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Deleting piped Categories

I am just deleting a particular category from articles as in most cases it is misplaced and it (or the one it should be) would be generated by the infobox anyway. I found AWB to skip the articles though when the category has a sortkey. Apart from using RegExp and deleting the category that way, which means making changes to articles which don't particular need editing at this moment in time is there a way of deleting such categories? Agathoclea (talk) 11:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I thought it dealt with piped categories.. Hmm. Anyway, pretty sure the CFD plugin.dll does do it, im pretty sure - Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CFD_plugin —Reedy Boy 12:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Testing this now. Will need to find another piped one first :-) Agathoclea (talk) 12:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Looking good now - thanks Agathoclea (talk) 13:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually, both ways use he same routine for removing categories. Please specify on which exactly pages did you experience problems. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 17:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
It was Gröbenzell Agathoclea (talk) 19:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I was unable to reproduce it in this article. Any particuar settings you've used would be helpful. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 19:32, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
My main setting is to remove category Towns in Bavaria and set to skip if that is not applicable. Everything else is just basic replacements. The article I had a problem with and still have is now at User:Agathoclea/Sandbox as I made a manual change to Gröbenzell after AWB kept ignoring it. Agathoclea (talk) 23:06, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
It was the skip if no replacements to me made that was the culprit. Agathoclea 09:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Will never work on Wikia

Please, dont say anymore that this thing work on wikia projects because it's not true anymore and Wikia doesn't want to do a symoblic link to their Api.php (that is in / not in /w/) so this software will never be useable again on wikia projects.

I've tryed today using the only version that was still able to function on Wikia (version 4.0.0) and it's totally disabled now. It wont even log in. It say that the version is obselete on Wikipedia (like i would ever want to use it here -.-' ). TulipVorlax (talk) 04:23, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

It worked fine... I'll investigate this. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 06:46, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Question about editing others' comments

I have no strong feelings about this, but I would like input from others. With so many people using AWB, I've noticed a trend in "fixing" (spelling, grammar, capitalization, etc.) other people's comments on talk pages, and other Wiki-space pages (like bot requests, AN/ANI, etc.). The part of me that is a stickler for spelling and grammar does not really mind this, but another part of me believes in the talk page etiquette guideline, "It is not necessary to bring talk pages to publishing standards, so there is no need to correct typing errors, grammar, etc. It tends to irritate the users whose comments you are correcting." It seems this may be something that should be avoided. It should not be hard for those who use AWB to simply skip anything not in article space (I use AWB occasionally, and I do not edit pages that are outside article space for this reason) but I'd like to know what others think. Ariel♥Gold 15:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I, too, tend to skip pages outside the article space when using AWB. In fact, I'll usually filter the lists I make for just Main and (sometimes) Wikipedia, leaving all other pages alone. Editing other users' comments with an automated tool doesn't seem like something we should be doing. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 16:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't correct the spelling of other's comments using AWB or Lupin's tool either . James086Talk | Email 04:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Guys, if you notice someone editing others' comments with AWB, you should warn them first. If they continue, report them here so that we may remove their access. We can't prohibit RETF in projectspace because it has some valind uses[1]. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 06:45, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Bot

I recently went a little crazy on AWB, leading to an ugly string of auto-edits. I wanted to know the procedure for opening a bot account that would be only operated by AWB. No code, no fancy stuff (not yet, anyway), just me logging in to AWB under a bot account and editing. J-ſtanTalkContribs 04:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Might I suggest creating a user named J-stanbot or something similar? It most likely wouldn't have a bot flag, but it would separate your automated edits from your main account. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 07:21, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
So that's okay? would I have to get reapproved by AWB for it? When I list it, should I list it as a bot, or just another account? Since I have so many questions, could you just explain what I'd have to do besides just create another account? Thanks. J-ſtanTalkContribs 18:53, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Well. You wouldnt get a flag for like regextypofix - Not that you can use it automated.. I think your probably just after a sock account for just AWB edits? Rather than a bot account? —Reedy Boy 21:30, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, excuse the wording if improper, that's what is used on the main page. So basically, I just create a new account and ask that it get AWB, even though it has less than 500 edits? Should I display the message that bots have about it being a bot account? Has someone done this before so I can ask them directly? Sorry about the flurry of questions, I just want to do everything right. J-ſtanTalkContribs 21:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Socks don't need 500 edits if their master have 'em, and no, you must use {{bot}} only if it actually makes unshupervised edits. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 22:01, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Gotcha. So it's basically a legit sock. I'll create the account. One last question for now: Do I list it for approval under Bots? J-ſtanTalkContribs 22:03, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Oh wait, nevermind. I'm already approved. J-stanbot is up, thanks for all the help! J-ſtanTalkContribs 22:09, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

(undent) Problem. AWB says J-stanbot isn't allowed to access AWB. So now, should I list it under Bots? J-ſtanTalkContribs 22:12, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Bugfeaturecommentquestion

I'm not sure if this an interface question, bug report, feature request, or just an observation, so I'm putting it here.

When editing a page with RegExpTypoFix enabled, if you examine the typo fix and determine it to be incorrect (usually because of foreign language text or a verbatim quotation), you can remove that particular edit, while preserving other AWB suggested changes.

When you confirm the edit, however, the typofix is still listed in the edit summary. The comment is, huh. The question is, is there a way to stop it? The bug/feature request is, can somebody make that stop? gnfnrf (talk) 05:30, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Already listed as a bug, no solution is expected in the foreseeable future. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 08:01, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Regex help

I am so definitely a regex n00b. I used the regex 

:+(?:'')?<small(?: style="color:(?: )gray(?:;)?")?>(?:'')?(.*)(?:'')?</small>(?:'')?

to replace things like :''<small>Note text</small>'' and :<small style="color: gray;">''More note text''</small> with {{User:Voyagerfan5761/talknote|$1}} (using the only unescaped backreference in the regex, (.*) for $1). It went off quite well, except I noticed that the versions of my inconsistent manual noting with '' inside the <small> tags had '' passed into the backreference.

As a purely academic question, how could I have avoided this? I'd like to learn more about regex writing, and this seems like a good place to ask. Thanks in advance to anyone who can help! Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 03:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

You need to make the .* non-greedy by adding a ?. Otherwise, the .* matches '', since it's an optional match.
(?:'')?(.*?)(?:'')?
Not tested, but should work.--uɐɔlnʌɟoʞǝɹɐs 14:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
It's now tested. Adding notes, replacing notes. Worked like a charm! Thanks! I'll have to remember that trick for future regexes. Something tells me I haven't seen the last of those pesky strings. :D
How cool is it that I, nick Tuvok, got help from you, nick Sarek? Wow, just wow. And so helpful, too. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 16:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
*raises eyebrow*--uɐɔlnʌɟoʞǝɹɐs 16:45, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
*What happens if you do asterisks without nowikis?* If you'll excuse me, I must go meditate. Please pardon my loss of emotional control. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 16:54, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Find and replace

Suppose I only wanted to find and replace for certain singular words, but not their plural. How can I tell it to only find, for example, 'dog', but not 'dogs'? Thanks! Reywas92Talk 22:47, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Use regex dog\b. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 06:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! So I chould check the Regex box in find and replace? Reywas92Talk 22:33, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Resource Usage

Can someone give me an idea of the average amount of RAM and CPU percentages that AWB will use? I'm running a 1.3 ghz with 512k RAM and need to have room for other programs to run. Thanks --Brad (talk) 15:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

And you're still managing to run Windows? You must have meant 512 MB. :D
I have a 1.7 GHz Gateway with 1 GB of RAM, and I can run Firefox plus two distributed-computing services, Apache, MySQL, and all the other background detritus with no problem. Firefox routinely eats up about 300-400 MB of RAM, and the distributed-computing programs take about 20% of CPU, yet I've never had a problem with AWB. The resource requirements seem to be very low. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 01:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, 512MB.. where did that k come from? Anyway, I thought someone could simply open their Task Manager, click processes, and tell me what the numbers say? --Brad (talk) 02:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Seeing as how I was just running AWB and came here to ask my own question, I'll just check my memory usage. *Checks * I've got about 130 MB for mine, with repeated usage of the advanced find and replace (regex). Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 03:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! Not too bad. Maybe some others will chime in. --Brad (talk) 17:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Side note: I was running it for several hours last night and it only got up to about 150 MB. That was with two regexes and subst:'ing enabled. Just thought I'd let you know. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 23:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Date formatting with regex

I'm back again! Tonight I constructed a small set of regular expressions to substitute templates like {{unsigned}} and replace such things with {{unsignedIP}} when appropriate. I haven't had much trouble with those — all it took was some watching the edits and I fixed up my expressions right quick — but I came across some oddly-formatted (ISO 8601) timestamps, and have been trying to figure out how to convert them to normal signature timestamps.

