Progress of D-FileMU :
15th November 2003, 10:11 pm
Happy 1st Birthday D-FileMU! Hehe...thanks a lot to all those who have used the program and found it useful and an even bigger thank you to those who wrote to me with comments/suggestions/errors etc. New version after a lil tweaking is 1.6.7.
15th November 2003, 9:55 pm
Ack! Ron Gag emailed me with yet another error. This time, he told me that the program said 'path not found' and quit, but, the program worked perfectly for me and many others. Since the program had worked for him earlier, I was trying to think why it is not working now and guess what, the mistake was mine(as usual)!. During testing, I was outputting values into c:\temp\test.txt and I forgot to remove that bit and, am guessing Ron is the only one who did not have a temp directory and hence, the error. Fixed it. Thanks Ron!
10th November 2003, 7:46 pm
Ron Gag informed me that the zip file that is downloaded from the website could not be accessed because of some CRC error. I re-uploaded it and it worked this time...guess something went wrong during the file transfer? Added Ron's name to list of acknowledgements and besides that, I haven't had a chance to work on the program since I have a lot of work to complete this week...maybe this weekened I can get something done :)
4th November 2003, 9:30 am
Did some more testing and its working fine. Found another minor bug in the process, which was that when deleting a number of characters from filename, if length of filename is lesser, nothing is done, but, the process report does not mention this and terminates abruptly, so, adding in some explanation text for that. New version is v1.6.5 and I'm uploading this now.
3rd November 2003, 8:00 pm
Had some free time and sat down to test it and guess what, I was faced with the same errors that he was. Following the execution of the code line by line revealed the error(for bug#1) and the bug was a result of me not including a terminating condition for determining the next unique number that is to be appended to a filename during renamining if a file already exists with same filename. The fix took only 1 line of code consisting for some 50 characters. The program works great again, but, to all users who are using v1.6.0, please note that this one feature IS FAULTY and the files will not be renamed succesfully. Once I complete some more testing, I'll upload this new version and in the meantime, will remove the old version. Next time onwards, I'll keep a copy of the last working version so that in times such as this, I can swap the old version so that users can download a bug free program until the bug is fixed.
3rd November 2003, 12:00 pm
Ok...after reading through the bug report for quite some time, I found some errors reasonable and some totally weird. I used the files he sent me to create a bunch of dummy files with the same filenames and directory names he used so that I can perform some testing on it. Lets hope I can fix this quick.
2nd November 2003, 7:00 pm
WOW!!! Rodrigo Faustini, one of the users of D-FileMU after performing a lot of tests on the new version, provided me with the most detailed and thorough bug report I have ever seen. He came across about 4 different bugs and while this is not something to be happy about, I was very happy to receive such a bug report which must have taken atleast a couple of hours to put together.
30th October 2003, 10:20 pm
Yayy...its done. Made room for those 3 options in step 3...they have color now too :). Added the help text for it, and also added in command line argument. Works great!
25th October 2003, 6:55 pm
Thank god....finally...got this thing programmed in...my eyes hurt from staring at the screen so much and debugging. Seems to work find with the little testing that i've goten myself to do...will test it more later. One big drawback is going to be that you cant preview and see the numbers that will get appended...other than tht, everything seems to be ok. I thought this would take like half an hour...took me more than a couple of hours of continuous work to sift through my code and add this bit in and get it to work. Hope there are no bugs *crosses fingers*.
22nd October 2003, 3:11 pm
Hehehe...well, this is what I did to solve that problem. Earlier, if a file existed with same name, it was taken as an error and no changes were made since user had no say in it. Now, since user decides whether to overwrite or not, I decided not to treat it as an error and instead as an option. So, when the 'file already exists' error is called, I dump control back to the program with a Boolean flag turned on...based on that flag, the check whether to overwrite or not is performed there along with other actions. So, now, when it tries to overwrite, if file is protected, control gets dumped back to error trapper where it gets trapped as a protected file error. *grin*...Dunno if this is how professional programmers solve this kind of a problem, but, hey...it works :). New Version is v1.5.5
22nd October 2003, 2:56 pm
Dunno why, but, while killing old file, if file is read only, it cant delete as expected, but, it raises no error and just quietly exists the Sub and gives a success message when it shouldnt. Guess I'll have to put in a check to see if file is read only before I try to kill it and use that as an indication of success or not...sux...just more work :P
22nd October 2003, 2:47 pm
After being lazy for 2 days, started working on it again. Made a small chance to the data printed to error file. Currently working on the option to overwrite if there already exists a file with same name as the selected file would have to be renamed to. It works, but, want to add in an error checker to make sure that if they file could not be overwritten, the user is informed of it. This will surely get over by today. I'll send Rodrigo a copy to test and see if it works at his end. Ofcourse, the option not to overwrite will work by default *grin*, so, no work needed on that. Now I just need to work on the option to append a number.
