Meta-Variables

The button next to the texboxes in the renaming options will display the Insert Meta-Variables popup and Advanced Insert Window. The popup and window is used to automatically insert special text items, called meta-variables, that are replaced with file information during a Preview operation. These meta-variables begin and end with a question mark.

This information includes File data, Today's Date, JPEG and MP3 data. The dialog window also includes an advanced set of optional formatting types for customizing how the data will be displayed.

One of the most common examples of a Meta-Variable is ?n02?. This counting variable will be replaced with a number that is zero padded to always be at least 2 digits long. Using the default Counting renaming settings, the number starts with 1 and is incremented by 1 for every file in the list.

Script Steps

In the Scripting View (the default view), each renaming option is executed in order of apperance. The order of these items can be changed by clicking the Move Up and Move Down buttons shown on each step. Also, each of the steps can be temporarily disabled by clicking the Enable/Disable button and this lets you remove a scripting step without having to completely delete the step.

Unlike the old renaming options interface (toggled by the bottom leftmost button on the main window), you can have multiple copies of every renaming option. It is still recommended to place Removes first, then Replaces, followed by Adds to keep each step from altering the output, but it is not required.

Moving Files

You can insert relative path names infront of files filenames to move files and rename them at the same time. For example, if your are running Rename Master in "C:\Pictures" and you insert "Set1\" at the begining of each filename, all files selected for rename will be moved to "C:\Pictures\Set1".

Rename Master takes the path listed in the dropdown list and adds the filename shown in the "New Name" column to create the new filename. So, [dropdown list path] + [New Name] becomes the new name of each file. For a recursive scan, subfolders from the "Name" are used to generate the main path.

The ".." relative path symbols can be used as well just as you can in a Command Prompt. It's a symbol that represents the parent folder. For Example, if your renaming files in "C:\ours" but you want to move the files to "c:\theirs", simply add "..\theirs" to the beginning of the filename.

Formatting Meta-Variables

Each Meta-Variable (described above) can be altered in appearance. Highlighting One of the most often used formatting options is the convert date option. The Quick Insert popup menu contains a few common formatting options that can be used as examples. The formatting options used in these examples are very similar to the settings used by Windows in the Regional Settings for displaying dates and times. There are some differences, but the list shows all the options that can be used for formatting a date:

y = Year using 2 digits
yy = Year using 2 digits
yyyy = Year using 4 digits
m = Month with no leading 0's
mm = Month using 2 digits
mmm = Month using ShortDayName
mmmm = Month using LongDayName
d = Day with no leading 0's
dd = Day using 2 digits
ddd = Day using ShortDayName
dddd = Day using LongDayName
ddddd = Day using ShortDateFormat
dddddd = Day using LongDateFormat

c = Shortcut for ShortDateFormat and LongTimeFormat
h = Hour with no leading 0's
hh = Hour using 2 digits
n = Minutes without leading 0's
nn = Minutes as 2 digits
s = Seconds with no-leading 0's
ss = Seconds using digits
z = Milliseconds with no-leading 0's
zzz = Milliseconds using 3 digits
t = ShortTimeFormat
tt = LongTimeFormat

am/pm = Uses 12 hours clock for the preceding h or hh
a/p = Uses 12 hours clock for the preceding h or hh
ampm = Uses the 12-hour clock for the preceding h or hh

Quotes or Double Quotes are used as literals.