What I have captures all the data perfectly: 

(\d\d\d\d)-(\d\d)-(\d\d)T(\d\d):(\d\d)(?::\d\d)?(?:Z)?

There's a possibility of trimming spaces, too, but that's a minor issue (does any better way than (?: )? exist?). What I need to do is put the backreferences into the following format: 

$4:$5, $3 $2 $1

$4 hh, $5 mm, $3 dd, $2 month#, $1 yyyy.

I tried using {{subst:MONTHNAME|$2}} where $2 is in the above example, but it never worked, at least not when I subst'ed the templates. If there's a way to somehow convert the two-digit $2 backreference into the corresponding English month name using pure regex, and you can tell me, you will be hailed as a regex god by me for all time. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 07:45, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is, but it'd be pretty ugly. I'm more curious why the subst you gave didn't work. What did you end up with? It could be a matter of escaping the pipe:{{subst:MONTHNAME\|$2}} in the replacement text. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I don't think so. Escaping the pipe just gave me an escaped pipe in the wikicode. I think it has more to do with the extra pipe inside the {{unsigned}} template. I also tried substituting both MONTHNAME and Template:! (which is a pipe for use in template parameters) but only got this. Ugly doesn't worry me so long as it works. I think I've pretty well established that using a template within a template isn't going to do the job, unless MediaWiki starts subst:'ing from the inside out, which is unlikely. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 05:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Can regex do what I need it to?

I'm completely ignorant of regex or how to do what I'd like to do, if possible. I was wondering if I could get some help setting up a find/replace code for an edit like this. How do I surround those existing items in those taxobox fields with italics or bold? I'm working on long lists of species, so the items in those fields changes from edit to edit. Any help is appreciated. Thanks! --Rkitko (talk) 22:27, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

As you can see from my above comments, I'm kind of a regex newbie myself. However, I think this should be reasonably simple. Assuming you know how to access the advanced find and replace dialog in AWB, you should be able to use something like this for the name parameter:
Replace: [Tt]axobox(.*?)\|(?: +)?name(?: +)?=(?: +)?(?:'+)?([A-Za-z ])(?:'+)?

With: Taxobox$1| name = ''$2''
And something like this for the species parameter:
Replace: [Tt]axobox(.*?)\|(?: +)?species(?: +)?=(?: +)?(?:'+)?([A-Za-z \.])(?:'+)?

With: Taxobox$1| species = '''''$2'''''
I've assumed that the parameters you'll be replacing won't contain digits. All the (?: +)? and (?:'+)? should capture one or more spaces or apostrophes (respectively) if present and remove them so the formatting applied in the replacement options won't have any extra spaces or apostrophes to possibly mess up the formatting.
So that's two untested rules for you. Make sure that you use the option Type: Inside template calls {{...}} and uncheck "Case sensitive" for both. Also, mind what they do if you use them, and let me know if anything doesn't work as expected. This will hopefully be helpful for both of us, as I am trying to learn more about regexes. Also, if those + captures are supposed to be lazy, somebody please tell me. :D I'll be back on four or five hours from now to see how things went. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 23:03, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Wow, thanks! It's definitely close. I assume I have to check "single line" as well? If so, this is what it gives me:
| name = ''C''rotalaria bamendae
and
| species = '''''C'''''. bamendae''
Looks like the rules need a tweak somewhere. On the right track. Appreciate the help :-) Rkitko (talk) 23:56, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Missing pluses in the replace selections:
Replace: [Tt]axobox(.*?)\|(?: +)?name(?: +)?=(?: +)?(?:'+)?([A-Za-z ]+)(?:'+)?
Replace: [Tt]axobox(.*?)\|(?: +)?species(?: +)?=(?: +)?(?:'+)?([A-Za-z \.]+)(?:'+)?
--JHunterJ (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 00:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Success! Thank you! A further question, then. What would I enter if I wanted to do an edit like this and get rid of the name parameter all together. Changes to the taxobox template a while back eliminated the need for it, and just removing it completely could avoid the problems of potentially italicizing a common name when the goal is to italicize species names. Thoughts? By changing the replace with to just "Taxobox$1" I can get it to do this, but that leaves a break between the two lines. While the function of the template isn't bothered by the line break, it'd be nice to keep it clean. Is that possible? Cheers, --Rkitko (talk) 01:20, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm, also, is there someway to include apostrophes and dashes in the amount it will replace? Sometimes with these Polbot contributions that I'm cleaning up after, the name in the field will include an apostrophe (Lumholtz' Pine) or a dash (Smooth-bark Mexican Pine). It would find/replace up until the apostrophe or dash and then stop. Suppose that has to do with what the regex is told to look for... Anything I can do about that? Thanks again :-) Rkitko (talk) 03:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Heh, whoops! I knew I forgot something. Thanks for catching that, JHunterJ!
Regarding the line breaks, I got it to work by using [Tt]axobox(.*?)\|(?: +)?name(?: +)?=(?: +)?(?:'+)?([A-Za-z ]+)(?:'+)?[\r\n]+ as the replace and Taxobox$1 as the with. That's with Singleline on. It completely removes the name parameter, but only if there are no punctuation characters, which I'll address next.
To include punctuation such as ' and - in the $2 backreference, you simply have to add the punctuation characters to the [square bracketed] section. So, if you want hyphens and apostrophes to be included, you would replace ([A-Za-z ]+) in the above regex with ([A-Za-z -']+) . To match additional punctuation, you simply add more characters between the brackets. Though some special characters have additional meaning in regexes, so any of [\^$.|?*+(){} would need to be preceded by a backslash ( \ ) to escape their special meaning.
That should do it! I'm assuming you're using these for BotanyBot? Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 05:38, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks! You've been very helpful :-) I'll try them in the morning and let you know if I run into any problems. Yep, this is all being used with BotanyBot. I never bothered to request AWB access on my own username. Thanks again! --Rkitko (talk) 06:15, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

(reset indent) My pleasure! It gave me some extra practice with those little buggers. Looking forward to hearing from you tomorrow! Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 10:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

All check out fine. The only tweak I had to do was escape the hyphen ([A-Za-z \-']+) for it to work. Thanks again! --Rkitko (talk) 15:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Oy, again! I forgot that the hyphen denotes a character range (like A-Z, a-z, or 0-9). Good catch! Glad it works for you! It's always heartening to know that I've made a contribution to some tool here, be it a JavaScript application or a bot's configuration. :) (Ooh, bad rhyme...) Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 23:07, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
One other fix would be to put the hyphen first: ([-A-Za-z ']+). But escaping it in the middle works too. -- JHunterJ (talk) 23:37, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

History of changes

It there a section listing the history of bug fixes and improvements? An organised list with headings wound be helpful. This would be helpful for users to report bugs, and probably encourage more bug reporting. Snowman (talk) 16:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

The new features/major/important bugs are generally logged on Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/History. To save the pages getting cluttered, i try and keep up with the archiving. MaxSem implemented the new error handler to try and get some more bug reports through. Yes it worked, just people seem to be lazy as to looking if they already exist. Granted, its a bit hard to tell when its not nicely formatted - ie its raw wikitext..
The current Archives for the 4.1 version of AWB is at Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_5, with some of the older bugs in Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_4. If its been fixed, it will be in the archives, and sometimes duplicates are in there too... —Reedy Boy 17:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I think that the red notice on the bug reporting page probably puts people off. It is not that easy and quick to look through a long and difficult-to-follow list in no particular order. AWB needs bug reporting, so can the red notice be modified. Perhaps a softer colour can be used too. I understand from someones edit summary that there is a wiki guideline about using soft colours only, but I might be mistaken. Snowman (talk) 17:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
It has only just gone on though... Its a bit diffcult. We did discuss using something such as bugzilla, but decided it best to keep it on wiki, as if people had to go elsewhere to report bugs and such, and have to sign up, that it would put people off. So its just archived in sorta the order they are closed/finished... Usually, with the standard error messages, a quick Edit --> Find would find it. What is more annoying to us, is when the bug is active on the main page, and like with the bad release max did a while back, we get 1000's of reports after one another.... —Reedy Boy 17:35, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I think that the red notice could be improved. It might help if you summarized the bug report in some cases in archive 5, as some users describe bugs in different ways and some of these are quite complex with a full error report with lines of code. I have no idea what is happening to the two bugs I reported about 2 weeks ago, as far as I am aware you have not seen them. If you are working on these it would be helpful if you announced this. You might get less duplication, if you gave a slightly more complete commentary on bug progress in archive 5 reporting that: received the bug, testing the bug, fixed the bug, other report on testing findings, not a bug, and so on. I agree that bugzilla could put people off. Snowman (talk) 20:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I want to disable the multiple wikilinks Alert. I dont feel comforable changing the wiki-links. How can I disable this. I feel if I do disable it, than the AWB will go faster. Because right now im averaging 0 Edits/min. Thanks, PGPirate 02:53, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You cant. Just ignore it - You dont have to fix/do anything with them. The difference it would make in processing time would be minimal —Reedy Boy 16:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Question