19th October 2003, 6:50 pm
WOW!!! After a looooooooooooong time, I've gotten access to VB6 and was able to make a small change to Rodrigo's name listed in the 'Acknowledgements' section which has been listed as Roberto for too long...luckily, Rodrigo is nice and didnt get too mad about it :). Have to work on implementing Rodrigo's request of appending numbers to filenames when they tend to become the same as existing filenames...that should take a while coz I have to figure out how I'm gonna do that. Also have to work on implementing Lars-Onni's request of appending a random number to the filenames...that should be alil easier to implement since I have a number attatching action already in and just have to modify a bit.
12th July 2003, 2:07 am
Noticed a small bug in the program while renaming some mp3 files of mine. When capitalizing words, if the first character of the filename is a space or underscore, then the following alphabet did not get capitalized. Fixed it now. Version is now 1.5.2
4th July 2003, 11:25 am
Ok, Bert asked me to include an action to delete a section of string which is somewhere in the middle of the filename and not at the end or beginning. I need some time to work on that so for now, I have modified the replace string action to allow users to search for a given string and replace it with nothing. All you have to do is enter the search string in the corresponding textbox and for the replace string, don't enter anything. Leave it blank with not even a space in it.
1st July 2003, 7:07 pm
Wow...found a MEGA flaw in the command line argument section when specifying files by means of extensions (/FE argument). I was actually looking into how to modify the program to accept '*.' as a valid extension to denote files without any extension. As I was going through the code and starting writing this bit in, it seemed as if by default it was taking *. to denote files without any extension. Tried it through the GUI and sure enough, it worked. Deleted all the extra coding I did and was pretty happy but then, when I started to check using the command line argument to see why it did not work there, I found out that I can't use the '|' Pipe symbol as a valid seperator in the command line. It gives some error just because I used the pipe symbol. Which means, you can never specify more than 1 directory or more than 1 file extension. If you did, the program would exit because of some error like invalid directory etc. How come none of the users who use the command line argument find such a big mistake? Thats because only those who use the /FE switch would ever have to use the pipe symbol and most rarely used it to specify more than 1 directory. They did specify more than 1 file extension like Rodrigo Faustini, but he gave *.* first followed by *. and the program would happily take in *.* and work with it and reject all extensions that followed and thats why even he asked me to add in a feature to recognize *. as a format and did not report it as a bug. *grin*. Anywayz, thanks a lot Rodrigo for helping me find this problem out intentionally or not ;) and sorry to all who might have not been able to use the /FE switch properly in the past :(. I hope not to make such mistakes in the future...but even if I did, I hope you guys will help me find it like this time *wink*
1st July 2003, 6:42 pm
Just started working on some changes requested by Rodrigo Faustini when I found a small bug which was that the process.txt and error.txt files got deleted by the program when the command line argument /SU was used even though the help files say that it will be created and even though thats how I meant it to be *grin*. Well, fixed that. Now, even if /SU is used, the process.txt and error.txt files will remain created so that you can see what it has done etc.
28th March 2003, 7:08 pm
I would like to apologize to all users who e-mailed me during the past two months and got no replies. I was stuck with a project required to complete my curernt studies and completed it succesfully on the 26th *grin*. I shall get to replying right away and hope you guys continue to email me :). New version is now 1.4.2 and has nothing new done except addition of names of recent users who emailed me about the program.
