention and love. I'm pleased with the results and think it's a massive improvement in both usability and readability.

The new replace options added to some of the Remove steps both adds complexity and simplifies the process. My goal was to remove some of the need for having to combine multiple steps - something a new user isn't likely to know about.

The new Select and Move step is an experiment, so it's currently an unknown. I think it is safe to say that "moving" is the hardest thing to use in a program, but the easiest thing for a person to do instinctively. I'm not sure if this step is a training tool for a larger concept, or if it's going to be usable for a newer user.

The 'Getting Started' wizard was embarrassingly out of date. I've never had a good idea of the usefulness of this part of the program, so I've neglected it. In a perfect world, someone else who doesn't know the program would write this part of the program -- I don't have this luxury. My current goal for this wizard is to just introduce the broad concepts of the program to demystify the major functions.

Select and Move

Shown above is the first version of the Select and Move step. As said before, its functionality is limited compared to all the combination possible by combining a Remove step with an Add step. It, however, is not reasonable to expect a new user to quickly figure out combining steps.

This step currently allows for 6 methods of selecting text and 6 methods of moving the text - for a total of 36 different combinations. In reality, there are only 3 different categories of each operation, making 9 different combinations. These 3 operations are similar to the 'Before/After', 'by Position', and 'Beginning/Ending' style steps. This means that text is defined using a set position or by searching for a phrase.

Last Goals

For Rename Master, I've addressed most of the problem that I have with the Renaming Script. The last Public Beta change allows for the shading effects to be remove, so the list looks a flat. This is the simplest view designed to not clutter or distract.

In order to perform an operation like "Replace the first 5 characters with XXX", two Renaming Steps have to be used - and this is not intuitive. First, the Remove Beginning/Ending step is used to remove the characters. Second, the "Add to Beginning/Ending/ step is used add the text back to the beginning. There are two solutions for this. The first and most obvious solution would be to create a new "Replace Beginning/Ending" step. The problem with this is that the number of steps would increase from 12 to 15. The second solution would be to re-purpose the current Remove steps to optionally replace the removed text. While neither solution is perfect, I lean toward re-purposing as the better solution.

The last planned change is to create a brand new "Select and Move". This step, combined with the re-purposed steps, removes the need for most complex multi-step scripts.

There is another planned change, but it may not make it into version 3dot3. I was thinking that a right-click menu for the Renaming Steps may help. The context menu would combine all the move/reset/delete options into a single location. I've not quite convinced myself if this is needed or just extraneous.

New Look

I'm about 95% happy with the new visuals of the Renaming Script in Test 4. I'm not happy with the colors, however, so I added configuration settings for the user to customize the look. The current saturation and brightness works well on my monitor, but I'm sure this will be different on multiple systems. This way, the user gets the "joy" of spending a lot of time trying to find that magical combination of hue and brightness that makes them happy. Since color is so subjective and this is such a prevalent visual feature, I think customizable colors is a must.

I've moved the Folder Browser button and created a normal looking button to replace it. I'm guessing that most users do not toggle this feature often, so this change should be minor. While the old vertical button was convenient, it was easily overlooked by most users. It was also confusing to have it and a splitter so closely placed together. Moving this button, however, required adding a close button directly on the browser pane to make it just as easy to use.

Usability Update

The above shows two views of the new file list display options. The tabs allow for a quick and easily identifiable way of changing how or if folders are shown. The older method of switching file list views was often overlooked. The filter is now shown as a clickable label that will expand into an editable control. This makes more room for the path control above the file list and removes clutter for for a filter option that is not often used.

Since the Renaming Script work is still in progress, the next public beta will likely contain some temporary color settings.

Readability Update

The above screenshot shows the current progress for work on the Renaming Script. The left shows the last Public Beta that just changed the font and the amount of information shown. The right shows further cosmetic changes for the next release. The work is slow, tedious, and requires a lot of experimentation.

