Add native support for using a bulk renaming tool.

[mtwebster]

This allows the normal method of renaming a file launch a bulk
renamer if one is configured and multiple files are selected.

Ported from nemo.

[mbkma]

Thanks! It is very handy to have bulk rename built in. However, a few comments:

• I do not think it is a good idea that the user has to enter a command manually in caja-preferences. The bulk rename tool should be automatically detected by the code, or hardcoded (such as in mate-panel window list applet).
• It is currently possible to enter any command, so e.g. atril will open two instances of atril instead of renaming. This should be avoided.

I tested it with the thunar bulk renamer ( thunar --bulk-rename ) it works fine.

[mtwebster]

Hi, thanks for the feedback -

1 - I'm not sure why we shouldn't allow the user to define the bulk renamer - this allows them to use whichever one they prefer - there are a number of them out there. A default can always be defined in the settings gschema file, as well as overridden by distributions. At the very least the setting should exist, even if you'd prefer not to have it in the preferences ui.

2 - We can't detect what is a bulk renamer and what isn't. Of course the user can put anything in there, but I think you have to give them some benefit of the doubt and assume they won't enter something in there that isn't actually a bulk renamer.

Thank you

[mbkma]

Yep, I think just a gsettings key with a default is perfect. No need to expose this to the user in the preferences ui.

For convenience you could try to find some hard coded bulk-rename-tools. Maybe sth like this works:

static const char* bulk_rename_tools[] = {
	"bulky",
        ...
};

int i;
gchar *progname;
for (i = 0; i < G_N_ELEMENTS(bulk_rename_tools); i++)
{
    if ((progname = g_find_program_in_path(bulk_rename_tools[i])) != NULL);
    {
         g_free(progname);
         break;
    }
}

if (i < G_N_ELEMENTS(bulk_rename_tools))
    g_settings_set(settings, "bulk-rename-tool", "^ay", bulk_rename_tools[i]);

[mtwebster]

I removed the preferences ui portion of this, and added some hardcoded renamers to check in addition to the gsettings key. If there are any popular ones I missed let me know and I'll add them.

[mbkma]

Thanks a lot! In a quick test everything works fine.

[mbkma]

this i can be in the for-loop

[mtwebster]

I cleaned up the legacy code a bit (I should in nemo also), though I'm not really keen on declaring i in the loop init - it's not consistent with the rest of caja (and personally I think it worsens readability, but I'm old and blind).

[lukefromdc]

What is the status of this given the issues Mint had with Bulky?

[mtwebster]

That issue isn't relevant - it was a problem with the pinned caja version in Mint, and its hardcoded use of bulky. I reviewed this PR since then to be sure, but it already guards against that problem.

[lukefromdc]

What is the status of this? Are people still interested in working on it, should we close it, or something else?