Sample Use of Rename Templates to Generate Text

Typically rename templates are used when renaming, moving or copying files and folders. With the introduction of the Set Using Rename Template statement, you can now use rename templates to generate text. Many tokens have been implemented which may be meaningless when renaming files but increase the capability of text generation.

This action largely serves as a sample usage of the tokens intended to be used with the the Set Using Rename Template statement.

An NFO (info) file is a text file presenting a summary of the metadata in an album. The file displays album metadata at the top and per track information at the bottom. The following is sample NFO content:

ARTIST.....: Keb' Mo'
ALBUM......: The Breakdown
LABEL......: Concord Records
CATALOG....: CRE03539
FORMAT.....: Digital Media
COUNTRY....: [Worldwide]
RELEASED...: 2026-08-21
GENRE......: Blues
STYLE......: Blues
DISCOGS....: https://www.discogs.com/release/38229207-Keb-Mo-The-Breakdown
MUSICBRAINZ: https://www.musicbrainz.org/release/9f0dfc73-30e5-44ce-8e56-0f5a94e2c2db
ENCODING...: Permute [Apple Lossless 44000, 24 bit]
STREAM.....: ALAC
BITRATE....: 2117 kbps
SAMPLERATE.: 44100 Hz
MODE.......: Stereo, 24 bit
TRACKS.....: 10
SIZE.......: 411.40 MB
PLAYTIME...: 38:42

No  Artist - Title                                                           Time
--  ----------------------------------------------------------------------  -----
01  Keb' Mo' - Fussing And Fighting                                         04:14
02  Keb' Mo' - Every Step Of The Way                                        04:35
03  Keb' Mo' - They Don't Make 'Em Like They Used To                        04:43
04  Keb' Mo' - More Yesterdays                                              03:43
05  Keb' Mo' - We Make Love                                                 03:34
06  Keb' Mo' - Walking On Water                                             03:39
07  Keb' Mo' - Hand It Over                                                 03:23
08  Keb' Mo' - Living In The Moment                                         03:37
09  Keb' Mo' - Stitched Up Heart                                            03:18
10  Keb' Mo' - One Day Away                                                 03:55

The content was produced by the Generate an NFO File via Rename Template action. The action is quite simple:

1: Version 1.0 - A sample action to produce an NFO style file using rename templates
2: 
3: Set named variable 'results' using rename template 'Sample NFO Top'
4: Set Variable 0 using rename template 'Sample NFO Bottom'
5: Build List with delimiter "\n" in named variable 'bottom' from field Variable 0 (As found) string delimiter "\~"
6: Append "\<bottom>\n" to named variable 'results'
7: Show the contents of named variable 'results' in the Log Viewer (monospace)

Statement 3 is a Set Using Rename Template statement which uses rename template Sample NFO Top to generate everything before the first numbered track line. The results are saved to named variable results.

Statement 4 is a Set Using Rename Template statement which uses rename template Sample NFO Bottom to generate the per track rows. The per file results are saved to track variable 0.

Statement 5 builds a list of the per file output in track variable 0. The list is delimited by a newline character and is stored to named variable bottom.

Statement 6 appends the bottom to results (the top) and also appends a trailing newline character. Remember list items are delimited, not terminated.

Statement 7 displays the generated text in the Log Viewer where a file can be saved if you wish.

You can changed the content of the produced text simply by editing the rename templates.

The Sample NFO Top template is quite large so lets go over it a piece at a time:

The first line establishes that occurrences of the multi value delimiter should be replaced with a comma. It also sets up the fill pattern as a single period.

The ❨.❩ token is used to provide spacing in the formatted text representing the template. It also acts as a ❨Break❩ token.

The next section constructs the Album text.

