Rename music file to start with first 2 letters of the album

Hi There

Thanks for a great bit of software! I am still a relative newbie, and figuring stuff out but have managed to get a few basic rules to make my life a lot easier. I have a problem now where I am completely stuck, and can't seem to find a solution on your forums - first a bit of background.

My Car MP3 player can only read up to 100 folders, with 100 files/folder (annoying), so this limits me somewhat in how many folders / subfolders I can have long before the storage limit of my USB is reached - no point in having individual album folders as this wastes about 80 tracks / folder. My solution is to use Artist names as the folder, and then include the first 2 letters of the album name (only 2 because any more clutters the radio display screen), followed by 2 numbers for the track number (so that it plays in order) followed by a period, then the full track title in sentence and extension.

So the folder structure might look like:
/Artists/Bush/

And a file within it would be called:
Si01.Everything Zen.m4a (Album: Sixteen Stone, Track#: 1, Full Track Title, extension).

I have made a folder called 'ToSort' on the USB drive, and run hazel on the folder to check and sort anything that I drop into there. I can do everything except the 'first 2 letters of the album title' part.

The rules are as follows:

For the 'ToSort' Folder
Delete Empty Directories (does not work if I put it beneath the 'Recognise Subfolders' line, but just to keep things tidy after sorting): If kind is folder, if subfolder count is 0, if size is 0 --> move folder to trash
Recognise Subfolders: If kind is folder --> run rules on folder contents
Move music files to Album folder: If Kind is Music --> Move into Folder 'Albums' (the top level of the Folder full of Albums).

The the hazel rule for the 'Albums' Folder:
Sort and Rename Music Tracks: If kind is Music --> Sort into SubFolder with pattern 'Authors' (to place it into the artist directory), Rename with Pattern 'Album in Sentence case''track number with 2 decimals'.'Title in Sentence case'.'extension in lower case'

So it is all neat and tidy EXCEPT for the fact that it is the full album name rather than the 2 letters. Can anybody help me to make it only the first 2 letters of the album name?

Also, am I missing obvious anything here? I have just been testing on the same 2 albums, but potentially if there are multiple artists there could be an issue with the folder? Or if the metadata is not complete there could be some issues?

Would really appreciate the help!

Ta,
Jean

Search the help for "match patterns". There you can match only the first two letters of the album name and then use those in the actions.