1st February 2003, 7:43 pm
Thanks to Gerry Danen for spotting a minor bug that reports what actions and the values entered incorrectly in the final step where the list of selected actions is summarised for checking.Current version is now 1.4.1
20th January 2003, 5:18 pm
Finally, finished broken numbering for even method also. Fixed a bug in command line arg for numbering. Added the option of specifying broken numbers thru command line also. Included broken numbering in help text. Tested it like crazy :P. So, Will upload it now since it is all done n working. Oh and, the Step 1 screen is now evenly divided into 2 halves as suggested by Mick Kohut. New Version is now 1.4
16th January 2003, 8:24 pm
Ok. After quite a lot of painful debugging, I got broken numbering to work for normal numbering for any method of file selection used. So thats half over. Have to do it for even numbering too and should manage to finish it by tonight.
16th January 2003, 5:02 pm
Wheeeeeee! It sure has been a long time since I have worked on the program. Have a lot of changes to be made that were requested and am really lagging behind :(. Anywayz, made a small one which makes the actions list box and the description
of selected action textbox of same width as suggested by Mick Kohut. Also, made the step buttons smaller and reduced the gap between them and the seperating lines so as to make room to add the extra controls for a new feature suggested by Gerry Danen. Am working on that now. It will allow users to perform broken numbering of files. So, if user already has files numbered till say 35 and needs a new bunch of files numbered 36 onwards, it is currently not possible. With provision of broken numbering, user can specify from whcih number to start. While there seems to be ample space to add controls in the 'Add numbers' action, try viewing on a smaller monitor or a lesser resolution and watch that gap get filled up. One thing I really try hard to maintain is the ability of this program to work on varying systems...so, lets see how it goes :).
8th January 2003, 1:37 pm
Ok, after several unsuccesful attempts, I finally got the ' use last directory' code written as requested by Gerry Danen. So now, whenever you perform some actions on files, the last directory you viewed while choosing files is saved in the registry under 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/dimbu/d-filemu/' and the next time you run the program and move to step 2 to select files, it reads that value and sets that directory in the drive and directory box. Version is now 1.3.5
7th January 2003, 8:55 pm
Completed adding an action requested by Gerry Danen which allows user to completely get rid of original filename so that they can make changes such as adding strings, numbers etc and it'll be as creating a new filename. This gets rid of the problem in how users had to do it earlier which was counting number of characters in filename and entering that in the 'delete n characters' action. This also gets rid of above problem when multiple files having varying length of filenames occurs. Finished adding the code and help text and command line arg. Just have testing to be done. Should get over by tonight. New version is now 1.3.1
7th January 2003, 8:18 pm
Found a minor bug in process file where the action results displayed did not coincide with the actual number. This happened because of my introducing actions in between previous ones and I forgot to make the change in the process file code. Fixed it.
2nd January 2003, 8:47 pm
Ok, just finished adding another action. Add +a (Archive attribute) to files. When I first wrote the program I thought this was a waste because i figured noone even uses it. But I was reading some stuff and there I found out that even programs like Winzip use the archive attribute to backup files and old dos command the XCOPY which i used to use long back also uses archive attribute to copy files with that flag set only etc. So, there might still be some users who use this system of archiving and since it didn't take much to add it, here it is :). Current program version is 1.2.20
2nd January 2003, 6:54 pm
HAH!!!...I'm guessing noone noticed this because noone probably used it...but I had a problem in the make file +r,+h where setting any of these attributes would erase off all previous attributes and set this. So if file was hidden and you selected to make it +r, you would expect file to now become +r +h but instead it becomes +r while stripping away the +h attribute. I didn't know that setting attributes would not append to existing list and would enforce this as the new attributes. So now have added reading files existing attribute status and appending what attributes user requested. so a file which is +h when made read only will become +r +h as expected.
2nd January 2003, 6:21 pm
Got a lot of suggestions from Gerry Danen today. Implemented one of them now which allows user to save all settings including actions choosen and the values entered for them and files choosen etc so that if user wants to just make a few minor changes and use all those settings again, they can and if the user wants to thrash all the settings, he can do that also which will do what the program used to do normally and reset all values to default.