The section does the following:

The ❨Mark❩ token establishes the current location in the text.
It inserts the text ARTIST.
It then pads all text from the marked location to the current location to be 11 characters. Remember that we set the fill pattern to a single period. The text is justified left so the padding, if any, appears on the right. The ❨Justify Left❩ token uses the ❨Mark❩ token and removes it from further consideration.
It is important to note that any token which references a ❨Mark❩ token removes it from the internal stack and ensures that it will not be seen again.
The ❨Break❩ token ensures that the 11 is kept separate from the : space which is appended to the text.
The ❨IfConsistent Album Artist❩ token tests if the Album Artist fields in all active files are identical.
If they are the Album Artist field is inserted, otherwise ? is inserted.
❨NL❩ appends a newline character to the text.

The next section does exactly the same except for the Album field.

The next section optionally inserts txt which represents the Label.

The ❨Not❩IfConsistentEmpty Label tokens causes the following tokens and text to only be processed if not all Label fields are empty.
The remainder oc the tones are handled in previous sections.
This section is different in that the LABEL text will not be inserted if all Label fields are empty.

The next two sections handle the Catalog Number and Media Type fields in exactly the same way. ie. they are optional and are only inserted if they are not empty in all files.

The next section optionally inserts a COUNTRY value.

Yate supports three country UDTIs. The generic Country and those inserted by the Discogs and MusicBrainz wizards: Discogs Release Country and MusicBrainz Release Country.

The ❨UserStateIsTrue❩ token sets the internal test state to true.
❨IfConsistentEmpty UDTI❩Country tests if the Country UDTI is empty in every file.
... if it is ❨IfConsistentEmpty UDTI❩Discogs Release Country tests if the Discogs Release Country UDTI is empty in every file.
... if it is ❨IfConsistentEmpty UDTI❩MusicBrainz Release Country tests if the MusicBrainz Release Country UDTI is empty in every file.
... If it is, the user state is set to fale by the ❨UserStateIsFalse❩ token.
The ❨IfUserState❩ causes the following tokens and text to only be executed if the user state is true. In this example, the user state is only false if all three UDTIs were empty in all files.
The remaining tokens successively test each of the three UDTIs to see which is consistent. The first consistent UDTI is inserted. If none are consistent, ? is inserted.
The net results is that COUNTRY is only inserted if there is a consistent value for one of the UDTIs.

The next section does the same process except that it inserts Release Date or Year. It is done via a different token sequence to illustrate a different technique.

The ❨IfConsistentNotEmpty Release Date❩ token, processes the Release Data field if it is consistent and non empty. This will cause all tokens and text until the next ❨Else❩ token to be processed.
If Release Date did not meet the criteria, Year is handled in exactly the same way.
If neither were consistent and not empty. RELEASED is not inserted.

The next section simply inserts a consistent Genre field or ? if it is not. Note that the displayed value for GENRE can be empty.

The next section uses a more complicated technique to conditionally display a STYLE (based on Mood) item. This is done to illustrate the use of different tokens.

Two ❨Mark❩ tokens are placed to record the current location in the text.
STYLE❨Justify Left❩11❨Break❩: inserts the STYLE header.
The ❨Justify Left❩ token uses and removes the ❨Mark❩ token at the green arrow.
Another ❨Mark❩ token is placed to mark the location after the STYLE header text.
❨IfConsistentNotEmpty Mood❩ tests if the Mood field is the same in every file and is not empty. If this is true the Mood field is inserted.
If the criteria was not met, ❨Not❩❨IfConsistentEmpty Mood❩ tests to see if not all Mood fields are empty. If this is true, ? is inserted.
If neither of the previous tests were true, nothing has been inserted after the STYLE header.
The ❨IfMarkNotEmpty❩ token tests to see if any text was inserted since the last ❨Mark❩. In this case the ❨Mark❩ token at the purple arrow. The ❨IfMarkNotEmpty❩ token uses and removes the ❨Mark❩ token at the purple arrow.
If text has been inserted after STYLE, we still have a ❨Mark❩ token at the red arrow. The ❨Pop Mark❩ token removes the closest unused ❨Mark❩ token ... in this case the token at the red arrow. We then insert a newline sequence to terminate the line.
If there was no text inserted after the STYLE header, (ie. Mood was empty everywhere), we issue a ❨Rollback to Mark❩ token which removes all text placed after the closest unused ❨Mark❩ token ... in this case the token at the red arrow. This completely removes all text associated with STYLE.

