SMV - Smart Move

A powerful, Rust-based drop-in replacement for the standard Unix mv command with intelligent filename transformation capabilities.

Features

• Drop-in replacement for the standard Unix mv command
• Interactive REPL Interface with command history and tab completion
• Smart File Renaming with multiple transformation strategies:
  • Convert to snake_case (document-name.pdf → document_name.pdf)
  • Convert to kebab-case (document_name.pdf → document-name.pdf)
  • Convert to Title Case (document_name.pdf → Document Name.pdf)
  • Convert to camelCase (document_name.pdf → documentName.pdf)
  • Convert to PascalCase (document_name.pdf → DocumentName.pdf)
  • Convert to lowercase or UPPERCASE
  • Clean up spaces and special characters
• Directory Organization:
  • Group files by basename into directories
  • Flatten directory structures by moving all files to the root
  • Clean up empty directories after flattening
• Preview Mode - See changes before they're applied
• Batch Processing - Apply transformations to multiple files at once
• Undo Functionality - Safely revert changes
• Safety Features - File backups and conflict detection

Installation

Using Cargo

cargo install smv

From Source

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/jwliles/smv.git
cd smv

# Build and install
cargo install --path .

Usage

Basic Usage (like standard mv)

SMV works exactly like the standard mv command for basic moving and renaming:

# Move a file to another location
smv file.txt /path/to/destination/

# Move multiple files to a directory
smv file1.txt file2.txt destination_directory/

# Rename a file
smv old_name.txt new_name.txt

Transformation Mode

Apply transformations to filenames:

# Convert filenames to snake_case
smv --snake *.txt

# Convert filenames to kebab-case with preview
smv --preview --kebab *.pdf

# Clean up spaces and special characters recursively
smv --recursive --clean --directory /path/to/messy/files/

# Convert to Title Case for specific extensions
smv --title --extensions "md,txt" documents/

# Combine transformations with standard move behavior
smv --snake *.txt destination_folder/

Directory Organization

Organize or flatten directory structures:

# Group files by basename into directories
smv --group /path/to/files/

# Preview grouping without making changes
smv --preview --group /path/to/files/

# Flatten all files from subdirectories into the root directory and remove empty directories
smv --flatten /path/to/nested/folders/

Interactive Modes

REPL Interface

Launch the interactive REPL interface:

# Start interactive session
smv -i
# or
smv --interactive

Terminal UI Mode (Coming Soon)

Launch the TUI file explorer with Vim-style navigation:

# Start TUI mode
smv -T
# or
smv --tui

The TUI mode features:

• File explorer with Vim motions (hjkl, gg, G)
• Visual selection mode for multiple files
• Fuzzy search using Skim integration
• GParted-style operation queue
• Preview of file transformations

In the interactive shell:

smv> ls
document.pdf document.docx image.jpg notes.txt

smv> preview snake *.pdf
document.pdf → document.pdf (no change needed)

smv> rename notes.txt
...
Select transformation:
  1. Clean up spaces and special characters
  ...
  4. Convert to Title Case
...
Preview of changes:
  "notes.txt" → "Notes.txt"
Apply these changes? [y/N] y
Renamed: "notes.txt" → "Notes.txt"

smv> undo
Operation undone successfully.

smv> help
Commands:
  preview <transform> <files>  - Show transformation without applying
  apply <transform> <files>    - Apply transformation
  rename <files> --options     - Interactive renaming wizard
  undo                        - Revert last operation
  cd <directory>              - Change directory
  ls [pattern]                - List files
  help                        - Show this help
  quit                        - Exit program

Full Command Options

Options:
  -i, --interactive              Launch interactive REPL interface
  -p, --preview                  Preview changes without applying them
  -r, --recursive                Process subdirectories recursively
  -e, --extensions <EXTENSIONS>  Comma-separated list of file extensions to process
  -a, --remove-accents           Remove accents from filenames
      --clean                    Clean up spaces and special characters
      --snake                    Convert filenames to snake_case
      --kebab                    Convert filenames to kebab-case
      --title                    Convert filenames to Title Case
      --camel                    Convert filenames to camelCase
      --pascal                   Convert filenames to PascalCase
      --lower                    Convert filenames to lowercase
      --upper                    Convert filenames to UPPERCASE
      --dry-run                  Same as preview - show changes without applying
      --undo                     Undo the last operation
      --exclude <PATTERNS>       Comma-separated patterns to exclude
      --group                    Group files by basename into directories
      --flatten                  Flatten all files from subdirectories into a single directory and remove empty directories
      --max-history-size <SIZE>  Maximum number of operations in history [default: 50]
  -h, --help                     Print help
  -V, --version                  Print version

Transformations

Safety Features

Backups

SMV automatically creates backups of modified files in ~/.config/smv/backups/. This allows the undo functionality to work even after the program has been closed and reopened.

Undo Functionality

The undo command reverts the most recent operation.

In interactive mode, you can use:

smv> undo

In command-line mode, you can use:

smv --undo

Conflict Detection

SMV will not overwrite existing files unless explicitly instructed to do so, preventing accidental data loss.

Requirements

• Rust (Minimum supported version: 1.85.0)
• GNU/Linux or other free operating system
• Standard system libraries

Note: SMV is developed exclusively for free operating systems. It is not officially tested or supported on proprietary platforms.

Development

See DEVELOPMENT_PLAN.md for the current roadmap and development priorities.

Roadmap

High Priority

• Fix CLI glob pattern handling: Make CLI mode correctly handle glob patterns like *.org

  # Should work with glob patterns in CLI mode
  smv --snake *.org
  

• Fix kebab-case transformation: Make kebab-case correctly convert spaces to hyphens

  # Should convert "Document Template.txt" to "document-template.txt"
  smv --kebab "Document Template.txt"
  

• Interactive mode with fuzzy search: Integrate skim for fuzzy file selection

  # Launch interactive mode with fuzzy search capabilities
  smv -i
  # Then use fuzzy search to quickly find and select files
  

Future Enhancements

• Multi-step transformation pipelines: Chain multiple transforms together

  # Example: Clean, convert to snake_case, then replace spaces with underscores
  smv --transform "clean,snake,replace:space:_" file.txt
  

• Regular expression-based transformations: Advanced pattern replacement

  # Example: Replace "old" with "new" in filenames
  smv --replace "old:new" file.txt
  # Example: Replace all digits with 'X'
  smv --character-replace "digits:X" file*.txt
  

• Custom user-defined transformations: Save your own transform combinations

  # Example: Save a custom transformation
  smv --save "my-format:clean,snake,upper"
  # Use the custom transformation
  smv --transform my-format file.txt
  

• Configuration file system: Persistent settings and defaults

• Directory synchronization features: Keep renamed files in sync

• Plugin system for add-ons: Extend functionality

• Enhanced REPL with syntax highlighting: Improved interactive mode

• Color-coded preview output: Visual differentiation of changes

License

MIT License