The recomended structure for filenames in JD

J.D Concepts 14 Build your system
21

@Kelso thanks for the compliments! I’ve been using this convention for a while in my personal files.

I made one slight change in my model though. I removed the space following dashes in folders and file names. This seems to make it easier to visually find things as well as easier to search.

For instance searching for -Model will return all of the model files, where as just searching for Model would also return one of the reference articles. In this case it’s not a big deal, but it’s been really helpful when searching through larger parts of my system. I think this is actually in the JD Workbook.

I’m on a PC and us OneCommander as my file browser which lets me sort files and folders together which helps more and conceptually fits with the way I want to organize things.

Here is an example from my personal projects folder:

p35.154 Stirling Engine -Machining
   p35.154 -BOM.gsheet  
   p35.154 -Model -HSM TCross -v14.20250202-144101.FCBak  
   p35.154 -Model -HSM TCross -v14.FCStd  
   p35.154 -Model Image -Assembly Isometric -t.svg  
   p35.154 -Model Image -Assembly Isometric.svg  
   p35.154 -Model Image -Assembly Side 1 -t.svg  
   p35.154 -Model Image -Assembly Side 1.svg  
   p35.154 -Model Image -Assembly Side 2 -t.svg  
   p35.154 -Model Image -Assembly Side 2.svg  
   p35.154 -Model Image -Assembly Top Transparent -t.svg  
   p35.154 -Model Image -Assembly Top Transparent.svg  
   p35.154 -Notes -Drawing Standards -v01.md  
   p35.154 -Prints -Sterling Engine -rev01.pdf  
   p35.154 -Prints -Sterling Engine -rev02.pdf  
   p35.154 -Reference -3d Model.pdf  
   p35.154 -Reference -Alternative Model Stirling_60.pdf  
   p35.154 -Reference -Horizontal Stirling Engine -Terry Cross -HSM 2005-12.pdf  
   p35.154 Ω Obsolete [DIR]

It’s hard for me to always take the time to do it right, but when I do it’s super helpful. (I’m always better at designing systems than following rules :person_shrugging:) In an ideal world I could set file naming structures and limitations in the OS to ensure that I follow the rules.

22

Oh I like that little adjustment. You’re basically making yourself tags embedded in the file name. That’s nice…

Patterns. They’re so important and you can do so much with so little if you just take note of patterns in life.

1 Like
23

I have had a lot of fun renaming files and folders with the app Bulk Rename Utility (windows). This could probably do the trick.

24

This kind of tool allows a really quick hierarchical naming workflow. e.g, categorizing the photos from Susie and Frank’s Wedding Day:

  1. first, select all the photos, and bulk rename them to YYYY-MM-DD Susie and Frank Wedding <original timestamp from camera>.JPG.
  2. then, select a subset, and bulk append, e.g. Ceremony, then another subset, Leaving the Chapel, another Lunch, etc.

The cool thing is that you don’t have to subclassify everything. They will all show up in a search for the main event. But you can go as deep as you want, and the bulk rename tool lets you select precisely the largest set to give a shared name to, making for a very fast classification process.

On Linux I use ranger which has this, and massren as a standalone tool (which I plug into the geeqie photo manager for photos specifically).

filetags by Karl Voit is designed for this kind of workflow more generally, i.e. tagging all your files in the way @Jeff-LovettSundries[1] demonstrates. I haven’t used it and don’t know the status, but from the Github page it looks like it’s getting updates and is used by a fair number of people.

  1. Yay for FreeCAD! ↩︎

25

I’m a huge fan of Bulk Rename Utility. I’m not savvy enough for any command line shenanigans, but this app makes me feel like a super hero.

26

I’ll have to check out filetags. Thanks for sharing. There are always more tools for these tasks, but what I really love about JD and this process is developing philosophies and standards to follow.