As seen in previous sections, there are far simpler ways of doing the above. The sequence was chosen to show multiple ❨Mark❩ tokens in use and how to manipulate them.

The next two section use sequences already discussed to insert URLs to the release in Discogs and MusicBrainz. The sequences are omitted if they do not exists in all files.

The next section process the Encoded By and Encoder Settings fields.

The ENCODING entry is ignored if Encoded By is not consistent or is all empty. If Encoder Settings is consistent and non empty it is appended.

The next three sections insert the Bit Rate, Sample Rate and Channel Mode properties.

Note that BITRATE is only entered if it is consistent while SAMPLERATE and MODE are always displayed.

The next section inserts some summary information.

The TRACKS entry contains the number of files represented by the File Count token.
The SIZE entry contains the total size of the files represented by the ❨Total Size (units)❩ token. This is a pretty size as compared to a number of bytes.
The PLAYTIME entry contains the playtime of all files represented by the ❨Total Time (hh:mm:ss)❩ token.

The next section in the top template generates the header for the the per track data.

First an empty line is inserted by the ❨NL❩ token.
The fill pattern is set to be a single space.
The three headers of No, Artist - Title and Time are inserted and padded dependent on if the files are multi-disc. The pad sizes were pre-calculated.

The last section in the top template inserts the underline.

The fill pattern is set to a single - character.
The underline segments are padded where the length of the pad depends on whether the files are the files are multi-disc. Note that the ❨Justify Left❩ tokens are all padding empty data in this case.
Two spaces are inserted as a delimiter beetween each underline segment.

The following screenshot describes the Sample NFO Bottom template. This template is sed to fill track variable 0 in each file based on this template. This is done in statement 4 of the action. Using Yate's parallelism, the single statement sets the appropriate text for each file.

If this is a multi-disc album the disc number padded to two digits is inserted followed by a period.
The track number padded to two digits is inserted followed by two spaces.
Three ❨Mark❩ tokens are inserted to reference the same location.
The Artist field followed by - followed by the Title field is inserted.
The IfMultDisc token establishes two sequences. The first, everything until the green Else token is evaluated if it is a multi-disc album. The second, everything from the green Else token to the green endif token is evaluated if the album is not multi-disc. Both sequences are the same except for the predetermined length constants.
The Justify Left token inserts and pads everything from the ❨Mark❩ token at the purple arrow. Note that dependent on the Artist and Title fields, the inserted text may exceed the specified pad value. The Justify tokens never truncate.
The ❨IfLength❩ token tests to see if the inserted text is too large by calculating the length from the ❨Mark❩ token at the green arrow.
If the desired length has been exceeded, the text from the preceding ❨Mark❩ token at the red arrow is shortened by the ❨Truncate❩ token and ... is appended. If the length has not been exceeded, the unreferenced ❨Mark❩ token at the red arrow is removed by the ❨Pop Mark❩ token.
The fill pattern is set to a single 0.
A new ❨Mark❩ token is placed to reference the current location in the text.
The track's playtime is inserted, right justified and padded.

As previous said these two rename templates and the associated action serve as a sample use of the Set Using Rename Template action statement and various rename template tokens.

The action and the referenced rename templates can be downloaded via the Resource Actions Install on the Yate menu or via Install sample rename templates on the Settings - Rename - Settings panel. Using both methods the item to install is named Generate an NFO File via Rename Template.

Content List:

Actions:

Generate an NFO File via Rename Templates

Rename Templates:

Sample NFO Top

Sample NFO Bottom

Requirements:

Yate v10.0

History:

Date	Version	Information
2026-09-15	v1.0	First release.

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