10-10-2018, 10:11 PM
Hi Joe. What you were saying about the naming convention of your audio files, on your "How I Manage Music with Ubuntu Linux" video (see 15:27 onwards), have you tried pyRenamer which is available in the 18.04 repositories? It allows you to batch rename files in seconds. Even your vast collection would just take a few seconds to rename. However, BE CAREFUL! as it's a very powerful, and indiscriminate program. Make sure you set up the output/results that want properly or you could end up with a massive mess. Best to copy a few folders first to a temporary test location, and try it out on that first before committing yourself to the final renaming. I did deliberately rename three music files of my own with random years followed by a hyphen (no space preceding or following) and then the file name, and then under the "substitute" tab (see screenshot attached), setup pyRenamer to rename them with year <space> hyphen <space> filename, and it worked flawlessly. I entered in the first box "-" (no quotes), and in the second box "<space> - <space>" (no quotes or words space). You can also preview the result before you commit to any changes, and this program works on files or directories or both recursively. Give it a try, but do copy a bunch of files to a temporary folder and have a practice with them first. Oh, I almost forgot, this app works with any kind of file, not just audio files. 
