Renaming Many Files

[BobMerrill]

Hi there,
I've inherited a project with a large number of topics.
One of the issues with this project is that because of the folder structure and file names, the Windows pathnames may exceed the length limits imposed by Windows (depending on where you put it on a target drive) making the project uncopy-able. I'm in the process of reorganizing and renaming, partly with the goal of shortening the pathnames.
Among those topics is a folder containing many topic files, 164 of which begin with "sbe6_000". (I'm assuming that these names were the result of some sort of import process - the original project was in RoboHelp.) I would love to rename all of these files without breaking the links to them, and also without renaming them one at a time.
Any suggestions welcome.
The only option I've thought of that might reduce the work is to rename the files outside of Flare (I do this all the time from the command-line), search and replace for "sbe6_000" in the TOC(s) and find out what new broken links I have. I could probably fix most of those links with a Regex search-and-replace.
Any thoughts welcome.
Thanks!
Bob

[Nita Beck]

Bob, your plan sounds do-able, although you will indeed end up with a lot of broken links. Be sure to MAKE A BACKUP of your project before proceeding to edit filenames outside of Flare. AFAIK, there otherwise is no way to edit filenames in Flare except one by one, so that Flare can manage updating the links.

[BobMerrill]

Thanks, Nita. I guess that makes me a Propellerhead...

[devjoe]

If you do this, you should replace the filenames everywhere - in topics, TOCs, alias files, etc.

[GregStenhouse]

You may want to look into a tool such as "FAR - Find And Replace"

[wclass]

You may want to look into a tool such as "FAR - Find And Replace"

I have also used the FAR tool for this and am very happy, though it does cost money - well worth it in my opinion.
http://www.helpwaregroup.com/products/far