1st January 2003, 5:59 pm
Wow...lot of bugs found :P...lot of fixes made. All began when I decided to add in another action suggested 'Completely rename filename'. Started working on it and while testing I found out that the last modification i had done to make those case sensitive and non-case sensitive options position proper had misfired and ended up blocking the textbox where you enter the string to replace to. I missed it completely. anywayz, that is taken care of. Next up, made old mistakes in some other command line arguments where i accepted strings etc with space as seperating character which is stupid and so I changed all that to Asterix '*'. Thennnn...i added that new action, 'Completely rename file'. lot more bugs which I can't explain have been fixed :P. So now its a much better working copy with new action added :). New version is 1.2.15
1st January 2003, 2:45 pm
Ok, as suggested by Gerry Danen, now the program will allow you use either ' Delete first N characters' or 'Delete last N characters' to remove all characters contained in the filename as long as some other actions add something to that empty filename like 'Add string to beginning', 'Add string to End', 'Add Numbers to End', 'Add Numbers to Beginning', 'Change File Extension'. If after deleting all characters of filename, there have been no characters added to the filename and if extension also remains same, program reverts back to original filename and takes it as no changes have been done. If you had deleted all characters and changed only file extension, then program uses old filename and new file extension. New version is 1.1.14
1st January 2003, 1:36 am
Thank you Gerry Danen for finding out a bug which doesn;t add numbers evenly when files are choosen by 'File Extensions' method. Fixed it and will upload it soon. Another change was requested by the same user to allow deleting all characters of filenamee as long as something will be added in later actions. Will work on that tomorrow maybe. but am uploading this copy with fixed even numbering now. New version is hence 1.1.13
27th December 2002, 7:00 pm
Made another minor change after Clive spotted that in the 'replacing strings' action, the case sensitive and non-case sensitive search options were way low and would overlap on the 'actions description' textbox on some computers. New version is now 1.1.12
26th December 2002, 11:30 pm
Had a user with a complaint that changing file extensions of a number of files in a number of directories did not work. User was using v1.0.25 and when i tested with latest version, it worked. But, user found another program to do the job. That should teach me to update my program on all websites i have posted it so that the latest version is always available for download.
26th December 2002, 7:42 pm
HOORAYY!!! command line feature is now implemented and working perfectly :). Ran into a lot of trouble and the adding files by extension methods has become real complicated with all the * and ? and |...lol...oh well, I guess only a few users will be using command line feature and those guys would be able to figure it out :) Wrote the help section also...just about to upload it now.
26th December 2002, 12:10 am
yayyy...finally tested and fixed and got the command line feature working except for the /s(suppress) switch. will have to test that a lot and then its done. Looks like I might be able to make my 26th deadline after all ;).
25th December 2002, 5:20 pm
Wow...talk about pressure. Promising to make this command line feature work by tomorrow was a bad idea. I have almost completed it, only a little bit more coding and then a lot of testing to be done, but, while testing the command line feature, I found a MAJOR flaw in the 'Add number to Beggining/End' actions where the Even numbering system does not work AT ALL. I'm suprised noone found out this fault yet. Anywayz, spent more than 2 straight hours staring at my old code trying to figure out what I had written and what was going wrong and trying to fix it. I managed to fix it, but now am so tired of staring at my screen that I'm going to go take a long hot bath. Tonight is going to be one long night in trying to make this command line feature done and uploading it. *sigh*
23rd December 2002, 6:00 pm
After getting another small extension, I am trying real hard to complete the command line argument feature by the 26th. As suggested by Mick Kohut, I have made the 'Back' button to appear to the left of the 'Proceed' button. He has also asked that I add an option to completely rename the filenames of the selected files. Although the chances that someone would want to rename all selected files that exist in diff. locations into the same filename is rare, i figured that if someone is using this program to make changes to filenames and need to rename even a single file, i should allow them to do so from the program itself rather than have them to use windows explorer or some other software to do it and then return to my program to continue making changes coz thats just a pain :).
20th December 2002, 7:00 pm
Had to take a break away from the program to complete a section of my Object recognition program. And I need this weeked to do some work on my D-RadCap project as I have to show some progress on monday to the company. Will continue with this program from wednesday.
15th December 2002, 3:41 am
Damn thing is driving me crazy...Its taking me forever to figure out what variable is what and where it is used etc. Thats what I get for not commenting my program and just adding variables whenever i needed them.
9th December 2002, 11:20 pm
Ok, new version is 1.0.33 and the minor errors encountered while using the action 'Capitalize Words' was fixed after being notified by Bert van Velsen. I also re-wrote the whole function and tested it properly to make sure no more errors arise from it. Have made a minor change in the 'Step 3' screen where along with the actions choosen list it also shows the values entered. Am still working on the command line argument support. Will take me some more time.
