Apple Event: May 7th at 7 am PT
Can someone assist me, I am looking for a workflow and/ or script that would allow me to rename finder items using a .txt or a .csv file as a reference for the new naming convention?
MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)
This is just logic; think it through. The script needs to know two things to get off the ground: where to find the folder of items to be renamed, and where to find the csv file with the name-change data. those are the variables workingFolder and csvFile. You know you want to use the choose folder command to get the location of the folder (workingFolder); once you have that you still need to get the location of the csv file. In the first script you ask the user for that location, but now you want the script to automatically choose the first csv file of the given folder. So how do you get the script to set the variable csvFile to that first csv file?
Thank you for provoking me to resolve the issue on my own. I had to google some things about applescript in order to realize that the order of sytanx in literal to the working order of the script. I now understand what the script does in detail... THANK YOU!
I moved the following line of code:
-- csv contents as list
set csvList to paragraphs of (read csvFile)
The ruslting script is this:
-- choose the folder
set workingFolder to (choose folder "Select the folder to be processed") as text
-- change this to specify the correct csv delimiter
set splitDelimiter to ","
-- change this to specify the file name join character
set recombineDelimiter to "_"
tell application "System Events"
-- choose the csv file automatically: need to specify name extension
set csvFile to (POSIX path of (first file of folder workingFolder whose name extension is "csv"))
-- csv contents as list
set csvList to paragraphs of (read csvFile)
-- list of files in alphabetical order
set fileList to (POSIX path of (files of folder workingFolder whose visible is true and name begins with "untitled"))
repeat with i from 1 to count of fileList
-- get a line from the csv list, split it at the delimiter, and recombine it
set {oldTID, my text item delimiters} to {my text item delimiters, splitDelimiter}
set newFileNamePieces to text items of (itemi of csvList)
set my text item delimiters to recombineDelimiter
set newFileName to newFileNamePieces as text
set my text item delimiters to oldTID
-- get a file from the file list and note its extension
set currentFile to file (itemi of fileList)
set fileExtension to name extension of currentFile
-- write the new name back out to the file
set name of currentFile to (newFileName & "." & fileExtension)
end repeat
end tell
I have run the script and I have come across my first issue. The issue is that the script missed naming some of the files and I'm not sure why. I want to add is some control mechanisms to make this script more robust. I would like to add in a sort by date command for the contents of the working folder.
what files did it skip renaming? post a couple of file names that it skipped and a couple of the original file names of files that were renamed.
As far as adding a sort-by-date feature, that's doable, but making it a command means adding another dialog (unless you always want to sort it by date). to get a date-sorted list, you have to use the Finder (or else add a sorting handler or pull something from the command line; System Events doesn't have a sorting option). that looks like this (I've used the modification date, but you may want to use the creation date):
tell application "Finder"
set sortedFileList to sort (files of workingFolder) bymodification date
end tell
you'll use the sortedFileList variable in place of the fileList variable that's currently in the script.
After your last response i worked through the issue of having the script select the .csv file automatically.
Next, I ran into the issue of the script skipping files, I looked into the .csv file and found invalid characters, which i replaced.
Now, I have the issue of the script naming the files in non-sequential order.
How do I know theyre not in order? Well, I made a copy of the main-folder to be worked on and called it "TEST" and Inside of the test folder I have files to be named and the .csv containing the new names. The files are named "Untitled 01" through "Unitiled 82" and the Names file has 1 entries each file in the "TEST" folder.
When I run the script it names all the files (provided that there are no invalid characters) and when it is done none of the files are named according to the order they were listed in the folder. I assume the script needs to be told to sort the files and name them strictly based on the order in which they appear.
Small sample from within .csv file:
| Ch.01_04 | Command structure |
| Ch.01_05 | Kernel and shells |
| Ch.01_06 | Unix manual pages |
| Ch.02_01 | The working directory |
| Ch.02_02 | Listing files and directories |
| Ch.02_03 | Moving around the filesystem |
| Ch.02_04 | Filesystem organization |
| Ch.03_01 | Naming files |
| Ch.03_02 | Creating files |
| Ch.03_03 | Unix text editors |
| Ch.03_04 | Reading files |
| Ch.03_05 | Reading portions of files |
| Ch.03_06 | Creating directories |
The issue here is in the phrase 'the order in which they appear'. The visual order of files in the window is separate from the internal order. System Events always returns files in alphabetical order, while the Finder can be told to sort them by any given order. It's possible (well, it should be, Finder scripting is somewhat buggy) to retrieve the visual order from the displayed window order, but I wouldn't recomend that - it leads too easily to mistakes.
what order do you want them to be processed in?
Ideally I would like them to be arrange by the timestamp in which they were created and named in the order in which they are arranged.
I have included the spit screen from the two folders. The view to the left is of the renamed files and the one to the right is of the files as they were created.
That image isn't too helpful since I can't actually see what order the originals are in (you say it's by date created, but don't show the dates involved), but if you want it done by the date created then use the following sort instead of the one I gave above:
tell application "Finder"
set sortedFileList to sort (files of workingFolder) bycreation date
end tell
i.e. use creation date raather than modification date.
Workflow and/ or script to rename finder items using a .txt or a .csv file as a reference?
