major wart: rename tokens aren't the same as DL Pro

[nigeldh]

A major wart for me is that rename tokens aren't the same between BreezeBrowser Pro and Downloader Pro.

Also Download Pro has the {file[n-m]} etc token which I can use multiple times to slice and dice the original file name. Especially handy if I screw up the file name and need to rearrange it.
My experience with %[n-m] is that it can only be used once.

Otherwise, BB Pro is a great product and has great customer support i.e. the issue with JPGs not being rotated in a CR2 + JPEG pair.

[DavidB]

Maximum commonality is obviously desirable. But BB Pro and DL Pro deal with different datasets:

There is data that BB Pro can read (e.g.IPTC data) which does not exist until after the download at the earliest, and which therefore DL Pro will not see. To more limited extent, the converse is also true; for instance, DL Pro can read folder numbers ({q}) for my 5D from the CF card, but this information is not saved in EXIF, and so is not available to BB Pro;
DL Pro deals with two datasets (images not yet downloaded and images already downloaded), while BB Pro deals with only one.

Differences of this kind mean that the token sets for the two programs will inevitably be different; commonality has to be considered on a case-by-case basis. They also mean that similar tokens will work differently in the two programs. In the case you mention; DL Pro is creating a new file name, while BB Pro is modifying an existing one.

[Chris Breeze]

DLPro's tokens concentrate on things like time/date, camera model etc. whereas BBPro's tokens cover a much broader range to support batch rename, HTML generation, captions etc. Before DLPro v2.0 the tokens had a % prefix similar to some of BBPro's batch rename tokens and where possible they shared the same tokens. The differing requirements for DLPro and BBPro made it impossible for them to use identical tokens and over time they have diverged somewhat. The % prefix also had limitations when adding variants of tokens and so in DLPro v2.0 it was changed to {token} instead %token. A lot of care was taken to make sure that the old tokens were automatically updated when upgrading to DLPro v2.0.

BBPro's %[n-m] batch rename token works in exactly the same way as DLPro's {file[n-m]} token and you can use it more than once to extract parts of the filename e.g %[1-2]_%[-2] will extract the first two and last two characters of the filename. The proposed new substring tokens for BBPro ({left,n,str}, {mid,n,m,str}, {right,n,str} {first,str} and {last,str}) should greatly enhance the flexibility for renaming, captioning etc. as 'str' can be a token, not just the original filename that %[n-m] uses.

[nigeldh]

Thanks for the update Chris and Dave. I will try "%[1-2]_%[-2] will extract the first two and last two characters of the filename" again in BBPro. As I remember it, I was trying to do that to the original file name but the slice and dice did not seem to be working for me.

As we say in computer tech support: take two reboots and call us back; reinstall twice and call us back; apply two patches and call us back. grin

[Chris Breeze]

Thanks for the update Chris and Dave. I will try "%[1-2]_%[-2] will extract the first two and last two characters of the filename" again in BBPro. As I remember it, I was trying to do that to the original file name but the slice and dice did not seem to be working for me.

Batch renaming using %[1-2]_%[-2] appears to work correctly on my system. The next release should be available as a beta soon and will include the new tokens. These tokens are also available in DLPro v2.2 beta 1, released yesterday.


As we say in computer tech support: take two reboots and call us back; reinstall twice and call us back; apply two patches and call us back. grin
I thought the standard reply was to reinstall Windows. This usually fixes most problems and if it doesn't it will at least keep them off your back for several days. Actually, I bit the bullet last week and re-installed Windows XP on a laptop and it's now running so much better than before.