How to use Mass File Editor

1. Prepare the list of files you want to edit

Add appropriate include items to the Include List.

File

Represents a single file.

File list

A single file which contains a list of files.
This could be either a list of file names in plain text or a binary file created from the "Save file list" command of File List.

Folder

Represents one folder.
You can customize which files from this folder to include and should the files in subfolders be included as well.

You can turn any include item into "exclude" one so that all files from that item will be excluded from the final file list.

You can save the include list at any moment and load it later.
The current include list is saved automatically when you close the program and when you start the next time it will be loaded again.

You can change the order of include rules in the list by dragging any rule and dropping it onto the new place.
Now when you have include list ready start compiling the result file list by "Refresh file list" command.
All include items will be processed in the order they appears and soon the resulting list of files will be made.
You can press "Cancel" at any time to interrupt the process.

2. Prepare the list of edit rules

The process of editing a file consists on a number of steps which we call "edit rules".
They are executed one by one in the order they appears in the Edit Rules list.
Currently there are several edit rules available.

Find text

Does search in currently opened file for text or regular expression.
It can search all occurances of the text or only first or only last or both first and last ones.
If text is a regular expression all subexpressions will be identified and turned into text values as well.

Replace text

Replaces any text value in file by another text or text value.
Replacement text can be combined from plain text and several text values according to the format string.

Parse file name

Parses the name of current file into different text values containing different pieces of it.

See also Find/Replace example and INI-file editing example

3. Select file and start editing

Double-click one file from the list to open it or open any file in the Editor by "File->Open" command.
Now apply edit rules to the file. There are several possibilities:
     - Apply all edit rules automatically and stop editing. "Run" and "Edit current" commands does this.
     - Apply all edit rules automatically see all the data values in "Data View" after the last rule has been applied. This is what "Pass" command does.
     - Apply edit rules one by one and see all the data values in "Data View" after each step. Do this by command "Apply next rule".

OR

4. Start editing all files in the list

It is "Edit all" command that does it.
All the edit rules will be applied to every file in the list automatically.