6th December 2002, 6:15 pm
Uploading new version 1.0.26 which has the changes mentioned below done except for the command line version which I am still working on. Am also adding this file to the program so that users can see whats the difference between their old version and current version.
3rd December 2002, 9:31 pm
Have removed displaying of preview for filenames that were not changed after performing the actions and also removed a waste operation of renaming a file with the same filename when it is not unchanged. Both of the above changes were done after they were pointed out by Bert van Velsen. Also fixed a runtime error that occurs when user switches from 'Help' to 'Step 3' after performing changes. Thanks to the 'The Tucows Review Staff' for finding that error and pointing it out to me. Made changes to the tooltip text of most of the listboxes so that it displays what you have selected...this helps when the selected value has more characters than that can be displayed. Currently am working on implementing a request made by Chad Langston to make the program to accept command line arguments containing actions to be performed and the files on which to perform them on.
21st November 2002, 9:00 pm
After receiving some suggestions from Bert van Velsen, I have added a new action which will Capitalize Words and have also gotten rid of the startup disclaimer form and have also used a freeware executable files compressor program UPX to greatly reduce the size of the exe file from 440 KB to 73KB. Am waiting for the next email loaded with suggestions so that I can change the program to improve it.
19th November 2002, 1:00 am
Complete! Finally...its done...including help n all...was it a pain to complete or what :P...glad this is over with...now onto d-emlmge.
11th November 2002, 2:18 am
Got the program colored...got the code working...got people testing it...everything is set...now I just have to write the help stuff...the part i dread the most....am leaving it for now...coz its just too damn booring. am starting santosh's program in the meantime.
10th November 2002, 7:47 pm
Yayyy...all coding complete...works just fine. Have distributed it among a few friends to test it and tell me if they find any bugs or if they have any suggestions or ideas. Just adding some error trapping now and adding controls for step 3...its almost done :)
9th November 2002, 11:50 pm
Great...turns out that modifying the filenames as soon as I get them from the recursive search of the directories ain't all that great an idea after all. The dir function starts picking out modified files as new files added to the directory and hence some filenames will be thrown thru the list of actions for a second time which changes the output from required one. Planning on doing the recursive search and outputting all filenames into a text file and then read the file and modify the files. But, some good news though...mon ami Soumya has agreed to save the users of the program from the default windows grey n grey combo and add some colors to the controls.
9th November 2002, 5:00 am
Okkk...wrote code for first 7 actions. Tested it on a couple of files and fixed some problems...seems to be working fine.
Will do the +r/-r and numbering stuff tomorrow. Also planning on adding following actions +h/-h, Change extension of filenames.
8th Novemver 2002, 4:40 am
Yayyy...santosh replied with what changes to be made etc. Finished them all and finally steps 1 n 2 are complete. Started writing the code for the actions. 12 more days to go by when I should finish this...hopefully it'll be a lot sooner...hope to complete by the 15th of november and under 600kb :)
6th November 2002, 12:30 am
Both steps sorta complete...only small coding here n there...sent it to santosh for checking and for his views and comments. Waiting for his reply to see what to change etc and once thats done, its code code code time.
5th November 2002, 3:45 am
Finally, added the controls for the 10 actions I started with...so I guess step 1 can be called complete. Need to just work on the second step and then comes the coding bit :)
4th November 2002, 2:45 am
Started adding the controls associated with each action...like for the replace 'string1' with 'string2' action i need to get the 2 strings. Also writing in the description of each action which would be displayed when the user clicks on it. Hope to get this done before 4 am when Diwali starts...oh and, Happy Diwali!
3rd November 2002, 6:25 pm
Santosh finally returned from salem and replied to my email!!!...and he was right...so, am ditching the tree view and going for a simple list box with checkbox style. Since I am getting rid of treeview, decided to get rid of statusbar control also as then user will need only msvbvm60.dll to run the program and won't need to have mscomctl.ocx on their system and hence save download time/size.
1st November 2002, 3:20 pm
started working on step 2...decided to allow user to choose how they want to select files and give em option of entering extensions or choosing files individually or a combination of both. added all controls for first option and added the basic code to it. need to get the other 2 working!
31st October 2002, 5:23 pm
Got the idea to write this program after having to again write a program to add a leading '0' to all the pictures i scanned in. Decided i'll make this once n for all and add in other features which i might have written use n throw programs for and stuff which might come in useful...lets see how it goes.