I'm trying to get a bunch of The Simpsons related articles to here. How can I get AWB to do it for me? Ctjf83 talk 08:44, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Im not exactly sure what you are asking. If you want to have AWB to make a list of all the links on the page - "Links on Page:" Wikipedia:WikiProject_The_Simpsons/Watchlist —Reedy Boy 10:41, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I figured it out, thanks...I just had AWB make a list using category Simpsons, and google search Simpsons, and then saved the list, and copy and pasted it to the watch list thanks again! Ctjf83 talk 06:10, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
New question...i d-load the latest version, and the text in the "current revision" and "your text" is really small, a lot smaller than it use to be. is there anyway to change this? Ctjf83 talk 20:15, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 20:21, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Newlines in regex

How do I know whether I need \r\n or just \n? --NE2 17:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

And is newline support broken? They seem to be treated differently in the regex tester, and I can't get the following to work:

Find ([^\r\n])[\r\n]*\n\|
Replace with $1\r\n|
Regex and multiline checked

on User:NE2/CA - it won't get rid of any of the excess lines that are there currently, but it does remove greater than two: [2] --NE2 18:08, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

the \n was not supported in "replace with" field [for example, if you have (\n) -> $1 that won't work, but if you have \n -> \r\n it will], they said it's fixed in the next release (what means: no \r\n anymore, just \n), I'm also waiting for the new version 'cause that bug stopped me from editing, i hope it will be released real soon --84.234.42.68 (talk) 12:49, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Help for a script

hello, I'm a french wikipedian, and i work on AWB, with my StefBot. But i'm a young user, and, i don't know enough the syntax for AWB, so i need help... I would like a script whose changes a parameter of an infobox (for exemple, template:infobox Actor). If somebody can help me, thanks very much, best regards Stef4854 (talk) 18:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Hey.. What do you mean by a script? A C#/VB module? —Reedy Boy 21:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

when are Category additions done

Are they done last? It seems that way. I notice that categories are getting appended to the bottom on the article, after stub templates. Can category operations be done first (or near the top of the list) so that general fixes can take care of them as well. Also it would be nice to have the categories added before any modules are run. I'm trying to categorize hundreds of radio stations which require adding categories like this [[Category:Radio stations in Texas|YQX]] for a page like KYQX. This is done to allow stations to be listed by the 2nd letter in their callsign rather than all be lumped into a K or W category. I'd like to use AWB to add a category like [[Category:Radio stations in Texas|REPLACEME]] and then use a module to replace that REPLACEME string with a substring'd version of the article title. That's not working because the categories are apparently being added last. Or am I missing an easier way to do this?--Rtphokie (talk) 15:28, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

This has already been reported as a bug (the incorrect category placement), and fixed for the next release. Jogers moved it by mistake before the last release —Reedy Boy 16:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
But the custom module is still done before category addition! —Reedy Boy 16:47, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Cool thanks!--Rtphokie (talk) 14:05, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Disabling DEFAULTSORT tag addition

Is there a way I can disable this fix yet retain all the other general fixes?--Rtphokie (talk) 16:02, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

What you don't like about it? If you have a specific concern, just tell us what, so we could fix it. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 18:07, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
Automagically adding the default sort tag and cleaning up the category tags is great for most articles but not for broadcast stations (TV and Radio). These pages are categorized by state (e.g. Category:Radio stations in Virginia) or city (e.g. Category:Radio stations in Atlanta) and by other categories which cover multiple states (e.g. Category:National Public Radio stations), To make the categories more readable, the by state categories are sorted beginning with the second letter of the article title (i.e. the call sign) so that they dont all get lumped into either the K's or the W's (stations west of the Mississippi start with W, east start with a K with only a handful of exceptions). However the larger categories (by music genre, by ownership, etc.) should be sorted by the first letter of title because they span the whole country. Automatically adding the DEFAULTSORT tag causes problems in these types of articles. Even when 2 categories exist that should be sorted by the second letter, it's preferrable to leave them as they are rather than strip the sorting from the categories and add a DEFAULTSORT tag. This is because any national categories that are added later would be sorted incorrectly. With thousands of radio and tv station articles AWB is a big help to WP:WikiProject Radio Stations, the ability to turn this normally very useful fix off for our purposes would be great.--Rtphokie (talk) 14:20, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

2 questions: Watchlist and nor option

I have a couple questions about this. First, how do I make it not add new talk pages that I create to my watchlist; I found the option to make it add everything to my watchlist, but unchecking that doesn't make it not add them when I make a new page. Secondly, in the advanced add/change settings, how do I make it not make a replacement if it finds niether of two strings of text; there is only one "if not" box. Thank you. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:29, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

The first question I think I can take a stab at. Have you checked your on-site preferences' (Special:Preferences) Watchlist tab? If you don't want pages you create automatically watched, just uncheck "Add pages I create to my watchlist" on that tab. Or are you referring to something else that's happening? Tuvok[T@lk/Improve me] 20:32, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
That makes sence, how silly of me. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 17:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

RegExp request

I need two regular expressions made to convert the following external links into template form. examples are here: 1 2 IrisKawling (talk) 02:02, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

hockeydb.com AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 18 career statistics at The Internet Hockey Database 

\[http://www\.hockeydb\.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay\.php3\?pid=([0-9]{1,8})[\s](.*?)] replaced with {{hockeydb|$1}}

Would leave you with trailing 0000... [3]

—Reedy Boy 10:42, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Or we can use a custom module in AWB, and we get [4] 

        public string ProcessArticle(string ArticleText, string ArticleTitle, int wikiNamespace, out string Summary, out bool Skip)
        {
            Regex Hockey = new Regex(@"\[http://www\.hockeydb\.com/ihdb/stats/pdisplay\.php3\?pid=([0-9]{1,8})[\s](.*?)]");

            Skip = false;
            Summary = "Migrating www.hockeydb.com links to templates";

            int number = Convert.ToInt32(Hockey.Match(ArticleText).Groups[1].Value);

            return Hockey.Replace(ArticleText, "{{hockeydb|" + number + "}}");
        }

—Reedy Boy 10:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

And the other... 

        public string ProcessArticle(string ArticleText, string ArticleTitle, int wikiNamespace, out string Summary, out bool Skip)
        {
            Regex Hockey = new Regex(@"\[http://www\.legendsofhockey\.net:8080/LegendsOfHockey/jsp/SearchPlayer\.jsp\?player=([0-9]{1,8})[\s]*(.*?)]");

            Skip = false;
            Summary = "Migrating www.legendsofhockey.net: links to templates";

            int number = Convert.ToInt32(Hockey.Match(ArticleText).Groups[1].Value);

            return Hockey.Replace(ArticleText, "{{hockeydb|" + number + "}}");
        }

—Reedy Boy 10:58, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. The module code returned bugs (maybe I used it wrong) but the basic regex does the trick just fine. IrisKawling (talk) 12:00, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
If you copy and paste all the code straight into Custom Module, replacing what is there currently, it should work fine... —Reedy Boy 17:26, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Why don't you just match id=0*([1-9]\d*) ? MaxSem(Han shot first!) 13:23, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Find and replace again

I earlier asked how to only find and replace 'dog', but not 'dogs' with 'dogs'. Someone replied to use regex 'dog\b', but I tried this leaving both the regex box checked and unchecked, but it still didn't work. Dogs was changed into dogss. What should I do? This was with the normal find and replace; should I used advanced, or am I doing it wrong? Thanks! Reywas92Talk 18:34, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

find: \bdog\b
Replace: cat
example text: dogs dog cats dogs dog
result: dogs cat cats dogs cat

Hope that helps --Jeanenawhitney (talk) 18:57, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Uncatagorized