The type of step is much easier to see and the amount of empty space has been reduced. The simpler square shapes are much less distracting and make it look more like a list. The "disabled" state text is a little darker than standard gray to make it easier to ready.

I'm, however, tempted to completely remove the collapse/expand button. Now that the entire step is colored, I suspect that clicking on the step would be more intuitive. This will also make more room for the description text, which should aid in readability.

Readability And Then Some

I consider the current state of Rename Master's Renaming Script tab a successful failure.

It does a good job of categorizing about 50 individual settings into 12 step types and 3 operation types. At heart, RM only performs 3 actions: Add, Replace, Remove. It also does a good job of being extremely flexible. All 12 steps types can be placed in any order and in any quantity. Very complex operations can be performed by combining the steps.

The failures of the Renaming Script tab, however, are varied. While the color coded buttons help hint about the 3 actions that can be performed, the meaning of colors are still very subtle. Numbering each step helped to explicitly state the order the steps are executed, but I'm unsure if most users know the steps can be dragged into position. Options like the temp variable allows for some complex cut-and-paste move operations, but it has a steep learning curve. Lastly, I think the current settings just aren't very easy to read.

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The current Public Beta is first going to focus on the less difficult problem: readability. I've changed the font to a thinner font (Times New Roman), so more of the settings can be displayed. I've also removed the step name from each step that is enabled for the same reason.

The next change is going to be to color code the entire step. This is going to take a bit of experimentation to get right. The colors will need to be able to display disabled and enabled text well without being to distracting. This should make identifying the type of step much easier.

I'm unsure at this point what to do to help advertise the drag-and-drop feature. I tried adding a tooltip hint, but this was very distracting especially when the mouse moved between steps. I did add a mouse cursor that triggers when a step is clicked on to show that drag is supported, but only advanced users will recognize the cursor. The good news is that most users will not need to re-order the steps and the order of the "default" script is designed to use the correct order: remove, replace, add.

Complex operations, however, are still a big issue. Using the temp variable to move text is not an easy concept to grasp for almost all users, though it is the most flexible method. I did add a "Split and Move" step, but it is also an advanced operation. I have thought of adding a "Select and Move" step similar to the "Add Counter" step. It wouldn't be very flexible, but it would be something a new user could learn quickly.

Having a mixture of simple and advanced operations keeps the program flexible, but most users will only ever use one or two of the operations. The more options a user has to sift through, the harder the program is to learn. I think that having some better example scripts that perform very common real world tasks will help. For example, the current set of example scripts does not use MP3 or JPEG metadata. I also think updating the Getting Started help window and the online help might also be needed. The information for Getting Started provided is very sparse, so this would be a good place to answer the most common questions that new users have. While I'm not a fan of relying on help files when the program can explain itself, I think there are enough details in the program where it cannot be avoided.

Another Status Update

Check for Update

For the popular programs, I've added a 'Check for Update' button on the About window. When I first started making my programs available, there was a distrust of free programs. For this reason, I was very careful when adding any network connectivity to any of my programs. I'm still cautious today, so I've added an automatic check but for a new version, but it still requires manual execution.

Rename Master

For versions 3.0 and 3.1, the sort order was very broken. There were two problems with the sorting that made tracking the problem down difficult. First, there was a typo introduced when porting over to the new compiler. The result was files were mostly in the correct order, or completely in the correct order - depending if the file had numbers in the name. Secondly, a change made long ago assumed the formatting for a decimal was in English format. The official version 3.2 fixes all these issues.

In the current Public Beta, I've changed the Undo to support multiple operations. This means that both manual renames (using the F2 key) and renames using a script are tracked and can be reversed. I've also added a preview that shows the changes to be made at each level.

ArsClip

The current Public Beta v4.5 will soon be an official release. While it's ready to be released, I like to put a little lag time between releases of other programs so I can quickly address any problems. Besides some bug fixes, the only significant change is a the new Pin to List feature.