Perhaps it started as a challenge to write the most boring piece of image-related software imaginable...

Renamer.EXE is a (2 minute download) Windows 95/NT software that looks at all the .JPEG/.JPG files in a folder (that start with H or V or H+ or V+) and renames them with compact numbers. The original long filenames go into a text file in the same directory. The compact filenumbers fit beautifully under small thumbnails that you may be printing out from Qimage or Thumber. It's the cool way to make a fully-packed "contact sheet" of 20 to 80 images on a piece of paper, with an easy-to-communicate code number that fits beneath each tiny image.

Before Renamer: c:\counties co\Pendleton p\Woolfest w\2000 b\H Kid cry.jpg c:\counties co\Pendleton p\Woolfest w\2000 b\H Kid cry far.jpg c:\counties co\Pendleton p\Woolfest w\2000 b\V+Kid cry.jpg c:\accomodations ac\HoJo h\1999 a\V ext day Sam Dean.jpeg c:\accomodations ac\HoJo h\1999 a\V ext day Sam Deena.jpeg After: H copwb# 001-00.jpg H copwb# 002-00.jpg V+copwb# 003-00.jpg (plus textfile "copwb# counties co-pendleton p-woolfest w-2000 b.txt") V acha## 001-99.jpeg V acha## 002-99.jpeg (plus textfile "acha## accomodations ac-HoJo h-1999 a.txt")

You can run Renamer "backwards" and restore the long filenames from the special textfile back onto the images, thus throwing away the compact filenames.

The H and V thing? Contact sheets are packed most efficiently with images when all the horizontals are printed in a group, followed by the verticals. So Renamer does not mess with the H or V prefix (in fact it insists upon it), and the resultant filenames make fully-packed contact sheets when printed in alphabetical order from within QImage (for example). I suppose I could make the H or V prefix customizable for non-English users-but then why bother? It's a gift horse...

I will give this software (written in the time-saving www.winbatch.com programming language) away free for your unlimited personal use (but not for you to give to anyone else), if enough people bother reading through all this and respond to motivate me to figure out how to publish it somewhere. Hmm, maybe Imaging Resource already has a free download area I don't know about yet.

-- Russell Bozian (finaldesign@hotmail.com), March 25, 2000

Answers

I really think you should. And I would love a copy.

-- Joshua Banton (ashitaka@adelphia.net), February 19, 2002.