I was wondering how AWB figures out how to add the uncategorized tag to an article. I'm assuming it looks for [[Category: ]] tags in the article, though I would like to get clarification on this. --Nn123645 (talk) 06:54, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

No, categories form transcluded templates are also taken into account. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 09:27, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Still not working on Wikia

I know i've already posted a message about this matter but nothing has been done yet. So, i've posted a big comment on Wikia AutoWikiBrowser page about the fact that the devs here dont want to do anything about it and say Wikia should do something about it. I'm a bit lazy so i'll just give you the link to the comment i've just written on Wikia : [5]. See ya. TulipVorlax (talk) 04:51, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Just made a weird discovery. It work on Wikia but only if i select custom project and enter the full URL of it. Did not test with my bot account yet but it worked with my sysop one. So, it might be a workaround until things get corrected, if ever. TulipVorlax (talk) 10:59, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

diff

can diff be more accurate and intelligent than that in [6] and compare the counterparts? --84.234.42.68 (talk) 19:25, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

It will be better in the next release... —Reedy Boy 20:23, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
Nope, there is no easy way to find out that one string is a modified version of another one. At least I've never seen any free-license diff library capable of making such precise diffs. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 18:09, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Question

The only thing I can find on my computer is the AWB update folder. Whenever I try to update it, it says there's nothing to update. What should I do? Thanks Hatmatbbat10 (talk) 22:19, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

release

can you release unstable version (lattest revision)? --84.234.42.68 (talk) 00:32, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Here - I'm uploading SVN Snapshot there now.. —Reedy Boy 14:41, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
Wow, I just tried the "unstable version". It is actually very nice. It's much faster...just the occasional "Just in time debugger" notices... - Jameson L. Tai talk ♦ contribs 17:46, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Yup, it should be. Startup should be a lot faster too! MaxSem (mainly) has put quite a bit of work into revamping AWB again and speeding things up. Please just keep an eye on that page if your using the "unstable" (not really quite so, more just snapshots), versions, as it will be periodically updated as things are updated in the svn! —Reedy Boy 19:40, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
Not to hold you guys up to a schedule or anything...because you guys are doing a fabulous job at this btw... but how often should we check for updates in the SVN? I mean should I hound at it everyday? every 4 days? week? 2 weeks? Rough estimate is perfectly fine. Thanks a bunch! :D - Jameson L. Tai talk ♦ contribs 06:38, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, if you were in a position to build it yourself, i'd reccommend you ran a svn update every day. If you just want to help out with testing a bit, and are unable to build the latest versions yourself. If not, just check back every couple of days. I'll stick a new version up as and when changes happen, that are worth people having access too! I should really publicise it a little more —Reedy Boy 18:42, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

CFD Plugin edit summaries

Is there any way to turn off the extended edit summaries when using the CFD plugin? If I don't use the plugin, I get something neat and compact like "CFD 2008 Jan 5 using AWB". But when I use the plugin, and I'm making changes that involve wordy or multiple categories, the edit summary balloons (and truncates) to something like "CFD 2008 Jan 5 , replaced: Category:Generic cat name A → Category:Generic cat name B, replaced: Category:Generic cat name C → Category:G"

It works well when there is only one change to make, or if the category names are short. But when it truncates as in the above example, the edit summary just becomes confusing. --Kbdank71 19:51, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Not as it stands.. But it wouldnt be difficult to put a checkbox in you can check to suppress the extended edit summary.. I just know if other people may have a problem with that.. —Reedy Boy 20:05, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Is there anything you need me to do at this point? --Kbdank71 14:52, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to see an option to not add the CFD changes to the edit summary (similar to the option in regular find/replace). It makes edit summaries very cluttered, and cuts off the AWB link (ex (re-categorisation per CFD , replaced: Category:Municipalities of Utrecht → Category:Municipalities of Utrecht (province) using [[Project:Au) ) -- pb30<talk> 21:08, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems there is going to have to be options for most parts to turn off the auto edit summaries... —Reedy Boy 21:33, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

References and reflist

Hello. In the last few days, I've encountered four different editors using AWB to make thousands of edits. Among the "general fixes", AWB converts <references /> to {{reflist}}.[7] Per {{reflist}}, "there is no consensus that small font size should always be used for all references". I'm told the next release version will not have this "feature".[8] Is there any way you can get this released soon? Gimmetrow 05:37, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

try an actual version (unstable), should work good - [9] --84.234.42.68 (talk) 10:43, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
I think you misunderstand. I don't use AWB. Gimmetrow 18:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
it's released as unstable and can be downloaded --84.234.42.68 (talk) 22:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
He doesnt use it. It will be fixed for the next release —Reedy Boy 23:29, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
When is this next release? Gimmetrow 04:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

If AWB is supposed for other language Wikis as well (is ist?) - such changings need to be done via the wordlist (same as you change "adn" to "and"). Because now all other language Wikis get the suggestion to change from <references /> to {{reflist}} as well - although we even do not have a template called "reflist". Why is that part of the program itself and not part of the wordlist? Strange... --A half-open shower curtain (talk) 13:53, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I can see where you are coming from... However, part of the code (not just the regex), is quite complex, and cant just be added under the "typo fixing" as people may not want to be typo fixing. We could, like the localised typo edit summary, have it as a variable.. Defined by project if requested...? —Reedy Boy 14:09, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes sure - I only thought the wordlist would be easier. --A half-open shower curtain (talk) 14:13, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Let's try this again: When will you be releasing a new version and disabling the old version? Gimmetrow 23:06, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping for last weekend... But i got way-laid/busy with revision and other commitments... No reason why we cant this weekend... Seem to be no bugs outstanding. Just a couple of loose ends i want to tie up —Reedy Boy 23:13, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Autosave

I thought AWB autosaved, but I see now it is only for bots. Was this a change? Can I disable this feature if I download the source and compile myself? Thanks. TableMannersU·T·C 06:06, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

No, AWB has never autosaved for general users, only AWB approved bots. As for the 2nd part - no comment. —Reedy Boy 12:11, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Replace pages with AWB

I have written an Excel spreadsheet that I use to import NHL Statistics via a web query. I then have it output the wiki code that I copy / paste into the template that I am updating. The code that it outputs is the entire page's code. What I want to do is have AWB open the templates which I am updating and replace the entire page with the contents of my text file. Can this be done with AWB? My intention is to get this working if it can be done and eventually automating this VIA bot approval with an alternate account user:Pparazorbot for these certain edits. For now, the saving would be manual. Thanks -Pparazorback (talk) 20:41, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Sounds alot like the python bots. If you've download all the stuff to build AWB then should be abl to build on the custom modules, Passing text to external program for processing, which allows you to use languages other than C# and VB to program. I'll have to actually try it out myself on of these day and add GUI for others. —Dispenser (talk) 02:35, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah... I could easily put in a GUI for that page if requested.... —Reedy Boy 15:43, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
If you did I would expect more people to use AWB as a bot frame work as it would significantly ease development. It would also add an intermediate step for people who might like to write a plugin. Of course this is assuming if it were to become part of the AWB base install. I wonder when somebody going to finally write a mail merge plugin. —Dispenser (talk) 00:37, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
Plugins since v4 are much easier (ok, .NET plugins...). You can implement the correct things, then a couple of clicks, all the default methods are created for use... Just saving/loading settings can be a bit iffy... I was going to do that CSV thing (presumably what you mean by mail merge), but wanted to do it with a graphical side so the users can see what was under each coloumn.. Just getting a datagridview to do it wasnt happening.. Suppose a listview could do it fairly easily. Hmm —Reedy Boy 17:15, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
rev 2033 adds a GUI interface for this. Needs some settings saving/loading/plumbing in... rev 2034 tweaks the file names so the input/output is the same. Dispenser - If you can help test it, that'd be useful! —Reedy Boy 15:36, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Other Wikis

