Convert Case to ...

Jeronymite · Jul 12, 2015, 1:10 AM

It’s great to have the Convert Case to capability. Can it be enhanced to include more options? For example, the TitleCase Addon for Mozilla Thunderbird has these options:

tOGGLE cASE
Proper case
Title Case
Title Case (CamelCase)
Start Case
Start Case (CamelCase)
CamelCase
UPPER CASE
lower case

Thanks!

evanslove · Aug 24, 2015, 8:06 PM

This would be an absolutely wonderful addition! I would do it myself if i knew how…

Ricardo · Aug 25, 2015, 4:57 AM

Install TextFX plugin, it’s one of the best plugins.

guy038 · Sep 12, 2023, 9:40 AM

Hello Jeronymite and All,

UPDATED on 12/02/2016 ( addition of the syntax (?-is), in front of each regex, to ensure that :

The search is performed in a sensitive way
The dot meta-character matches standard characters, only

I did some investigations, on the Net, about the different Capitalization rules. Below, 3 links to interesting articles on that topic :

http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?CapitalizationRules

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_case

http://www.titlecase.com/

From that documentation, here is, below, a ( non exhaustive !) summary of the main kinds of capitalisation :

UPPERCASE / All-caps THE MAPS AND A BOOK ARE IN MY BROWN FRENCH BAG. --> All letters are UPPERCASE
Start Case / Proper Case The Maps And A Book Are In My Brown French Bag. --> All words are Capitalized, regardless its category
tOGGLE cASE ( from ABOVE ) tHE mAPS aND a bOOK aRE iN mY bROWN fRENCH bAG. --> INVERT the case of each letter
Title Case The Maps and a Book Are in My Brown French Bag. --> FIRST word Capitalized, and all other words, except for articles, prepositions and conjunctions
Title Case, Variant 1 The Maps and a Book are in My Brown French Bag. --> As Title Case and excepting the forms of “to be”
Title Case, Variant 2 The Maps and a Book are in my Brown French Bag. --> As Title Case but except for all closed-class words
German Sentence Case The Maps and a Book are in my brown French Bag. --> FIRST word and all NOUNS are Capitalized
german mid Sentence Case the Maps and a Book are in my brown French Bag. --> All NOUNS are Capitalized, except for the FIRST word
Sentence case The maps and a book are in my brown French bag. --> FIRST word, Proper nouns and some specific words ( as the pronoun I ) are Capitalized
mid sentence case the maps and a book are in my brown French bag. --> As above, but FIRST word is NOT Capitalized
lowercase the maps and a book are in my brown french bag. --> All letters are lowercase
SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE THE_MAPS_AND_A_BOOK_ARE_IN_MY_BROWN_FRENCH_BAG_ --> All letters are UPPERCASE, and words separated by underscores
snake_case [T/t]he_maps_and_a_book_are_in_my_brown_french_bag_ --> All letters, from the second, lowercase, and words separated by underscores
KEBAB-CASE THE-MAPS-AND-A-BOOK-ARE-IN-MY-BROWN-FRENCH-BAG- --> All letters UPPERCASE, and words separated by hyphens
Train-Case The-Maps-And-A-Book-Are-In-My-Brown-French-Bag- --> All words are Capitalized and separated by hyphens
kebab-case [T/t]he-maps-and-a-book-are-in-my-brown-french-bag- --> All letters, from the second, lowercase, and words separated by hyphens
PascalCase TheMapsAndABookAreInMyBrownFrenchBag --> All words, with letters only, are Capitalized and run together
[Upper]CamelCase / WikiCase TheMapsAndBookAreInMyBrownFrenchBag --> As PascalCase, but each UPPERCASE letter must be followed by a lowercase letter ( So, initial ONE LETTER words are DELETED )
lowerCamelCase theMapsAndBookAreInMyBrownFrenchBag --> As WikiCase, except the FIRST word is lowercase
StUdLyCaPs ThEmApSaNdAbOoKaReInMyBrOwNfReNcHbAg --> UPPER and lower letters alternated, beginning UPPERCASE
StUdLyCaPs, Variant 1 tHeMaPsAnDaBoOkArEiNmYbRoWnFrEnChBaG --> UPPER and lower letters alternated, beginning lowercase
StUdLyCaPs, Variant 2 thEmApsAndAbOOkArEInmYbrOwnfrEnchbAg --> VOWELS are UPPERCASE and CONSONANTS are lowercase
CaNoNiCaLSTuDLyCaPS THeMaPSaNDaBooKaReiNMyBRoWNFReNCHBaG --> VOWELS are lowercase and CONSONANTS are UPPERCASE ( used by the dyslexic )
MiXEdCapS TheMApsANdabOokaREINmyBrOWnFrencHBAG The Case of the letters change almost RANDOMLY

Be aware that you may get some odd replacements, with some capitalizations. Just consider, these few examples, below, with the Proper Case capitalization rule :

If word = McDonald , Proper Case --> Mcdonald
If word = MacDonald, Proper Case --> Macdonald
If word = Google’s, Proper Case --> Google’S
If word = A FBI Inspector, Proper Case --> A Fbi Inspector
If word = my.email@test.com, Proper Case --> My.Email@Test.Com
If word = John Smith III, Proper Case --> John Smith Iii

From that list above, it’s obvious that we can’t build a search/replacement, with regular expressions, for the following capitalizations !

Title Case, and its variants
German Sentence Case and German mid Sentence Case
Sentence case and mid Sentence case
MiXEdCapS

Indeed, these capitalizations have a lot of exceptions or rules, that closely depends on grammar and spelling, completely unreachable with regex S/R !!!

For all the others kinds of capitalization, here is, below, a list of standard regex S/R that achieves the appropriate case modifications.

I included, in that list, a “light” version of the “Sentence case”, which :

can handle successive sentences, in one go
correctly write the pronoun I, in an UPPERCASE way
Unfortunately, replaces Proper nouns and some specific words (as names of the days, …), in a lowercase way :-((

About the following S/R, some hypotheses are supposed :

You must SELECT the area to apply a particular capitalization rule, FIRST
The Regular expression search mode is SET
The In selection option should be CHECKED, on opening the Replace dialog, because of the previous selection

For UPPER CASE : SEARCH = (?-is).+ and REPLACE = \U$0