today we’re going to look at revising the script from the last post to make it more user friendly and robust. here was what we finished with last time :

you may need to review how that script functions before proceeding : renaming finder items IV

refining a script for optimal usability is largely a matter of asking a bunch of “what if …?” questions. what if the user does this? what if the user does that? what if the user is a thicky? etc.

we’re going to do some simple refinements :

• what if the user enters nothing in the first dialog? — we’ll give them the option to append something to the start of the filename.
• what if the user enters nothing in the second dialog? — we’ll give them the option to simply delete the ‘change from’ text from the filename.
• what if the user doesn’t fully understand what the script is going to do? — we’ll give them a confirmation message before proceeding.
• how will we know how successful the script was? — we’ll include some extra reporting at the end of the process.

first we’ll add three variables right after the first line of the script :

set mgAppend to "NUP"
set mgChanged to {}
set mgUnChanged to {}

the first is a simple switch we’ll use for an if/then statement when it comes time to actually change the filenames. the other two are empty lists that will get populated as the script processes the files. these will be the basis for the end reporting.

the next part goes straight after presenting the change from dialog. it creates another window to check what to do if the user enters nothing in the change from dialog. this is where the mgAppend variable gets switched if required :

set mgChangeFrom to text returned of mgChangeFromDialog
if mgChangeFrom is "" then
  set mgJustChecking to display dialog "So, do you want to append the new text to the front of the filename?" buttons {"No — Cancel", "Yes — Append"} default button 2
  if button returned of mgJustChecking is "No — Cancel" then
    error number -128
  else
    set mgAppend to "YEP"
  end if
end if

does that all make sense so far?

now after collecting the change from and change to data from the user and running the considering case check, we’ll have three possible scenarios (apart from the script having been cancelled) :

1. we have nothing for change from and a text string for change to (append)
2. we have a text string for both change from and change to (replace)
3. we have a text string for change from but nothing for change to (delete)

we can use those possible scenarios to build one of three possible confirmation dialogs like this :

if mgChangeTO is not "" then
  if mgAppend is "YEP" then
    set mgConfirmationText to "JUST CONFIRMING." & return & return & "Filenames will be changed so that :" & return & "      '" & mgChangeTO & "'." & return & "is appended to the front of each filename." & return & return & "IS THAT CORRECT?"
  else
    set mgConfirmationText to "JUST CONFIRMING." & return & return & "Filenames will be changed so that :" & return & "      '" & mgChangeFrom & "'" & return & "becomes" & return & "      '" & mgChangeTO & "'." & return & return & "IS THAT CORRECT?"
  end if
else
  set mgConfirmationText to "JUST CONFIRMING." & return & return & "Filenames will be changed so that :" & return & "      '" & mgChangeFrom & "'" & return & "is deleted." & return & return & "IS THAT CORRECT?" & return & return & return & "{WARNING : this change cannot be undone}"
end if

set mgConfirmation to display alert mgConfirmationText buttons {"HELL NO! STOP", "YES! Go do that thing"} default button "HELL NO! STOP" as critical
if button returned of mgConfirmation is "HELL NO! STOP" then
  error number -128
end if

the portion of the script that does the actual name changing is a bit more complicated now. it needs to allow for appending (as required) and for populating those two lists we need for reporting purposes :

tell application "Finder"
  repeat with mgitem in mgSelection
    set mgOriginalName to name of mgitem
    if mgAppend is "YEP" then
      set mgNewName to (mgChangeTO & mgOriginalName) as string
      set name of mgitem to mgNewName
      set end of mgChanged to mgOriginalName
    else
      set text item delimiters of AppleScript to mgChangeFrom
      set mgNameItems to text items of mgOriginalName
      set text item delimiters of AppleScript to ""
      set mgItemCount to count mgNameItems
      if mgItemCount is not 1 then
        set text item delimiters of AppleScript to mgChangeTO
        set mgNewName to mgNameItems as string
        set text item delimiters of AppleScript to "."
        set mgNameCheck to text item 1 of mgNewName
        set text item delimiters of AppleScript to ""
        if mgNameCheck is "" then
          display dialog "Sorry, You cannot have a file with no name at all" buttons "dammit" default button 1
          error number -128
        end if
        set name of mgitem to mgNewName
        set end of mgChanged to mgOriginalName
      else
        set end of mgUnChanged to mgOriginalName
      end if
    end if
  end repeat
end tell

and, finally, we have the reporting process. the original script simply popped up a window saying “All Done”. this version will give the user some helpful feedback :

set mgCountSelection to count mgSelection
set mgCountChanged to count mgChanged
set mgCountUnChanged to count mgUnChanged

if mgUnChanged is not {} then
  if mgCountUnChanged is less than 12 then
    set mgUnChangedList to "They are: " & return & "    "
    repeat with mgUnChangedItem in items of mgUnChanged
      set mgUnChangedList to mgUnChangedList & mgUnChangedItem & return & "    "
    end repeat
  else
    set mgUnChangedList to "Here are some of them: " & return & "    "
    repeat with x from 1 to 10
      set mgUnChangedItem to item x of mgUnChanged
      set mgUnChangedList to mgUnChangedList & mgUnChangedItem & return & "    "
    end repeat
  end if
end if

if mgCountSelection = mgCountChanged then
  set mgMessage to "All " & mgCountSelection & " files were successfully renamed."
else if mgCountSelection = mgCountUnChanged then
  set mgMessage to "Sorry, none of the " & mgCountSelection & " files were successfully renamed." & return & return & "You probably stuffed something up."
else
  set mgMessage to (mgCountChanged & " filenames were successfully renamed." & return & return & (count mgUnChanged) & " filenames were NOT changed because " & return & "they do not contain '" & mgChangeFrom & "'." & return & return & mgUnChangedList) as string
end if

display dialog mgMessage

the dialog will list the names of the unchanged files. if there are too many it will just list the first 10 :

the finished script would look something like this.

there’s a bunch of different ways to improve this script. the next post will look at changing it so that it can be activated in a number of ways (rather than only by dropping files) and how to make the finished app run MUCH faster.

til then, keep grunting.

• related post : renaming finder items : renaming using automator or applescript.
• related post : renaming finder items II : renaming by list.
• related post : renaming finder items III : renaming by creation date.