Nice plugin, and welcome functionality, but there are still some flaws

After running the plugin on all images (about 350) the broken link plugin began reporting broken links (in total about 100 in almost all posts). Strangsly in most cases the image was still shown in the editor, but I needed to update the link or resave the image and post to correct it.

That sounds related to your caching system. If you use caching, the file will be renamed, modified in the posts, but the website will not reflect that, you need to clear the cache every time. The caching systems cannot detect direct changes in the database but if you contact them about that issue, our plugins can work together to actually refresh the cache.

In most cases the caps where changed to lowercase, what I prefer, but in one case the small caps-version already existed and the image wasn’t reported by the plugin.

I am not sure I understand this issue. Can you tell me how to replicate it? I will definitely fix this one.

Another imperfection is that in media manager (list of media) and in the single media-pages the previous filename still is shown under the title. So in the media-list I can’t check the new filename without going to the edit-page of that image. And now, after all images have been changed and most blogs resaved, still the old filename is remembered forever. That’s a shame, although it is no biggy.

That is because it is actually NOT the filename. It is the GUID. I talked about it in my FAQ, it is the very first entry. I don’t rename it by default but you can enable it in the plugin settings. I am thinking of enabling thing by default since many people thinks it’s a bug of the plugin. It’s actually not, it’s a WordPress badly named and misused information.

Checking and changing the titles and alt-text of an image is most convinient from the icon-view, since there if one clicks on the image, a detail-panel is shown as an overlay in which one can use the Arrow-keys to change to the next or previous image.

Yes, I am thinking of adding this. Not very difficult from my side to do, just require some testing and introduce a bit of complexity but I guess it’s fine.

a setting to limiting the length of the filename (titles are sometimes longer then one wants a filename to be)

Yes, true, I myself never run into the problem so I never really thought about it.

2. Some way to exclude a list of words (stopwords) from being used in the filenames (and in my case the selection of stopwords should be in the Dutch language).

I understand that too. Actually you might know but in the FAQ on WP.ORG you can create your own filter to rename the files then you are free to do whatever you want ??

3. A way to disgard an image from the selection, so the signal that it needs to be renamed isn’t repeated.

Like WP Retina 2x? Actually I thought about this one but nobody asked me. Not sure what to do. Not difficult to add but it is more information in the DB, more buttons, and also require a RESET button. I need more feedback.

Thanks a lot for coming back to me with all those points ??

Hi Jordi,

Thank you for addressing all my points so swiftly. It’s good to read that you have thought of some of them yourself and are able to implement them.

I hadn’t thought to clear the cache after using the plugin, so I might try that at some point. It might have been a solution for most images.

After using the plugin I used filezilla to see the result in the upload folders, and there I noticed some of the points I described earlier. It showed a lot of images that wheren’t renamed, but that were just smaller versions in sizes that weren’t defined in wordpress anymore (a legacy of previous plugins and theme’s the website used). So I decided to clean them up the hard way (by hand).

The issue of lowercase I mentioned (you said you didn’t understand) was a situation of two pictures having the same filename and title of which one was allready in lowercase and the other filename started with an uppercase. So the plugin couldn’t change the uppercase to lowercase without creating a duplicate filename. And so it probably didn’t. And since the filename was already the same as the title (only not lowercase) there was no need to do anything else than make the name lowercase. I noticed it only because I used ftp to see the actual files, and wanted to change the names because when I otherwise download the upload folders to my windows pc, not all files can be copied due to duplicate filenames. I corrected the “problem” by changing the title a bit, but it had been nice if the plugin would have signaled about it. I don’t know why it didn’t, and dont know how to replicate te issue now.

The issue about the GUID is unfortunate. It would have been nice if I had understood earlier, since you tell me that its a setting in the plugin. Now the filenames are already changed, so I don’t know how to correct it, other than changing all titles a bit so the plugin will change the names again. It would in my oppinion be a good idea to set it default to yes, becouse non techys as I am will probably not notice the issue otherwise. I don’t understand why one wouldn’t want the guid to change when all other info of the image is changed. The GUID at that point just reports history and not something that is still actually true. There was only some use in it because the broken link plugin reported the old filenames, but since I cant find a media-file searching on the GUID, it has little relevance there also. Just a visual check.

Auto-changing filename when I change the title and alt-text from the icon-view would be a timesaver. Now I found out how it worked by experience, and used the list view to change the filename on another browser window. That also is a bit time-consuming since there you change only one picture at the time and response-times and have to wait each time for the list to rebuild. I probably should have just used the plugin bulk update-list.

I didn’t understand exactly what you wrote about filtering filenames using faq in wp.org, but will look into that. Will your plugin then check existing filenames against that new filter and signal the relevant files again? To be honest, since I’m not a php-programmer I find it hard to get my hands around how hooks and filters work exactly and just follow instructions when some plugin or help-page instructs to put something in the function.php. ??

The last point would be solved if it works yust like retina 2x, and perhaps the only reason to have it is when there are more than one image using the same title (tha easily occurs, especially because on one of the websites there are versions of foto’s of the site owner with for instance just the name of the owner as a title, and also in a webstore overlapping image titles could easily occur). I don’t know if it’s worth the extra resource-use though. I leave that to you.

Well, thanks again Jordi. Great plugin and nice of you to give so much attention to my feedback and guestions. Keep up the good work, and cheers!