I am compiling my own personal wiki at home. It contains specific areas of personal interest. Will AWB allow me to edit the pages imported into my wiki as it does in Wikipedia? Or is the software hard coded to work only on Wikipedia? Thanks, --DP67 (talk/contribs) 00:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's an interesting question. I asked the same thing a while back (don't remember the page), and got the answer that it should work. All my attempts to use gateway-86558bc/w/ as the path have failed. Perhaps it's hard-coded for Wikimedia projects, whose URLs are in the format lang.wikiwhatever.org, and calls all URLs that don't match that invalid? Tuvok[T@lk/Improve] 04:38, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
It works fine with my hosted wiki - wiki.reedyboy.net. Im not in a position to try a personal home (ie IP address or friendly hostname) wiki, but it should work. It doesnt have to be whatever.something.ext.. The main thing it has a paddy about is when it cant find the script directory - ie with api.php in it. Pointing it at the directory with the script, seems to work - Ie my api.php is in the root, so pointing it there seems to work.. —Reedy Boy 11:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Assuming it requires registration / authorization here in order to work anywhere? --DP67 (talk/contribs) 22:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
It looks for a local checkpage. If there isnt one, it will let you use it anyway —Reedy Boy 23:56, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, my wiki doesn't have a check page, and it just tells me the URL is invalid, then defaults to en.wp settings. Any ideas on how to make it work? Should I use my local IP address? Tuvok[T@lk/Improve] 01:43, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
I haven't tried it through IP, I have tried it using DynDNS My Linux box is set to answer any web requests, it's also set in my router's DMZ. If I use the DynDNS address it works fine. Kinda funny going out on the web and bouncing back to a machine sitting next to me but oh well..lol As for using a local IP or local network address I dunno.. It may require a qualified domain name. Try setting up a account on a Dynamic DNS of your choice and see if it works. DynDNS is free so it can't hurt.. I haven't really tried to do much yet but I have been able to get it to login and make a few minor edits. --DP67 (talk/contribs) 02:06, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Your router probably will have nat loopback, from looking up the IP, and working out it was you, probably doesnt go via the website... Have you tried a hostname? —Reedy Boy 17:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I'll have to give it a try via IP the next time I have it open. DynDNS is an option I'd rather avoid because I don't want to open a port on my router. I'm not even sure I'd be allowed to do so. But I can try the IP address. I'll post my results. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve] 04:35, 18 January 2008 (UTC)


I tried using my servers LAN IP and it doesn't work. It will login and connect but the software remains disabled. I guess it needs an FQD to work properly.
--DP67 (talk/contribs) 14:01, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Have you tried the local hostname, rather than the IP? —Reedy Boy 17:58, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Nope, haven't had any luck with that.. Of course I don't have Samba running, so the windoze box doesn't even know the Linux box is there unless I go through the LAN IP, Internet IP or the Dyn-domain name and I don't have httpd.conf set to answer to the local domain name. (Unless of course I happen to be using localhost.localdomain. :) Never bothered to set it up within the M$ realm, I usually shell-in or FTP-in if I need to send something to or get something from there and I happen to be here. With some tweaking it may work.. Come to think of it, I haven't tried the Internet IP yet either. Maybe I'll hack into it a little later and see if I can get one or the other to work. --DP67 (talk/contribs) 19:50, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Map a hostname of the linux to its IP address in the windows box host file? —Reedy Boy 10:33, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Misuse

What to do with a user who broke these 3 rules?:

  1. Don't edit too fast; consider opening a bot account if you are regularly making more than a few edits a minute.
  2. Don't do anything controversial with it.
  3. Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits
Thanks! Kameejl (Talk) 10:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Have you warned/told them off for it? If so, and they continued, their access should be removed —Reedy Boy 11:43, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I have recently. I'll see what happens. If I don't see any improvements, is there a place to report such a user? Thanks for your reply Kameejl (Talk) 11:52, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Here can be ok.. Or the IRC channel. Or if its really bad, one of the administrator noticeboards, and they can be dealt with quickly... —Reedy Boy 11:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Software disabled

Hi. I used AWB without problems until two days ago. Since then, when I try to login, the program sends me this nice mesage: Software disabled in the left-down corner. A write my username and password but nothing happens. I had tried every update but I don't thing thats the problem. I had made some changes in my monobook.js (later canceled) - can this be the problem?

I'm a user (admin) at ro.wikipedia, and I'm not a native english speaker, so excuse me if you can't read my messege :). Thanks Rad Urs 21 px Talk or Rad Urs.

Hi, It would seem there is no checkpage, and AWB automatically allows all administrators to use it... What version are you using? —Reedy Boy 13:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
AWB4142 Rad Urs Talk 13:18, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
It's seems that the problem was my browser, Firefox. I used Internet Explorer and now I'm loged in. Thanks anyway. :) Rad Urs (talk) 12:23, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok, thanks for letting us know! —Reedy Boy 13:02, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, now it's another problem :(. The page is loaded, the changes are made in the edit box, but when I hit save, nothing happens. Just: Saving. Now what? Rad Urs (talk) 13:18, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Nevermind. It's working now 79.112.120.97 (talk) 13:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I have the same problem, also since about yesterday. Using AWB 4.1.4.2 / Firefox / IE with scripting disabled / (slightly modified) monobook.js, but on german WP. How did you solve the problem? --SibFreak (talk) 13:29, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi. Login Wikipedia using Internet Explorer (check the Keep me sign in button). Then start AWB an login. It worked for me. Rad Urs (talk) 13:38, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, that's worked. I wonder why this problem came up now... —Preceding unsigned comment added by SibFreak (talk • contribs) 13:42, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Finding page last edited date with AWB

I was contemplating using AWB to sort through the morass of a backlog at Category:Temporary Wikipedian userpages - deleting old temporary user pages. There's just one thing I'm not 100% sure if AWB has the ability to handle. The pages usually are left to 'age' for one month before being deleted - so I'd need to check the last edited date of the page. Is there some mechanism in AWB to check this? I presume that part of the metadata that comes across when a page loads is the "this page was last modified on XXX" (as it appears at the bottom of each page), but don't see an option that lets me use that in AWB. I'm just probably overlooking something really simple or another workaround for this - suggestions?! SkierRMH (talk) 19:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Requested change to AWB behavior

Hi, I just noticed this edit. I've seen many before like it, where == Headings == have the ==Spaces next to the equal signs== removed. These are by no stretch of the imagination an improvement to Wikipedia; they make no change to the appearance of the rendered page, and WP:MOS explicitly says that it's optional whether or not you put spaces there. Is it possible to change AWB so that it doesn't mess with spaces in headers? Thanks -Pete (talk) 06:39, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I'd prefer, if anything is changed, for this to happen:
  1. AWB doesn't even offer to save if the only change is whitespace
  2. It adds spaces within headers, rather than removing them - headers ==like this== are a lot harder to read than stuff == like this ==
I find space-less headers harder to edit with than headers with spaces, as the spaces help to make the headers more visually set off. But that's subjective. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve] 08:38, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
If editors are making edits that are only like the above, please feel free to warn them that they shouldnt be doing so. We have had another feature request as to skipping if its only whitespace changes... As i do agree, edits such as that certainly do not add anything to wikipedia. Other than more database usage... —Reedy Boy 12:17, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Agree with ReedyBoy on this; and whitespace changes are nearly pointless and not for automated tools. :: Kevinalewis : (Talk Page)/(Desk) 13:36, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
And of course, Users are accountable for their own edits. Ie they are clicking save. And AWB gives a way to easily revert edits, so that cant be used as an excuse... —Reedy Boy 18:00, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
Reedy Boy, I brought it up here because the problem I see is with the automation, not the individual user or his/her edit. Thanks for the feedback though. -Pete (talk) 02:43, 19 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, sure, im just re-iterating that users are responsible for the "whitespace only" change edits. Ie they press save. —Reedy Boy 10:32, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

So, what's the possibility of influencing the behavior of AWB? No responses here from anyone who seems to be a developer. Am I shouting into a black hole? Should I seek another avenue to reach the developers? -Pete (talk) 21:14, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Reedy Boy is a dev -- pb30<talk> 21:20, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
{{Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/DevList}}. Yeah, thanks pb30... MaxSem is away, and its between myself and Kingboyk any progress is being made... Im at university, and ive just gone into my first semester (year 1) exam week... So i have been busy, but still have been contributing to AWB. The not allowing users to make saves if the changes if only whitespace has been requested (well, an auto skip if changes is only whitespace)... Its possible, just the implementation isnt that simple. The point is, users should know (as its our "rules") that they shouldnt be making those sort of edits... Self policing is the key... —Reedy Boy 21:28, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah, thanks! Sorry, did not realize that. Not looking for instant implementation, just wanted to be sure the request was heard by someone in a position to make a difference. Just to be sure my point was clear: I think this is simpler than the whitespace override you mention. All that would be necessary is removing whatever code adds spaces to the left and right of section headers; since WP:MOS clearly states that either method is acceptable, there is no reason an automated process should ever change that, regardless of whether or not there are other changes. Anyway, thanks for the response, and yes, I'll make a point of responding to individual editors if I see this in the future. -Pete (talk) 22:02, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, please do so. The odd isnt major, but if they are doing loads, please do tell them. Other "insignificant fixes" include just doing things like removing other blank lines, moving stubs around and such. If the edit means that a lot of general things are "fixed", its not a bad one. I do do this periodically through my watchlist, one to improve the layout, and 2, as AWB live svn testing. Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Warnings/Insignificant edits (can be subst'd) you may find useful. It is definately something that needs to be sorted.. Maybe easier just to add a "skip if only changes by general fixes, as it can keep track of that easier... —Reedy Boy 22:11, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

.dsb wiki

please add, looks like it's not present --84.234.42.68 (talk) 01:15, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Added - rev 2029 —Reedy Boy 15:49, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
I've tested 2032 and "dsb" is moved separately from interwiki links --84.234.42.68 (talk) 15:16, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/IW - Its cause its not listed on there.. They probably need updating again —Reedy Boy 15:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
[10] - Now updated —Reedy Boy 15:30, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

How do you use it?

