Multi-edit should work with text fields
Blender already has the ability to modify attributes of all selected objects in the 3D View by pressing <em>Alt while</em> changing a value. It even works for numeric input (hold <em>Alt</em> while clicking in the center of the numeric field).Blender also already has the ability to auto-number the names of objects if you type in a name that is already in use (e.g. if you try to change an object's name to "chair" when there's already an object with that name, Blender will automatically set the name of your object to "chair.001").It would be nice to combine these features. For instance, while rigging, you could select all of the bones in a character's tail, <em>Alt</em>+click the bone name field, type "tail", and the bones would automatically all have "tail" as a prefix and numeric designator (e.g. ".004") as a suffix... all in one go.
4 Comments
There is a batch rename addon currently available. blenderaddonlist.blogspot.com/2013/11/addon-batch-renaming.html
The add-on is fine. But since we already have interface support for multi-edit while holding the Alt key, this is kind of expected behavior.
This might not be that great of an idea for the specific usecase given in the example. How would we ensure that each of the bones is numbered in the proper sequence? That is, for a tail or a spine or any bone chain like the one described, you generally want something like tail.000, tail.001, tail.003, etc, from the base to the tip. In this proposal, the bones could just as easily be numbered tail.003, tail.010, tail.005, etc.
And for bone chains, perhaps we can get around this by using the actual parent-child relationships between bones (or objects) as a guide... but what if there is no parent-child relationship? What would control the numbering then? Distance from the global origin? Nothing at all (pure randomness)?
For bones there is already AutoName built right in, under the Pose menu. It will automatically number them either in either front/back, left/right, top/botom.