Renamus — visual group rename for far2l

Version 0.2.0

A small far2l plugin for renaming many files at once by editing their names as plain text. Select files on a panel, run the plugin, edit the names in the built-in editor (one per line), save and close — every line you changed renames its file.

Panel → select files → their names open in the editor → edit as plain text → save & close and they're renamed. Above, notes.txt / photo.jpg / report.txt all get a 2026_ prefix in one step.

Inspired by the FAR Manager plugin VisRen.

⚠️ Disclaimer

This plugin was 100% vibecoded together with an AI assistant (Claude). It is a personal tool that I use daily because batch renaming is otherwise painful, shared in case it's useful to you too.

• No warranty of any kind. Provided "as is" (see LICENSE).
• Use at your own risk. It renames files on disk. Try it on copies / a test folder first and make sure you understand the footguns below.
• No support or maintenance promised. Issues/PRs welcome but may go unanswered.

It works for me. 🙂

Install (prebuilt)

1. Download the archive for your platform from the latest release:

   Platform	Asset
   macOS (Intel, x86_64)	renamus-0.2.0-macos-x86_64.zip
   Linux (glibc, x86_64)	renamus-0.2.0-linux-x86_64.zip

   Built against far2l 2.8 (FARMANAGERVERSION 2.6). The binary must match your far2l's OS/architecture — for anything else (ARM, musl, …) build from source (below). On macOS the binary is unsigned: if Gatekeeper complains, run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine renamus.

2. Unpack it. You get a ready-to-copy renamus/ folder.

3. Find your far2l Plugins directory:

   • macOS app bundle: far2l.app/Contents/MacOS/Plugins/
   • Linux install: /usr/lib/far2l/Plugins/ (or <prefix>/lib/far2l/Plugins/)
   • Per-user (either OS): ~/.config/far2l/Plugins/

4. Copy the folder in:

   # macOS example
   cp -R renamus /Applications/far2l.app/Contents/MacOS/Plugins/
   
   # Linux example
   cp -R renamus ~/.config/far2l/Plugins/

   Resulting layout:

   Plugins/renamus/plug/renamus.far-plug-wide
   Plugins/renamus/plug/RenamusEng.hlf
   

5. Restart far2l (it scans plugins at startup). If it doesn't appear, make sure you are not launching with -co / a stale plugin cache.

Use it

Select files on a panel → F11 → Renamus → edit the names in the editor → F2 to save → F10/Esc to close. Changed lines rename their files.

Build from source

The plugin only needs the far2l headers (it resolves host functions at load time), so point CMake at any far2l source tree:

cmake -G Ninja -B build -DFAR2L_SRC=/path/to/far2l
ninja -C build

FAR2L_SRC is the directory containing far2l/ and WinPort/. The result is a ready-to-copy folder:

build/renamus/plug/renamus.far-plug-wide
build/renamus/plug/RenamusEng.hlf

Copy build/renamus into your far2l Plugins/.

Safety & caveats (footguns)

No data-loss path: far2l's MoveFile refuses to overwrite an existing target, so a colliding rename simply fails and the original file is untouched. Failed renames are listed by name (with a reason) in a dialog after the run. Still:

1. Don't reorder lines. Names map by position — line 3 renames the 3rd selected file. Sorting/moving lines makes files take each other's names.
2. Swaps/shifts are single-pass. a→b while b→c processes top-down: a→b fails because b still exists, then b→c succeeds. No loss, partial result — re-run to finish.
3. Adding/removing lines aborts the whole run (line count must match the selection). Nothing is renamed.
4. Empty line = skip that file.
5. Case-only renames (a.txt→A.txt) fail on case-insensitive filesystems (default macOS APFS) — the target "already exists".

Set RENAMUS_DEBUG=/path/to/log before launching far2l to append a trace (selection, editor result, per-file MoveFile outcome).

Requirements

far2l — the two-panel file manager this plugin runs in. Get it from the official repository: https://github.com/elfmz/far2l

License

MIT — see LICENSE.

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Made for far2l. Not affiliated with the far2l project.