Slide Sorter Capability

[RichardBriggs]

Hi, I have used Thumbplus for years and am currently on V8 SP1. One feature I use a lot is the 'slide sorter' or 'lightbox' capability offered in galleries and the great file auto renaming capability. However I have a requirement that can't be met (I assume) and am wondering whether V10 provides this....

I want to add a numeric (or alphabetic) prefix to the names of multiple files and have the prefix increment for each file. So, for example...

I have the following files...

myfile1.jpg
myfile2.jpg
myfile3.jpg

Then I sort to the following order (in a Thumbsplus Gallery)....

myfile3.jpg
myfile1.jpg
myfile2.jpg

Then I want to auto rename these to...

001myfile3.jpg
002myfile1.jpg
003myfile2.jpg

Of course, I need to do this to hundreds of images at a time otherwise I'd do it by hand!

There are plenty of free packages on Windows that allow you to add incremental numbers at the start of a filename but none (that I know of) that allow you to sort (as in Thumbplus Galleries) first.

Richard

[Daan van Rooijen]

> However I have a requirement that can't be met (I assume) and am wondering whether V10 provides this....

I'm afraid not.. the autorename function doesn't seem to have changed at all.

The easiest solution may be to still use Autorename to add a counter that preserves the sort order (even if it is positioned wrong, at the end of each filename), and then to use a more powerful renaming program (e.g. the multi-rename tool in Total Commander) to move that counter to the beginning of each filename.

[Gary]

To accomplish this, I use the free Bulk Rename Utility:

http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/Main_Intro.php

This program can be a bit daunting at first, but it has the most flexibility of any rename program I've encountered.  I have it linked as an external program in TP10 and TP7 with the folder name passed so I can rename from within TP.

Cheers,
Gary

[RichardBriggs]

Thanks guys. I just looked at both but neither offer me the 'lightbox' capability that Thumbsplus offers in its galleries. In fact is there ANY program that does this other than Thumbsplus? Even if Photoshop or Lightroom offers this (does it?) then you'd probably have to commit to their proprietary organiser capability. I just find the Thumbsplus facility so useful. As a matter of interest here's an example of how I use it....

Come back off holiday with 600 photos. Cut them down to the best 100. But then I need to sort them into a logical order. How do I do that in Explorer? No way. So...

Open Thumbsplus.
Create a Gallery.
Drag and drop the 100 images into the gallery.
Drag and drop individual images around until I get the order I want.
When complete, auto rename to, say, Holiday nnnn where nnnn is four digits, leading zeroes and incrementing in 10s. So

Holiday 0010
Holiday 0020
Holiday 0030
etc

Note the auto rename actually renames the original files in Explorer.

Now delete the files from the gallery as I do not actually needs a Thumbsplus Gallery.
Exit Thumbsplus
I can now sort the folder by filename and all my images are in the order I need for viewing.

So useful. But in this one exercise I am involved with the auto rename won't do what I want. Never mind.

Richard

[Daan van Rooijen]

Sorry for not being clear enough. I meant that you would still sort the images in a ThumbsPlus gallery and autorename them there. Looked at in Explorer, that would result in something like:

(ORIGFILENAME-A)001.JPG
(ORIGFILENAME-B)003.JPG
(ORIGFILENAME-C)002.JPG

And THEN you would use a 3d party tool afterwards to move the counter to the front, so you'd get a sortable list that reproduces the gallery order:

001(ORIGFILENAME-A).JPG
002(ORIGFILENAME-C).JPG
003(ORIGFILENAME-B).JPG