# please add an option...

**URL:** https://community.mp3tag.de/t/please-add-an-option/3178
**Category:** General Discussion
**Created:** [April 13, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/please-add-an-option/3178 "2006-04-13T01:33:35Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![willmcelwain](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/3e96dc/32.png) [@willmcelwain](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/willmcelwain)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2006, 1:33am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/please-add-an-option/3178/1 "2006-04-13T01:33:35Z")

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Hi Florian,

In the 2.35b build, you changed the following:  
"CHG: invalid characters in filenames are removed by default now."

Do you think you could make that an option (a checkbox) instead? Or maybe have the user specify what the illegal characters map to instead of just eliminating them? I usually make ":" into " -" and "/" into "-". I thought it was very useful for the program to ask me what to do when running into those chars when doing a "Tag - Filename" operation, as I don't always recognize the illegal chars in a tag.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Will

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### Author: ![Sebastian\_Mares](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/sebastian_mares/32/9285_2.png) [@Sebastian\_Mares](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/Sebastian_Mares)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2006, 4:18am UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/please-add-an-option/3178/2 "2006-04-13T04:18:32Z")

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You can always use $replace() and $validate().

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### Author: ![milka](https://community.mp3tag.de/user_avatar/community.mp3tag.de/milka/32/55_2.png) [@milka](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/milka)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/please-add-an-option/3178/3 "2006-04-13T15:23:24Z")

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Read [this](https://docs.mp3tag.de/scripting).

Here goes my example:  
$replace($replace(%track. %artist% - %title%,:,-),/,-)

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### Author: ![geoffb](https://community.mp3tag.de/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@geoffb](https://community.mp3tag.de/u/geoffb)
#### Post date: [May 25, 2006, 3:57pm UTC](https://community.mp3tag.de/t/please-add-an-option/3178/4 "2006-05-25T15:57:30Z")

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> [@Sebastian Mares](#):
>
> You can always use $replace() and $validate().

I think it would be great if it was possible to set, somewhere in the setup options, which character $validate uses for each invalid filename character, rather than forcing them all to the same character.

I use $replace today, but the formula gets really long and complicated, because it requires 4 levels of nesting to deal with different characters, and has to be repeated for artist, title, etc.

Cheers  
Geoff