Reported Batch Rename Settings "If same filename already exists" options greyed out

[turbine]

This should be an easy fix - it seems the 3 options under "If same filename already exists" in the Batch Rename Settings dialog box are unnecessarily greyed out. The previous option (copy, move, rename original) on the same dialog box is also greyed out. I upgraded to version 4.38 yesterday to verify it wasn't an issue already fixed.

This comes into play when batch renaming a directory tree, the target directory is a single directory without subfolders, and filename conflicts become a problem. Specifically, in Windows 7, this allows a user to create a single wallpaper directory of a large number of images. The workaround is to use the filename increment feature, though this does unnecessarily change filenames which are not in conflict.

Unrelated, it's a great app, I've been using it for 10+ years I think. Big Kudos to the developer(s).

[Mij]

Those options are only available if "Batch Rename" is selected in the "Work as:" frame at Top left of the dialog. They are greyed out when "Batch conversion - Rename result files" is selected. I suppose that allowing you to choose might conflict with what you have selected in the "Miscellaneous" section of the "Advanced" options dialog but I can see that the options there are not as comprehensive as the ones you are not now allowed to change under "Batch rename settings:".

[turbine]

Yes, I see that, and that is an excellent point, but that still doesn't address the issue. Those features really should still be available, don't you think? They'd be incredibly useful. The only option under "Miscellaneous" is to overwrite, there's no ability to add a suffix to existing files. It makes no sense to deprive the user of the option.

Should be a simple fix -- just run the filename and path through all the other settings, and if there is a conflict, handle them the way the user specifies.

[Mij]

I am trying to understand whether this is as common a requirement as you appear to think.

Is there a good reason for trying to put all your output into a single folder when the input is a complete directory tree? If doing a Conversion at the same time as a Batch rename most users would check the "Create subfolders ..." option under Miscellaneous. This is a powerful option in the Advanced conversion dialog that replicates the full directory tree in the target folder.

I suspect that Irfan has assumed that those options for how to handle filename conflicts are unnecessary if you have that option available in the Advanced conversion dialog. Normally a filename conflict only occurs when you accidentally rename an image file to a name that already exists. You seem to be deliberately creating conflicts if you are trying to reduce a directory tree with duplicated file names from different subfolders into a single folder without subfolders.

[turbine]

Dude... you're missing the point. Regardless of how common it is, there's simply no need to disable the feature. It's an option - don't take it away from the user just because you don't get it.

Engineers who mistakenly think they know what is best for the user is hardly a new problem -- it's mistake made repeatedly for centuries that is probably most visible in software in the last several decades. It's been written about extensively and is repeatedly ignored by development teams, I've seen it every place I've worked. It's the premise of usability testing and HCI studies, and the subject of a myriad of sites and forums, the most popular targets of complaint being Windows, and in more recent years, Facebook.

With Windows 7 (and other versions), you can select all images in a particular folder and have them slideshow randomly. That's my particular application. Most filenames are unique, but there are occasional conflicts. Currently the highly annoying choice is to either overwrite the conflicts, effectively excluding some images, or to append a numeric suffix or directory or make the filename unique in some other fashion.

If I were designing it, I'd also give the user an opportunity to solve naming conflicts with a special naming string, that you simply run through the same parser, the ideal choice perhaps being to include the directory tree (without slashes, of course) in the filename. Or perhaps just the immediate parent folder -- either way it's up to the user.

Do what you want, it's a free app, and I gather it's not open source - perhaps it's time it should be?

[Bhikkhu Pesala]

Dude... you're missing the point.

No. You are. This is a user-to-user forum. Nothing will be achieved by being impolite to other users of this forum. We didn't design the software, and Mij just offered an opinion of why it is designed the way it is.

Probably, it was designed this way, and if so it's not a bug.

Please read the bug reporting sticky thread and fill in the information in your user profile.

If you wish, you are welcome to forward your report to Irfan Skiljan directly, and let us know his response. Then I can update this thread's status.