David112570
Level 1 (4 points)
Video

Q: How do you stop Motion 5 from renaming items?

How do you stop Motion 5 from renaming items?

 

For example I have an folder named "Box" and inside this folder are 5 extra folders, and in these folder are text and circles/squares etc.  Once I copy and insert the parent name is "Copy from Box 1", the children names are now "Copy Print 1", Copy Paper 1" etc, and the childrens children are also name with copy in front and a number in back.  If you have like 50 items in the folder you need to go in each name and delete copy, then move to back of name and delete number.  That would make 100 corrections.  If you duplicated "Box" 10 times that would be 500 times I have to delete copy and 500 times I have to delete the number.  I am an organized person and I don't like confused names like "Copy from Paper 27"

 

I only want this

"Copy from Box 12 Movement 11"

to look like this

"Box 12 Movement"

 

It takes a lot of time to go in and remove copy in front and remove the number in the back of name.

 

In Autodesk Maya 3D they do something similar, it turns "apples" into "pasted apples 1", so created a script that removes all "pasted" text from the name and the number in the back of the text name.

 

I think that is a pretty stupid renaming procedure.  Adds text in front and text in back.  Makes me wonder where did they get their education.

 

David

Motion 5, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Jul 21, 2016 2:37 AM

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David112570

Q: How do you stop Motion 5 from renaming items?

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  • by GFXZen,

    GFXZen GFXZen Jul 21, 2016 1:19 PM in response to David112570
    Level 4 (1,643 points)
    Video
    Jul 21, 2016 1:19 PM in response to David112570

    David, for starters I can't reproduce what you are describing, where things are added to the front and back automatically, you may have to clarify some things.  It sounds like what you are saying is you have Group in Motion named "Box" if you copy and paste that group, the name of the new group is "Copy from Box copy"?  Or are you adding "Copy from" before the group name at some point before making a copy/duplicate of the group?

     

    Motion, like the Finder and most other applications, will append duplicate object with "copy" and then add numbers after that. The renaming structure seems pretty straight forward. For example:

     

    1. Start with a layer/group named "Box".

    2. Copy and paste "Box" will give you "Box copy".

    3.Copy and paste "Box copy" will give you "Box copy 1"

     

    From my testing, if "copy" is part of the name at the end, only the numbers will be added and increase incrementally.  I think that if you are getting something like "Copy Box copy" you have manually added "Copy" to the beginning of the name, that's the only way I could reproduce what you are describing. If you don't want to have to remove "copy" twice, don't start a layer/group name with "Copy". Motion is probably not checking to see if Copy is at the beginning, only at the end.

     

    As for a way to not have copy or a number added to the end, there is not one.  This is likely a requirement of how Motion initially creates duplicates of layers/groups and makes sure it doesn't destroy existing layers. It's probably for the best. This is similar to creating folders or documents in the Finder, only in Motion you can come back and rename multiple items with the same name after they are created. If you are comfortable with scripting, which it sounds like you are, that may be a good option, otherwise you will have to do some manual editing as you go.

  • by fox_m,

    fox_m fox_m Jul 21, 2016 3:01 PM in response to David112570
    Level 5 (5,497 points)
    Video
    Jul 21, 2016 3:01 PM in response to David112570

    You are being motivated to rename your layers as you go. Resistance is futile. LOL.

     

    MotionVFX came up with this utility awhile ago: https://www.motionvfx.com/store,mcopyremover,p1041.html

    it will remove the word copy from all your layers. I think it's run from the Finder on a saved file... I'm sure you could do the same with a good text editor that handles regular expressions (like TextWrangler) since Motion project files are just XML (a derivative of it anyway).

  • by David112570,

    David112570 David112570 Aug 1, 2016 1:23 AM in response to GFXZen
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Video
    Aug 1, 2016 1:23 AM in response to GFXZen

    I have the german version, when I press Apple + D or command + D + or just copy and paste, in german version copy is in front and the text in the middle and the number in the back for example "Kopie von infostore Statistik 1" translates to "Copy from info store Statistic 1"

  • by BenB,

    BenB BenB Aug 1, 2016 7:39 AM in response to David112570
    Level 6 (9,801 points)
    Video
    Aug 1, 2016 7:39 AM in response to David112570

    Oops, see Fox already got the information out.  Damned new forums, can't read that tiny print below posts.  Ugh, what a bad redesign.