Aside from the obvious chores of placing WikiProject tags on talk pages, fixing spelling errors across Wikipedia, building link lists, and linkifying terms...

what else can you do with it?

The Transhumanist 05:14, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I've used it to get some experience with regular expressions, strip useless spans out of my talk page archives when I changed bots, subst several thousand instances of {{unsigned}} and its variants (using the above-mentioned regular expressions to change to IP versions when appropriate), among other things. I find it very useful for doing exactly what its stated purpose is: I use it for making tedious, repetitive edits that I can easily automate. Whatever those may entail.
Other people use it for bots, as well; I provided help developing a regex for BotanyBot (minimal help, but still help), which uses AWB. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve] 06:15, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Its also got a semi-automated disambiguation feature... But the ability to be able to expand the functionality of AWB is great, but it all depends on your programming skills and such.. Plugins, custom modules.. —Reedy Boy 10:41, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't set out to find jobs for AWB to do, I let the jobs come to AWB. "Cleaning up" articles is pretty dull; the real power of AWB comes to light when you have a tedious task to do, particularly a task which can be made much easier by using regular expressions. Removing links to a deleted page, sending out a newsletter, converting template instances, things like that. --kingboyk (talk) 23:36, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

suggestion

"Ignore templates, refs, link targets, and headings" - could them be set separately, i.e. ignore templates but allow headings? --84.234.42.68 (talk) 16:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Wheres that? —Reedy Boy 17:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
"find and replace" --84.234.42.68 (talk) 20:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion for new users

I wonder if it would be a good idea to remind new users in the approval message to read the terms of use and not make changes that are only removing white space. I've had to remind three newbies about that today. :( --Fabrictramp (talk) 23:09, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

sr language

I find no sr language (Serbian language) on drop down list for wikipedia project in the User and project preferences. What is the simplest way to overcome this obstacle? Is this possible? --JustUser (talk) 23:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Wait for the next release. Added - rev 2035 —Reedy Boy 23:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Finding out if article is in Category x and y

Can AWB make all list of all the articles that are in both in say Category:GAA County Championships and Category:Dublin GAA club championships Gnevin (talk) 23:09, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

I do this all the time with the list comparer in AWB. (well, not those two particular categories, but you know what I mean.) --Fabrictramp (talk) 00:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Edit summary in other language Wikis

In the last couple of days I set up the German AWB/Typo. Unfortunately due to the wrong automated edit summary (which cannot be used) I have to stop the project and delete the already 1700-words wordlist (so that it cannot be loaded anymore).

I know the AWB has been developed for the English Wikipedia, but if it's supposed to be used in other language Wikis as well the edit summary MUST be changed in the program itself. The easiest way would be to just switch off the automated edit summary.

Problems in other language Wikis:

  1. we cannot use the automatic note called "typos fixed" (=wrong language)
  2. if suggested changes are not done (by doubleclicking) it will be noted although in the summary, which is absolutely confusing for the next reader (even no comment would be better than wrong comments)
  3. as I understand the summary consists of 3 parts: 1. manual text - 2. automated text - 3. AWB-Link. That's not really ideal, because part 1 and 3 consist of the same information. If I delete part 1 (because of redundancy) I get a prompt, saying that the summary should not be empty. And additionally there is a comma after part 1 that does not allow to delete that part because the comma would stay there alone.

So to be honest - the edit summary is absolutely confusing and we cannot use the German AWB/Typo until we find a solution. Unfortunately I saw that problem too late and after I spent a lot of work for the wordlist - and now everything was for nothing because we can't use it :-(. Any ideas? Thank you --A half-open shower curtain (talk) 13:45, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I hardly think its really causing that many problems. However, 2) is a known bug, and not a simple one to fix, so as of yet, it hasnt been fixed. We get it here aswell, and its just a case of you have to deal with it...
The "Typos fixed" should be able to be sorted/a fix implemented. We only need to have another variable that is used, and then the local text for "typos fixed" can be added. I shall work on adding this today!
I also dont see how 1 and 3 of the edit summary consist of the same. —Reedy Boy 13:53, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Can you tell me what you want the german summary to be? —Reedy Boy 14:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your fast answer. If you look at this edit comment -> here part 1 and part 3 have the same information. Look, due to usability reasons the summary should look like this -> [[Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos|Corrections per AWB]] and that is it. Nothing more and nothing less - of course the text in my language ;-). So nothing automated just a simple comment which is always the same.--A half-open shower curtain (talk) 14:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

By the way - after part 1 and the comma there is a space which should not be there. But that's only the smallest problem ;-) --A half-open shower curtain (talk) 14:11, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
The same prior and after have different wikilinks.. The prior you set yourself. Just have something not wikilinked - "Typo Fixing"... What do you want as the local typofixing text? As for disabling the automated edit summary of typo's fixed.. That would have to be up to a AWB community vote... —Reedy Boy 14:17, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Community vote or not - fact is that at the moment we cannot use the AWB/Typo anymore if it's producing strange and improper comments. I don't want to have my name near these edit comments because normally I pay attention to what I comment. Maybe other people would say who cares - it doesn't matter what's the comment, but I don't. But thanks for your time and answers. I'll find something else to do :-)). --A half-open shower curtain (talk) 14:32, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Forgot to mention: when using AWB you sometimes do minor automatic changes (which will then be noted in the summary) and by the way you find some other mistakes which you fix manually. And this will then not be noted in the summary -> gives a strange (wrong) picture to a following reader. One more reason for a fixed "always-the-same-1-part" comment :-) --A half-open shower curtain (talk) 15:09, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
Its a generic edit summary. Its just to help the user, not explicitally specify exactly whats been done. How often are user entered summaries right? Not always... —Reedy Boy 15:17, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

If this generic edit summary should help the user, it has to be user-friendly. That's not the case. It will be user-friendly, if there is a link to [[Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos|Corrections per AWB]] and the normal [[WP:AWB]] link. You say, you need a community vote to disabling the automated edit summary but if you do normal find&replace stuff, you can switch it off, community vote or not. So why you need a community vote with the "typo find&replace" but with the "normal find&replace" not? --Knopfkind (talk) 17:41, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Thats a point... Do we just disable it..? Or give an option to not include it... —Reedy Boy 17:56, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, the way of "normal find&replace" is the best one: you can choose, if you want to have a generic edit summary or not and you can edit your own summary (for example the link to WP:AWB/Typo), so everybody should be happy ;-) --Knopfkind (talk) 19:54, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

I think if the German users want a generic "corrections using AWB" or similar let them have it. Supply a suitable wording and an assurance that it would be acceptable to other users of your wiki and as far as I am concerned we'll do it.

