Purrr is GNOME application for mass renaming files. Mass renaming is special case of renaming, where multiple files are to be named similarly, making it suitable for automation of this otherwise tiresome and daunting task. Purrr is written to be very easy and pleasant to use, and integrates well with GNOME desktop environment.
Latest release of Purrr is 0.5.1, and can be downloaded from here. You will need Python 2.3, PyGTK 2.4 and GNOME and libglade libraries to run Purrr.
WARNING: Purrr is pre-release software, it may still have serious bugs in it. Please don't use release 0.5 for any valuable files
To install Purrr, simply unpack the tarball, and run included setup.py program from command line.
Below you can see main window of Purrr. It consists of several elements, of which most important are two: the template entry and file list.
Fig.1: Main window
In template entry, you insert template which will be applied to file names visible in file list, to obtain resulting string to which will the file be renamed. Templates have special syntax explained below. The one depicted above will transform files into names of form file NNN.ext. Results are displayed as soon as you type in parts of the template, giving you instant feedback and allowing for easy construction of templates that will yield precisely the output desired.
Files can be added to file list using variety of methods. You can simply give names on the command line when launching Purrr from terminal, use Add buttons to open file chooser which will allow you to select files, or you can use drag and drop operation to supply files to operate on. You can also simply use the file manager.
Purrr integrates with Nautilus, the GNOME file manager. When you install Purrr, it will add Nautilus script, available from right-click context menu.
Fig.2: Launching Purrr from Nautilus
If you run Purrr from Nautilus, it will operate in special extension mode. In this mode, some parts of user interface are hidden, because Nautilus already provides information which would be normally entered using those elements. Also, file names you have selected in Nautilus will be automatically entered in file list.
Fig.3: Main window of Purrr launched from file manager
Templates are interpreted according to simple syntax. In general, there are two types of elements: plain and special references. Plain is just text, any part that isn't special is plain. Plain text is copied verbatim into resulting name. Special references are introduced by enclosing certain strings (listed below) in brackets ([ and ]). There are currently 4 types of special references:
Counters are used to insert numerical value that increases with each next file on list. Counter can take up to 4 comma-separated numerical arguments: name, initial value, step and padding (appropriate number of zeroes will be inserted to make sure that result has that many digits)
Fig.4: Counter
Name references insert old name of file currently renamed. Optional "_" switch can be added, to trigger special mode in which all occurences of "_" character will be replaced with space. This is useful for reverting common scheme of encoding file names used on the Internet to protect them from misinterpretation.
Fig.5: Name reference
Basename references are the same as [N], except that they insert file name with extension stripped.
Fig.6: Basename reference
Extension references insert original extension of file, working complementary to basename references. Optional "." switch causes it to insert dot before extension in resulting file name if the extension is not empty.
Fig.7: Extension reference
Below file list is (collapsed by default) list of several filters which can be used to filter files displayed in the file list. This allows you for example to give all files in certain directory, and then easily exclude ones commonly regarded as junk.
Fig.8: Excluding files
Purrr will generally try its best to be as obvious and easy to use as possible. For example, if you pass in files that aren't local (like when browsing FTP share from Nautilus), Purrr will warn you that these files can't be renamed.
Fig.9: Friendly warning