Noodlesoft Forums

I have several rules that prep various parts of files. One might rename the file based on its contents, and the next would sort it based on the new name. This type of rule-stacking can sometimes be taken care of in the same rule, but on the offchance that it can't, heres a little trick I use to move things along nicely.

Bounce files from directory to directory.

For instance, all my downloads go in the download folder. If I download a PDF, I rename it based on where it was from (e.g. "Reportcard for America's Schools" goes to "NYTIMES - Report Card for America's Schools"). I then sort it into a NYTIMES folder in the "PDFs/Articles/2009/" Folder, but I can't sort with NYTIMES as a variable because of certain Hazel limitations, so I move the file to the desktop and sort it based on the new filename.

Thanks for the tip. Have you looked at the pattern matching/custom token stuff (search in help for "match patterns")? You should be able pull out the "NYTIMES" part and re-use that in the subfolder. Let me know if you need more details on that.

Also, are you manually renaming it to "NYTIMES ..." or are you going off the source url?

Yes, in fact, pattern matching is how I extract NYTIMES in the first place. The reason that I have separate rules here is so that I can re-name files and they will be sorted based on their name:

1) Rename file NYTIMES - ...; move to desktop
2) Any file on desktop beginning with NYTIMES - sort

With the rules separated, if I have an article emailed to me, I can save it to the desktop as NYTIMES - filename and it will be sorted appropriately. Or, if I create docs for NYTIMES folder, they can be sorted appropriately.

The point of the hint was that if you have separate rules like I do - its faster to bump them from folder to folder than it is to have separate rules work on the same folder.