Hi Jordi,

After using File Renamer on another website I found out that indeed ewww doesn’t resize the images, and that in a lot of cases on that website the Media File Renamer plugin indeed renamed the file, but the old file still remained available in the upload folder. That explains why there was a file in the other website that was also available in both uppercase-name and lowercase-name filename. I don;t know why the old version wasn’t removed after renaming the file. I have removed them now using ftp.

Als in the media library list I find that de added colomn for the file rename (and also your Retina plugin) uses up a lot of space while just showing a oke-icon. If possible, ant that could change, it would be better, so the filename has more room to show.

I would like some more control about the actual filename that is choosen, since in not all cases the title is the best filename, and often I use longer titles that are actually writen for people. As I understand it, the pro version would solve that? If so I will probably by it.

The GUID is shown by wordpress using the lable “filename”, so if unchanged, wordpress presents it in a confusing manner. I now have seen you advice in settings not to change the guid, so that was why I left it unchecked. It doesn’t yet much matter to me if some external servers of reading machines index the guid, because probably none of my readers will use these kind of machines, and if so its a minor inconvinience to them at most.

The blog on my website broke after I used file renamer, so I had to investigate somewhat, and discovered after disabling all plugins and trying other themes, that it was because of the featured images. After disabling the featured images in the blog list the posts where again shown. I guess that somehow one or more of the references were corrupted, and am now trying to find how to correct the problem.

On this small website I have no cache in use, so I know it’s not a cache-plugin issue this time.

Hope the info helps you making the plugin still better.

Kind regards, Hans

The issue about the GUID is unfortunate. It would have been nice if I had understood earlier, since you tell me that its a setting in the plugin. Now the filenames are already changed, so I don’t know how to correct it.

Don’t correct it, I think that’s okay. Using a SQL query you could do it though, I guess it’s not too hard to do.

I didn’t understand exactly what you wrote about filtering filenames using faq in wp.org, but will look into that. Will your plugin then check existing filenames against that new filter and signal the relevant files again?

Actually I believe WordPress and plugins should be installed by a developer then explained to the user. A normal user shouldn’t try and play with options and plugins, that’s just a recipe for disaster ?? But yeah, if you develop this filter (which will be a few lines of code only) then you will be able to handle your case and the plugin will do it job as usual, safely.

I would like some more control about the actual filename that is choosen.

So for that I believe the filter is the best, and it would go in your functions.php. I could include 20-30 complicated options but that would increase the number of bugs, issues, problems and even with that many options I wouldn’t cover all the case. That would be also a lot of work for me and a lot of support to give. I prefer to develop filters for people independently, I think it’s a better idea. Maybe I could propose it against a fee?

After disabling the featured images in the blog list the posts where again shown.

Depending on the theme, they store this data differently. If they do it well, they put those filenames in the metadata and this is modified by File Renamer. Best way it to simply reference the Media and that would always work. Not sure what yours did, maybe a very custom way of doing things. Yeah that would break (which is why I always ask to make a proper backup and try a plugin on each file).

Thank you for your feedback on the issues I raised. You’re right that a developer would be the best qualified to build and install plugins and set options. But perhaps it is also the power of wordpress and open source to enable lots of people to use and learn to support and develop this technology. Lots of people don’t have much money to pay for developers, but have time and are willing to learn some. Democracy in software development. ??

I was a software developer at some point, but that was a long time ago (in the age of mainframes and large computers and the start of the Internet). I’m now learning about this (for me) new technology to be able to understand it better. I thank you for your offer helping me creating a filter, and will come to you if and when I decide thats what I need.

When I spoke of control, I meant control on a picture by picture basis. The general logic is sufficient to do the bulk of the work. I just want also the Control to enable me to input exceptions to the rule for specific pictures. A simple entry field to just enter a name would suffice. And I believe that is an option that you’ve already enabled in the pro-version, so its not a problem.

You warned about the danger of this kind of plugin, so there is no blame here, just a recognition of what happened.

I use at the moment a Studiopress Genesis child theme (Modern Studio Pro) out of the box, and believe it to be solid programming. By just trying al options, I found out that the problem was indeed the child theme (other child themes worked alright, just this one seemed corrupted in some way), and not the featured image itself. It is corrected now.

In the end I needed to delete and reinstall the child theme to correct it. Just before I noticed the problem I had installed 4 updates, so perhaps in that proces something got corrupted. It was just unfortunate that it happened at a time that I was also checking your plugin, so that it seemed that had something to do with it. How the child theme was corrupted I don’t know. I’m just happy it is back to normal now.

Thanks again, and keep up the good work your doing. I will by the pro versions of both your plugins soon. I’m happy you build them so well, and want to support your effort for our mutual advantage. ??

When I spoke of control, I meant control on a picture by picture basis. The general logic is sufficient to do the bulk of the work. I just want also the Control to enable me to input exceptions to the rule for specific pictures. A simple entry field to just enter a name would suffice.

Ah yes, that’s the Pro version. I thought you had it :p

Thanks again, and keep up the good work your doing. I will by the pro versions of both your plugins soon. I’m happy you build them so well, and want to support your effort for our mutual advantage. ??

This other plugin is WP Retina 2x? The “famous” one. I am trying to promote my WP/LR Sync plugin (it is my best plugin by far I believe, it’s mine but I LOVE it) but it’s pretty hard. Maybe because it’s for a specific use.