Well, that’s too bad – why don’t programmers check the competition before even starting their design project?

In Ascompsoftware F-Rename, we can’t select a series of files holding the shift or ctrl keys, we must select each file separately … so a long list of files is arduous to sift through.

We can’t select files by existing pattern, or by nested directories, but only by finding the files in each directory and adding them manually to the queue.

We can’t untoggle a problematic file, once we see the preview, we must go back a screen or two, and untoggle the file, if we can remember it or all of the problematic files, then move forward a few screens, losing the reference to what we were looking at.

This presents as a series of screen where we lose what decisions we made as each new screen presentation moves us forward in the renaming file selection, renaming pattern selection process, preview results, then … I never let it touch the files, I exited, it was such an uncontrollable, blind mess.

Amazingly unsophisticated, as if this is an academic programing exercise to a teaching assignment to learn a handful of tools, not a user experience-based design, not refined by hands-on daily use by actual people renaming actual files.

This requires us going back and forth between a setup file renaming screen, to a “this is the result screen”, if we don’t like the proposed results, we go back, lose the ability to see the results, and then we play with the renaming variables again, then we go to the proposed results screen again, then we lose the ability to see the editing variables, and back and forth, and so on.

Can we save the finalized pattern for reuse?

Can we undo a mistake?

Registration is silly, and the full version permission is a replacement, so why send the trial version at all?

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Free alternatives with live dynamic preview:

– 1-4a Rename, all on ONE SCREEN, select files by patterns and directories, select name changes by patterns, see proposed results live, great for files, has dynamic cruncher capability to shorten filenames that are too long, has immediate undo.

– Advanced Renamer, all on ONE SCREEN, select files by patterns and directories, select name changes by patterns, see proposed results live, can rename directories, too, shuffle the order of renaming patterns, has smarts to look in music files and photo metadata and other file metadata information and use that as part of the file name, such as remove commas first, then capitalize, no, capitalize first, then remove commas, and can save patterns for reuse so I can name files such as patterns for each camera I use without having to recreate the pattern, can copy patterns between computers, immediate undo.

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So, folks, what are YOUR favorite alternatives, so we can show Ascompsoftware programmers where to START?

Thanks for letting us explore this and share.
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Process is not as described: they give a link to download… a version valid for 6 months and not lifetime (since they do not provide a license code!). So do they lie?

[@Peter Blaise] Thanks Peter for another insightful review that can help developer(s) and the rest of us. I have used 1-4a Rename for over 10 years, very handy for big renaming tasks. I also have Advanced Renamer, but don’t remember using it. Thanks for the reminder on that one, it has some very helpful features.

One renaming tool that’s very different from all others I’ve tried is Oscar’s Renamer Pro, from MediaChance. It shows all or some files in a folder, and you can edit them just like a text document with typing, copy/paste, search & replace, macros to repeat a change (record a sequence like: find “_”, move 5 characters right, delete 3 characters, insert “@”). It even has a built-in scripting language. Once you’ve made your changes, click to apply them. You can also click an icon filenames to change them one at a time. Save/load macros. Very powerful and easy to work with, for challenging renaming situations or even when there are a handful and you don’t to figure it with some other tool. It’s not free ($32 for all PCs in your home) but it’s free to try with no restrictions. And Oscar is a nice chap.

this supporting full fledged offline registration without whatever internet connecting??

Thank you! I just Installed it. Great giveaways!