How do you make an environment variable from a file name in Dolphin so that it can be referred to several times in a BASH script? I could go via rename but there may be a better way.

please elaborate
what is it you want to do in KDE4

I wanted to change the content of a file but retain the old date. I suppose I could do that but my filenames are often long and complicated. I thought if I could point to a file in Dolphin and get an environment variable out if it that would be handy.

you could create a r-click menu option in "actions" for dolphin

but i am reading the above as this

edit a file BUT keep the OLD pre editing time stamp .
so it looks like it was not edited

if that is the case then this is against the forum rules
and i can not help .

Thanks for the hint about Actions. I'll keep it in mind. For now I will use the clipboard.

You should not rely on the file date being correct; I have hundreds that are not. Sometimes I add notes to old news files but I want the date to represent the reality that it's, for example, a news file from 1998. And if I'm looking for files before 1999, I want to find files from 1998 including the ones modified by extra notes.

JPG files out of a camera can be dated almost anything. This can be fixed by changing the date of the file. ZTree (a Windows file manager) is good at this. All distros of Linux have a program to change dates too.

regds Geoff

so you are talking about "editing PHOTOS "
and not documents and FOLDERS

it would have helped if that was in the FIRST post

use your favorite "photo album" program
there are already "convert to png/jpg/ppm" actions