Great functionality, but it’s still wrapped in a Java grossness

Even though this app needs a new coat of paint, it still works great. It does a remarkable job at matching your ill-named files into something meaningful, and it does this very quickly. But even though this app is now on the Mac App Store, it’s still the same old Java app that’s been available forever. I used that old app for a long time, and I’m happy to finally pay for it, but I’d like to see the interface improved in the future. Hopefully, the developer will see that building a first-class Mac app is worth the time and effort that it’ll take to develop a proper Mac interface. I’d love to finally be done with all of the Java wonkiness.

Here are a few suggestions:

* The icons are not optimized for Retina screens.
* command-, should bring up the preferences.
* There should be a proper help menu.
* The onboarding is very poor. I know how to use this app, because I’ve figured this out from the website. But a new user could be confused about how everything works. If this is going to be something that’s purchased on the App Store, it should hold the user’s hand and show them how to rename files.
* I’d like to see built-in features for automation. Ideally, I’d like to see scripting support, so I could use this app with something like Hazel.
* When changing the naming format, a default folder chooser should be used. It’s not very user friendly to require manually-entered folder paths.
* Instead of requiring the user to use format strings, there should be drag-and-drop tokens that can be used to build the format more easily. Look at how Hazel does this for inspiration.
* There should be an explanation about sandboxing and permissions before the user is asked to grant permission. This could be potentially confusing for the user.
* Working with text doesn’t work the Mac way. If I press option-right when editing the format, I should go to the next word. When I press command-right, I should be taken to the end of the line. Right now, it’s obvious that this is written in Java, and it’s not using the Cocoa frameworks.

jhamdotme about FileBot