renameutils: Underappreciated tools

I think I mentioned qmv, part of the renameutils package, a long while ago, but never said anything about what it was or what it did.

That’s an unkind thing, because qmv in particular is something I use quite often.

qmv relies on your $EDITOR to give you a left-and-right display of file names. Edit the column on the right, and when you exit the editor, the changes will be applied.

For my own part, I usually use the --format=destination-only option, because except with very long lists, there’s little need for me to see the old file name.

It also occasionally gets in the way of search-and-replace efforts within vim.

Just as an example of what I use this for, look back at the old exiftool gimmick. Those files get renamed according to their exif data, with the old file names smushed up against the new.

With qmv I can quickly arrange any leftover files, add or remove other information, do whatever I like in vim, and when I exit, the changes are applied.

Pretty simple, and in most cases, hard to mess up.

Now if I was clever, I’d figure out a way to use this with pip. 🙂