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[raid517]

OK I am requesting this feature because some of the file name legths on the stuff on the eMule network are really starting to get out of control. I mean it's uttetly stupid sometimes and is my pet number 1 annoyance. It almost seems like every pair of hands a file passes through will cause some n00b fool or other to feel the need to add his or her own personal tag to it.

Well anyway the thing is I have several mobile devices and I have a shared FAT32 partition on my PC (which I share between Windows and Linux) which holds my incomming and temp folders. My mobile devices are all predominantly formatted in FAT32 also - and concequently as a result when I download content from eMule, I often find myself having to spend a fair proportion of my time renaming files so that downloads will complete sucessully and I can quickly work with and transfer files on this file system to and from my different devices.

So what I would like is a feature that will automatically rename/limit the file name length to something that is realistic and reasonable (and also preferably to remove any potentially illegal characters) so that much less of my time is wasted in renaming files.

Maybe if this is implimented accross all the various emule incarnations we can eventually eliminate all the stupidly long file names from the eMule network entirely? It is a small change - but to me at least it would make a very big difference in terms of the usuablity of aMule as a whole.

[raid517]

Hi, well the official eMule client now supports automatic file name shortening/renaming and removing of illegal characters (and even of whole phrases).

So this doesn't seem like such a crazy thing to ask for.

I actually imagined a lot more people would request it too? It seems like a pretty useful thing to have, especially as I said with some of the file names on the Emule network just becoming ridiculously long.

Is it likely that we will ever see this in amule?

[raid517]

Can someone at least tell me if they think I'm imagining this, or that I'm on drugs and there is no need for an automatic renaming feature at all?

I don't care what it is, it would just be nice if someone said something.

[wuischke]

Something.

There's the possibility to rename the file afterwards by executing a script who does whatever you want. (Preferences->Files->Execute command on file completion)

[GonoszTopi]

There is a filename cleanup function in the File Details dialog. It removes some of the common junk from filenames, but far not all. Maybe it could be configurable too.

[raid517]

Well anything that helps cut out the junk would be very useful, and to replace illegal characters/shorten the file names and generally just do anything to help clean up the file names on the network.

As I said, as things stand every time a file passes through someones hands, it seems the file names/tags just get longer and longer and longer.

So anything you can do to rectify this and help restore things to normality, would do a lot to help the health of the network.

I mean a lot of files have the web addresses of the originating web site, or have been tagged by someone selling porn, or promoting spam, with additional comments from subsequent package releases in the file name itself (such as 'file released by by roxor' or whatever) when other users have repackaged them, then they have a whole bunch of illegal characters !%&*&@>< thrown into them for good measure too, making them very hard to work with on some file systems (and anyway even on file systems that can handle this, you still end up spending a fair proportion of your time in renaming files just to get rid of all the junk) and over some networks (like SAMBA, or FTP etc)

There are several FTP apps and there is also an app for Windows called Tag & rename that work well in renaming files and which recognise that this problem often exists, but this still requires a lot of unecessary effort and time. It would be nice if users just didn't do this, but apparently there are not so many experienced users on the Emule network who realise just how many problems that their constant repackaging and renaming can cause.

Again any help you can offer to fix this would be much appreciated.

[Kry]

There will be no automatic renaming to prevent people for doing that, mind you. People has the freedom to choice whatever filename they want for the files. the ony thing we can do is enable some automatic rename on the downloader's end, and only if enabled.

[Knocker]

Originally posted by raid517
As I said, as things stand every time a file passes through someones hands, it seems the file names/tags just get longer and longer and longer.

So why don't you rename them as suggested in the "file details"?
You can even choose the most common filename.

[raid517]

I do my friend - but that involves quite a lot of work, particularly when you use eMule regularly and (as I said) end up spending a fair bit of of your time on simply renaming files. It is a wasteful use of my time and resources - on something that technically should be fairly easy to rectify. It doesn't matter if you do it in that part of the eMule dialogue, or by hand, if I have to spend 30 minutes (or more) of my day every time I download a batch of files just renaming them all, it can quickly become extremely irritating to have to do it.

In any case, it is not an unknown problem in the world of networking type applications - and there are several applications that are even sold commercially that enable the mass renaming (and even correct tagging of media files) - so it is not such a 'way out there' or unusual request as you might think.

Moreover, it is simply helpful and useful to the overall health of the network to prevent users from behaving irresponsibly, by using irrationally long and pointless file names, since it makes the entire process more efficient for the larger majority of users and enables them to work easily and quickly with files obtained from the network in the widest diversity of scenarios. It also limits the capacity of spammers and porn advertisers from hijacking, repackaging and renaming files in order to promote their wares - which also (as well as being a personal annoyance) is a significant consideration when you have young teenage (and younger) children in your home who should not be exposed to these kinds of things. If you make it hard for them to promote their goods, by allowing certain terms to automatically be removed from the files, you may also to some extent discourage them from attempting to do so.

GJ

[raid517]

Originally posted by Kry
There will be no automatic renaming to prevent people for doing that, mind you. People has the freedom to choice whatever filename they want for the files. the ony thing we can do is enable some automatic rename on the downloader's end, and only if enabled.

That would work. That would be more than good enough. 95% of my request is concerned with saving time - and that would save a lot of time. The other 5% is made up of annoyance at why people choose such long file names anyway and also the way that spammers sometimes use these files by repackaging them to promote their goods in an often very 'in your face' way.

But if the files could be automatically renamed at my end, so I could work with them easier in different scenarios (perhaps say I wanted to access my files from work over FTP and my incoming folder is also one of my shared FTP folders - although my work FTP limits the file name size and type of characters I can use, or if I have a media player device which is formatted in fat 32 (as most are) and this is particularly picky about file name sizes and illegal characters also - and in several other scenarios I have encountered where this can become a problem) then this would undoubtedly be very useful.

Local renaming like this needn't of course affect the file hashes - so it will have zero impact on the actual availability of files on the network itself.

[Vollstrecker]

Maybe an option to rename to the most common name for this file. I have many downloads that show me 10 and more names with one source each. With such an option, the tags maybe disappaer over time, because the original file has at least only one tag.