renameutils - File renaming utilities
=====================================

The file renaming utilities (renameutils for short) are a set of programs
designed to make renaming of multiple files faster and less cumbersome.

The file renaming utilities consists two program at the moment, with another
one in the planning stages. These programs are `qmv' and `imv'. The first
one, qmv, allows files to be renamed by editing their names in any text
editor. By changing a letter in a text document, a letter in a filename can
be changed. Since the files are listed after each other, common changes can
be made more quickly.

The second program, imv ("interactive mv"), is trivial but useful when you
are too lazy to type (or even complete) the name of the file to rename. It
allows the filename to be edited in the terminal using the GNU readline
library. (This is also useful when renaming files in Midnight Commander,
where the whole filename has to be entered again.)

The file renaming utilities are written in C by Oskar Liljeblad, and is free
software licensed under terms of the GNU General Public License.

Note that this program comes with no warranty whatsoever. It should be
considered beta quality although I have carefully tested it and verified
the code. This means that I can not be responsible for any data loss
caused by the file renaming utilities. If you are afraid that is going
to happen, run qmv in dummy mode first (see below).

Copyright and License
=====================

The file renaming utilities (renameutils) are copyright
(C) 2001 Oskar Liljeblad.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA  02111-1307  USA

Requirements
============

The following programs are required for proper operation of renameutils:

* GNU C Library (libc6) 2.0 or later
  All renameutils programs use GNU-specific extensions to the C library.

* GNU Readline Library (libreadline) 2.1 or later
  Both qmv and imv use readline.

* GNU fileutils
  The imv program invokes `mv'.

Installation
============

Compile the renameutils by running `configure' and then `make'. This should
produce executables in the src directory, which can be used right away.

If you want to install the renameutils on your system, run `make
install'. This will copy the executables and the man pages into the
appropriate directories (usually /usr/local/bin and
/usr/local/share/man/man1, respecively).

For further details regarding `configure' and `make', see the INSTALL file.

Usage
=====

A list of options that each program accepts can be displayed by running it
with the --help option:

  $ qmv --help
  $ imv --help

Please consult the manual page for each program for full usage information.
These documents can usually be viewed this way:

  $ man ./qmv.1
or
  $ man -l qmv.1

To rename a file using imv, use

  $ imv FILENAME

To rename files in the current directory using qmv, use

  $ qmv
or use the interactive mode of qmv:
  $ qmv -i

I use imv and qmv in my user menu in Midnight Commander. The following
lines are in my ~/.mc/menu file:

q	qmv
	qmv .

Q	qmv wide
	qmv -owidth=120 .

r	mv
	imv %f

Homepage
========

The latest version of the file renaming utilities can be downloaded from

  http://www.student.lu.se/~nbi98oli/

Feedback
========

The author of the file renaming utilities and this document, Oskar
Liljeblad, can be reached via email:

  oskar@osk.mine.nu
  
Please send bug reports, suggestions, ideas or comments in general to me.

Known bugs
==========

The imv program defaults to -i (--interactive) unlike mv which defaults
to -f (--force). This means that imv will ask before overwriting files.
At the moment there's no way to change this.

Possible things to do
=====================

Please see the TODO document.

-