An aside: To my mind AWB needs to be internationalised and a lot of EN specific code moved from the main procedures, but that would take a lot of work and probably too much since AWB has no full time developers. --kingboyk (talk) 20:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Ace subhuman wit slackens

Can anyone tell me how the AWB database scanner works. I downloaded the latest database dump (enwiki-20080103-pages-articles.xml), I opened AWB, selected make list from database dump. wiki database scanner opens up, I point it to the decompressed file (enwiki-20080103-pages-articles.xml), check article does contain (nothing else checked), enter in the box infobox chef, and hit start. After several minutes it gives me only 23 entries. And I know that there are way more. So why do the others not show up? Is there another way to find out which articles contain this information? --Jeanenawhitney (talk) 19:31, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Has it finished by that point? Or is it still processing? As i know with typo's it can take hours, and doesnt seem to ever finish... —Reedy Boy 19:40, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Nothing else is checked (AWB specific is set to none) It actually ends with the message 26 matches in 00:16:26.812. --Jeanenawhitney (talk) 19:48, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
When I've had similar problems in regenerating the Dead End Pages, it's always turned out to be bad sectors in my hard drive. Drove me crazy for a while because the download would look good, the unzip would look good, and AWB didn't come up with errors, but if I run a disk utility on my hard drive (or do a new download of the dump onto a recently formatted external HD), the problem goes away. I've gotten so I always run a disk fixing util before downloading the data dump. HTH --Fabrictramp (talk) 20:19, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Okay, I am going to try this on another computer. I will download on a completely different system and try this again. Let you know what I find. Make take a day to get back. --Jeanenawhitney (talk) 23:38, 26 January 2008 (UTC)
Same results, completely different machine. I am starting to think it is the dump, Because both machines I downloaded the latest dump and this time the scanner reported 23 matches. I'm stumped. --Jeanenawhitney (talk) 12:11, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Try something like grep? --kingboyk (talk) 12:37, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I just got the hang of regex (almost). grep, oh no I'm back to dos again. I swore in 1989 that windoze (and bg and sj were jerks) was going to be going the way of beta (trs-80 ruled, in my eyes). I now believe cmd line interpreters should be banished from the face of the earth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeanenawhitney (talk • contribs) 00:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
You could look it at that way, or you could look at it as joining the grown up world of UNIX :) "Grep" is just a regular expression parser, it's powerful but it's not complicated. On Windows it can be acquired as part of Cygwin. I daresay there are graphical text editors which would do the same job however! --kingboyk (talk) 20:49, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Downloading

I thought I should let you guys know, in case mine was an isolated issue, that the automatic update in AWB itself wasn't working for me. I tried to run it five or six different times and it consistently crashed on some kind of application error. I've manually downloaded the new update from SourceForge, so I don't need help fixing this anymore, but I thought I should advise you guys anyway that there may or may not be an actual bug in the updater. Bearcat (talk) 00:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you updated your updater previously? Ie between the last 4.1 release and 4.2? —Reedy Boy 16:59, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
I got a problem as well. The updater seemed to update, but when I try to open AWB, I get the error "Value cannot be null. Parameter name:value". That is followed by "Cannot load version check page from Wikipedia. Please verify that you're connected to the internet." I haven't tried to download a fresh version from sourceforge yet. --Kbdank71 15:32, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I got the same problem with the fresh download, but at least that gave me a nice way to create a bug, so I did that. --Kbdank71 15:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Is there a workaround?

I got the latest database dump and it came up with an error Image:AWB Error message.JPG. I came here to ask about it and saw the "Ace subhuman wit slackens" and checked my HD but no errors there. I then downloaded both the the dumps enwiki-20080103-pages-articles.xml.bz2 and enwiki-latest-pages-articles.xml.bz2. The first gives the error message as in the image. The second dump is pretty much the same but it hangs on "Jay and Silent Bob". Is there a way around this? Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 16:59, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Whhops. Forgot to mention that once the message pops up the only way out is to quit. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 17:00, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the dump is b0rked tbh.. If those are xml errors.. its potentially truncated... —Reedy Boy 19:48, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
If you have cygwin try unzipping the file and doing tail -f filename or (is it bunzip?) bunzip filename.bz | tail and see if the file looks truncated. If it doesn't, this might have to be a bug report. (Is there such a thing as an XML validator Sam? I daresay there is) --kingboyk (talk) 20:55, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
No I don't have cygwin but I could give it a try tomorrow. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 00:19, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

ref tags moving

I am not sure whether that kind of fixes (moving punctuation marks and ref tags ([11]) applies to .pl language, can you clarify what rule these changes are based on? --84.234.42.68 (talk) 14:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

  • I'm pretty sure that Polish punctuation is different from English so why all languages are affected? AFAIK English type "blabla," but we prefer "blabla", - the same with ref tags placed after periods and commas - I will make sure about ref tags placing anyway --84.234.42.68 (talk) 22:43, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Refs and punctuation

I'm new to AWB and am having trouble understanding the Manual. I'm come across a page where the [refs] appear before the punctuation. Is it possible to use AWB to fix this, and how would I do it? Thanks -- Matthew Edwards | talk | Contribs 00:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it will do that if you enable General Fixes on the first tab. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve] 07:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Basic user manual

I've just been approved for using AWB, but is there a basic user manual for not-so-smart people? -- Matthew Edwards | talk | Contribs 22:22, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User_manual is about the closest we have... —Reedy Boy 22:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Heh, that's not exactly what I wanted to hear! -- Matthew Edwards | talk | Contribs 05:06, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Ace subhuman wit slackens anagram for since the awb manual sucks.
Or for short Waste subhuman lack the awb manual sucks.
--Jeanenawhitney (talk) 12:32, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes it does (and Sam and I were discussing this the other day actually). But, the bottom line is: You get what you paid for and if you don't like it you know what you can do... --kingboyk (talk) 12:35, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
It's really down to the users to keep the documents in order. There's many more knowledgeable users than there are devs. --kingboyk (talk) 12:35, 27 January 2008 (UTC) (e/c)
I think "It's really down to the users to help keep the documents in order" is better. —Reedy Boy 16:46, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes. --kingboyk (talk) 17:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Ok, I am going to fix some things that confused the heck out of me when I first started. Thirty days ago I didn't even know what a regex was but now I know how to use it. And there were no real good sources on wikipedia. I had to go the net way of learning. My first attempt at this will to put the manual in order. As it is now it does not follow the programs flow. I am going to need some help where I have no idea what some things are supposed to do. --Jeanenawhitney (talk) 17:41, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Great! If you need assistance you can shout here.
Imho, AWB really needs context sensitive help and a good quality help file.I don't know if it will ever get it. Perhaps the content could be stored on-wiki... In the meantime, an improved manual here and maybe a getting started guide would be good.--kingboyk (talk) 17:47, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
It was somewhat in order, i tend to periodically try and keep it up to date.. Kingboyk moved some stuff around in AWB, and has done so in the manual. Some of it wasnt commented, and now is... Does need making more user friendly. But if you get stuck, leave steve or myself a message —Reedy Boy 18:27, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

subst:

This one stumps me on how to use it. Anyone know how this works?--Jeanenawhitney (talk) 00:11, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Help:Substitution explains it, but not in a beginner friendly way imho. Templates can be transcluded, that is used on the page like so: {{AWB}}. They can be substituted {{subst:AWB}} which will insert the code of the template into that page. End result usually (but not always) looks the same. Examples: WikiProject templates are always transcluded, prod templates are always substituted, for reasons too complex to go into right now :) --kingboyk (talk) 20:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm filling in the manual bit... —Reedy Boy 02:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

List of approved users needs cleanup

I noticed that in the very first name in the list is User:100110100 who has been banned indefinitely from Wikipedia. I think the list needs clean-up. -- Magioladitis (talk) 21:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

That's a pretty big pain for something that effectively makes no difference. That user can't log on, so AWB does him/her/it no good anyway. - Philippe | Talk 22:01, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I do this for admins periodically... Lets see —Reedy Boy 22:27, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
Agree, waste of time. --kingboyk (talk) 15:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Suppose best thing to do, if people know someone is banned, and they're an admin, feel free to remove them —Reedy Boy 01:59, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Odd reference in article may cause problem

I just edited Australia here (look for the line 178 change). AWB changed <br /></ref> into <br /" /> which causes all the references after that to mess up. I'm not sure that it's an AWB bug because the use of the line break at that point seems rather odd. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 23:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs/Archive_6#Unexpected_modification - Already fixed for next release! Agreed, the line break isnt needed though... —Reedy Boy 07:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

How about fixing this tool so it doesn't screw up external links?

Just don't replace underscores ("_") with spaces (" ") if not inside a wikilink. Is that so hard? Lars T. (talk) 23:48, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#URL_underscore_regression - Its been noted, and its not every time that it happens. The bug happens only in some rare cases, and the AWB team is down to 2 people atm, and I am back at uni full time. Being rarer can sometimes make it easier to nail it, othertimes not. —Reedy Boy 00:12, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
The obvious answer would be: since it's so easy, we await your patch with interest - no doubt you can knock one up in the time it takes me to type this. Hurry along now, thanks! :)
I'm only joking of course, but AWB is open source and costs users nothing (free in both senses of the word). That means if you don't like something you have no right to whinge because 1) you can fix it yourself, 2) you didn't pay for it. We're volunteers and we react better to thanks and encouragement than to whinging. --kingboyk (talk) 01:53, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 Fixed Rich Farnborough has fixed it =) - rev 2070. It is bug that does happen very infrequently —Reedy Boy 01:57, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Fame at last... (but mis-spelt as always) ;~} Rich Farmbrough, 13:54 7 February 2008 (GMT).

