Name Mangler has a relatively simple Settings panel, as seen here:
Here's what each of these settings do…
On startup
Use this pop-up to control what Name Mangler does when you open it. By default, it simply opens a blank window, ready for you to use. Click the On startup pop-up menu, though, and you can choose from two additional options:
If you select Populate…, Name Mangler will launch and then display the standard macOS Open file dialog. If you choose Populate with Finder selection, then Name Mangler will load whatever you've selected in Finder into the Name Mangler file list.
If you're using the direct sales version of Name Mangler, and you're a Path Finder user, hold down the Option key to change this second menu item to Populate with Path Finder Selection.
Renaming
Skip invisible files Invisible files will not be shown in the file browser; as such, they won't be subject to any renaming actions.
Regular expressions ignore whitespace When checked (the default), Name Mangler's regular expression engine operates in free-spacing mode, which ignores whitespace. In this mode, you must escape whitespace if you want to capture it, i.e. string\ to\ find. Uncheck this box to switch Name Mangler to "whitespace matters" mode, which doesn't require escaping whitespace.
Name Mangler uses Apple's regular expression API. This API, in turn, uses the ICU pattern syntax for regular expressions. We have extended this syntax to include case conversion (e.g. \U) as in PCRE.
Common prefix ignores irrelevant characters When using the common prefix metadata constant, Name Mangler will ignore the following trailing characters in the common prefix: whitespace and all of these characters: -_0.,;([{<.
Make resulting filenames unique if necessary By default, if you set up a renaming operation that would result in duplicate filenames, Name Mangler will alert you by showing a red circled 'x' next to the affected filenames, indicating that those files would not be renamed. (See View File Information for more on the red circled 'x' and other indicators in the file list area.)
If you check this preference, though, Name Mangler will automatically add a unique sequence number to filenames that would otherwise be duplicates in your renaming operations.
Ask for confirmation before renaming When you click Name Mangler's rename button, you'll see an "are you sure?" dialog prior to the renaming operation:
Uncheck this preference, and you'll no longer get the warning dialog. (Checking the "Don't ask again" box in the dialog itself is the same as unchecking this preference.)
Clear list after renaming This preference is unchecked by default; check it, and Name Mangler will clear out the filenames after you perform a renaming operation.
If you enable this preference, you will not be able to use File → Revert menu option to undo your last-performed renaming operating.
History
This preference controls how many of your prior renaming operations Name Mangler remembers in its History feature. Click the pop-up menu to see the available choices:
As you can see by the check mark, the default is to remember your last 50 operations, but you can choose anywhere between none (Disabled) and an infinite (Unlimited) number of operations. As expected, "Clear on quit" will remove your renaming history when you quit Name Mangler.
Appearance
List files on This preference controls the appearance of the file list; you can choose between dark gray and white backgrounds:
Show preview when This preference controls how Name Mangler displays its file previews; choose clicking (the default) to only show previews when clicking on a file's icon in the file list. If you prefer easier previews, set this option to hovering, and previews will appear without any clicking action on your part.
The final preference above the divider bar, Quit when the main window is closed, makes Name Mangler behave (when this setting is enabled) like System Settings or Photos: the program will quit when you close its window.
Save Presets and Snippets in…
This pop-up menu controls where Name Mangler saves its Presets and Advanced mode code snippets. Depending on where you bought Name Mangler, you'll see one of two things here:
- App Store version: The default value is Name Mangler's container, which is where sandboxed applications store their user settings. You'll find this container in your user's Library > Containers folder, as a folder named Name Mangler. (In prior versions of macOS, this folder will be named com.manytricks.namemangler.MAS3.)
- Direct sales version: The default value is the Application Support folder, in which you'll find (after saving at least one preset or snippet) a Name Mangler folder.
If you use Name Mangler on multiple Macs, and want to share presets and/or snippets across your Macs, you can do so by changing the value of this pop-up menu. Read below for the how-to.
You can change the storage location to any folder on your system via the Choose… menu item—and there's a good reason why you might want do to that: Name Mangler can take advantage of third-party file-level synchronizing solutions to share your presets and snippets across Macs. Here's how to set up such synchronizing.
- Set up your Macs to use the same file-level synchronizing service. Name Mangler has been tested with both Box and DropBox, but other services that offer Finder-level integrated synchronization should also work. Test that local synchronization is working by copying a file to your synchronized folder on one Mac, and confirming it appears in the synchronized folder on the other Mac.
- Click the Choose… menu item, then navigate to the location in your synchronized folder that you'd like to use.
- Create and save presets and/or snippets.
Once set up in this manner, Name Mangler will actively monitor the synchronization folder for changes to presets and snippets. You don't have to do anything active to manage the syncing, it just works. If you delete a snippet on one Mac, for instance, it will disappear from an already-running Name Mangler on another Mac (once your synchronization service updates that Mac's folder, of course).