Edit directory contents (rename or delete files, edit permissions) using your text editor or in a unix pipeline.
Running diredit directly will launch your $EDITOR and apply any changes after a save and quit. If you redirect or pipe standard output then it'll just print the directory contents. If you redirect or pipe something into it, it'll apply whichever changes it can.
Yes, you need to be careful.
Usage: diredit [options] [path] [path...]
-h, --help Show this message
-i, --interactive Launch $EDITOR to interactively edit directory listing (default unless stdin and stdout are redirected)
-p, --non-interactive Print listing instead of editing interactively (default when stdin or stdout are directed to a file or pipe)
-r, --recursive List recursively
-v, --verbose Print every change as it is applied
rename .txt to .md
diredit ./tmp/ | sed 's/\.txt$/\.md/' | diredit
make files group-writable
diredit ./tmp/ | sed 's/ 100644/ 100664/' | diredit
Running diredit directly will launch your $EDITOR anyway, but the vim-diredit makes it a little nicer by hiding the inode column.