Re: Global Find and Replace
Re: Global Find and Replace
- Subject: Re: Global Find and Replace
- From: Christopher Nebel <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 26 Oct 2005 14:27:15 -0700
On Oct 26, 2005, at 2:16 PM, Dana Hill wrote:
On Oct 26, 2005, at 4.23 PM, Brett Brooks wrote:
I need to change two characters in over 500 folder/document names.
Is there some sort of applescript that I can use to do this?
Specifically, I need to remove the " mark from several folders/
document titles.
I am a COMPLETE newbie, so any help is appreciated.
You will probably get more/better responses from a few members of
this list, but OS X includes a whole host of basic, yet often quite
useful, AppleScripts in the following folder...
Users/[username]/Library/Scripts/
'Replace Text in Item Names.scpt' is probably just the script
you're looking for. If you don't find it on your system, send me an
e-mail off list, and I'll send you the file.
Actually, that one will be in /Library/Scripts/Finder Scripts. You
can turn on Script Menu (see /Applications/AppleScript/AppleScript
Utility) to give you a menu command to trigger it.
Alternatively, you could forget about AppleScript (for now) and go
use Automator instead. AppleScript is great when you need highly
custom behavior and complete control, but for common-ish tasks like
this, Automator is a lot simpler. What you're describing is
basically two actions in Automator: Get Selected Finder Items (or
maybe Get Specified), followed by Rename Finder Items.
If you need to do the exact same replacement for months on end, you
can save a complete workflow as a canned thing; press one button and
it runs. However, you can also use it to add new commands to the
Finder:
1. In the Finder, control-click on an item (any item, really) and
pick Automator > Create Workflow.
2. Automator launches and makes a new document for you with a Get
Specified Finder Items action. Remove that action. (Click the "x"
in the action's "title bar".)
3. Add a Rename Finder Items action. When it asks you about adding a
Copy action before it, select Don't Add. (This action can do a
number of different things; if you have a usual one, like replacing
text, pick it now.)
4. Turn down the Options triangle and check Show When Run.
5. Save -- you'll get a Save Plug-in As dialog; name it something
like "Bulk Rename".
Congratulations, you now have a Bulk Rename command in the Finder!
Select the items you want to munge, control-click, pick Automator >
Bulk Rename, and you'll get a dialog asking you how you want to
rename them. The same technique can be applied to much more complex
workflows, of course.
--Chris Nebel
AppleScript and Automator Engineering
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