How to add folder/project name to a File Naming preset

Question

Here's a tip to automatically add the name of the Project or its parent Folder to the filename during Import or Batch Change.
I always used a custom field for adding my client's name to the filename upon Import or Batch Changing versions or masters. But often I would forget to change the custom name, and since it's auto-populated with the previous entry, I'd end up with a bunch of files with the wrong client's name on them. That looks kind of bad. So once I saw with Aperture 3 you can add the Project name or Folder name when relocating referenced files to the new folder structure, I was excited to be able to do the same for the filenames at import. Well, no such luck. They're not an option when you create a custom File Naming preset.
However, I recently decided to poke around inside some plist files, and found a workaround. I discovered the format string for Folder Name is %F and Project Name is %P. The trick is getting the code into the Format Field where you create the preset.
Create a new File Naming preset by choosing "edit" from the Version Name menu during Import or Batch Change. Drag everything you want in the name into the Format field, and enter %F or %P where you want the Folder or Project name. The tricky part is that you can't insert it between two existing criteria. It only works at the very end. After you have it in place, you can drag the criteria around to get it in the order you want.
The alternative method is to insert the code directly into the plist. PLEASE, always make sure you're working with a copy and have a good backup when you're poking around in such things. If you have trouble getting the code to take from within Aperture, you can try this. Same as above, create a new preset, but this time, enter an F or P where you want the Folder or Project name. Give it a unique preset name and save it. Then Quit Aperture. Navigate to ~/Library/Application Support/Aperture/FileNamingPresets.plist, and make a copy of the file, then open with Property List Editor. Dropdown the plist and then dropdown the item you want to edit. You should recognize it by the preset name. Now the easy part. Click in the FormatString field and insert the % character before the F or P you entered in the Format field. Save and you're done.
I discovered later that while the Folder and Project name works just fine during import, for some reason only the Project name works during Batch Change. The Folder name simply creates a "-" in the filename.
In case this is seen as a hack and gets deleted, I'm also submitting it to http://www.macosxhints.com/ and I suspect if anyone from MacCreate sees it, they'll steal it too, as they're known to do.

Answer 1

I do not think there is an out of the box way to do this.
The immediate solution that comes to mind is using a workflow, that runs everytime  a document is uploaded/item created, which may be too much for your scenario.
Cheers,
Prasanna Adavi, Project MVP
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