Regex find and replace code neeeded

I'm a regex novice and have fiddled with this for a while but am getting nowhere. I'm looking for some code to do this [12]. Any help is gratefully accepted. —Moondyne 08:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Find and replace#User made shortcut editing. --pete 09:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)


\*([12]\d\d\d)    => *[[:Category:$1 in cricket|$1]]
Rich Farmbrough, 15:31 1 February 2008 (GMT).
Fix to above last occurrence of $1 I had just $. Rich Farmbrough, 13:55 7 February 2008 (GMT).

General fixes in general

I finally was able to re-introduce GF with the removal of the "reflist" feature. Of course I'm now running into other problems.

  1. removing the space between "." and <ref> is making big diffs. But I'm fairly happy to take that, since it is a style correction.
  2. Removing <br> s in a succession box - a difficult one, since there are no standards that say this is a bad practice. I work around by doing two runs, one avoiding succesion boxen, one with GF's off. (The Succession box people are working on a better box that won't need these <br>s.)
  3. Here urls have been broken by replacing _ with space. Not sure if this is the same as the bug on the bugs page. But I have had to disable GFs again, until this is fixed.

Rich Farmbrough, 13:07 1 February 2008 (GMT).

For no 3, it probably is. It doesnt replace all underscores in links, but the FixImages function regex is too greedy, capturing more than it should, and then replacing the underscores in the links too... —Reedy Boy 13:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I wondered if the Image was involved and spent some time counting brackets. I now get the comment on the bug. Rich Farmbrough, 14:28 1 February 2008 (GMT).
I think it is related due to number of brackets.. Havent had much time to investiage the Regex. Steve and I are planning a bugfix release, probably compulsory, to clear up a few more bugs from the 4.2 releases before we make a start on the new features and such. —Reedy Boy 15:15, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely right thing to do. Rich Farmbrough, 15:29 1 February 2008 (GMT).

Interface redesign

List generator
.-------- Make list --------.
| Make from |_Category___v| |
| Category  |_____________| |
| ========= <Make>  <Save>  |
| .-----------------------. |
| | Wikipedia:AWB/sandbox | |
| |                       | |
              ...
| |                       | |
| '-----------------------' |
| |________________| <Add>  |
| <Remove | v> <Filter | v> |
'---------------------------'
Main tab

AWB's Find and Replace goes up here

Pre-programmed options
General fixes
Auto tags
Unicodify
RegexTypoFix
Custom wiki-loaded fixes
Add
Notes

To many things are hidden in the right click menu. Instances of this are:

  • No edit button in the profiles dialog
  • No talk only or Article only button in the filter dialog

Other issues:

  • The tab index on elements on the filter dialog moves in a figure 8 pattern.
  • In the disambiguate tab the fieldset has been hard coded with a white color
  • The toolbar probably should be moved bellow the IE window so there's less mouse traveling.
  • Tooltip for icons and button should be the same (the icons are shorter and don't tell what the shortcut keys are)

Since I don't have an exact idea how the other tabs should be redesigned here are some of the thoughts:

  • Job Control tab
  • Job Options Tab
    • Skip if ...
      • It would be also nice if this could be like of those sort filter on some email programs
    • Edit summary
    • Edit demarcation (bot/minor)
  • Disambig and more... tabs
    • Should be merge together
    • When clicking on the title for the fieldset it should collapse it (I'm not sure if C# has this built in)
    • Rename to tasks

The icon means "Skip article if this function hasn't changed anything" and should have a disabled state as well as a hover state to let the user know that this isn't merely an icon. Thoughts? — Dispenser 19:42, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Totally agree. The GUI really does need some form of overhaul to make it more user friendly and stuff less hidden... —Reedy Boy 20:10, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Huggle is a good example.. Granted, AWB's interface cant be that simple due to all the options avaliable and such... The "Main tabs" idea is good how you've set it out.. And it would seemingly be something that could be based on an AWB type scripting language - and users can specify orders to do things... Just doesnt make some things easy.. hmmm —Reedy Boy 20:11, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Right now its merely look at how things could be rearranged to make the operation simple to understand. It could be made to so that the user could determine the order things go but that's not the intention right now. As for a scripting language don't Microsoft a ECMA interpreter component (aka JavaScript)? You could use that standalone or run it using the IE component. — Dispenser 23:18, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

What I would like to see is a larger typeface in the "Normal" search and replace. Rich Farmbrough, 13:28 7 February 2008 (GMT).

Question concerning sections

Can AWB be focused on sections rather than the whole article? For example, I'd like to search See also sections for a particular link, and if it isn't there, prepend a particular line to the section. If it is there, I'd like to delete it, and prepend that particular line I just mentioned to the section. How can I go about this?

The Transhumanist 06:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes, something like
search for ==See also==(/r/n)(stuff without == but can include ===, also without [[Category: and without interwiki ) <your string>*
replace with ==See also==$1<prepend string>$1$2

Rich Farmbrough, 13:25 7 February 2008 (GMT).

Search/replaces that include carriage returns?

How do you do search/replaces that include carriage returns (or carriage return/line-feeds) in them? (That is, work with multi-line search strings).

Searching for carriage returns and/or linebreaks is also useful for searching for words at the beginning of paragraphs. The Transhumanist 06:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

See above. Also look at reg-ex and see th $ and ^ metacharcters. Rich Farmbrough, 13:26 7 February 2008 (GMT).

How to make AWB work with multiple lines of regex code?

I have a monobook script that works well (User:Lightmouse/monobook.js/units.js). I would like to use AWB to do what the script does. I know that I will have to make a lot of changes, including resolving differences in regex versions (e.g. a space is '\s' in the monobook but just a space in AWB).

However, I cannot see how to get AWB to accept nearly a thousand lines of regex in one place. The only way that I can see to get it working is to take each line of the existing script and to create a thousand subrules. This is a lot of work and splitting the code makes it harder to maintain. Is there an easier way? Lightmouse (talk) 09:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You could write a program to take the above code, Using a regex to match the capture group, and also the replacement group. Then have that output that out as C# Replace Regex's, which could be then used as a custom module. Or just a FAR... Let me try. Wont take long —Reedy Boy 10:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
User:Reedy Boy/JavaScript Conversion - Compiles.. Just cant use it all in a text box for the CustomModule.. Seems there is a limit.. Will have a look —Reedy Boy 11:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Wow. I am impressed. If it is close to the limit, I can try to reduce the number of lines. I hope we can get there. Lightmouse (talk) 11:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I did that by hand using standard FAR, but as you can see from the timestamps, didnt take more than 10 minutes. Presumably it would be possible to write code/regex's to automate the process.. But hmm.. Sometimes it would show everything sometimes it wouldnt, depending on the escape characters and such that i was using, so it cant be far away - I mean, if the commented out lines arent used, they can be removed to get the amount down... There will be some preumably hard coded limit, or something. I'll take a look at it when im home, and have access to the AWB SVN and Visual Studio.. —Reedy Boy 16:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I know nothing about AWB. If I have even just half of my code working, I can manage to translate from the monobook script to this new style. So I will appreciate your help to reveal the limit and get me started. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 17:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
rev 2069 - Custom Module Text Limit removed —Reedy Boy 00:33, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks but it looks like the text limit has not changed. I did the following steps:
  • In the 'Tools' menu, selected 'Make module'
  • Deleted all the contents in the big white box.
  • Pasted all text from User:Reedy Boy/JavaScript Conversion (i.e. starting with '<syntaxhighlight lang="csharp">') into the big white box.
  • Put a check mark against 'Enabled'.
  • Clicked on 'Make module'
It produced a dialog titled 'There were compilation errors'. It said 'Compilation failed' and listed lots of errors saying 'Invalid token' for various characters such as < = (
I tried to tidy up the truncation due to the text limit and put '</syntaxhighlight>' at the end but that made no difference. What am I doing wrong? Lightmouse (talk) 10:57, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Right. Do you compile your own versions from the SVN? If not, it wont affect it till the next release. I released a SVN snapshot last night, but it was before i applied the changes. I'll leave a note here when i've released it. You dont want to delete all the text. You need a bit of it. I'll change that page for you to include what you need to just paste into the custom module. You can then just copy and paste straight from the actual displayed text! —Reedy Boy 12:28, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I do not know what 'compile' means (actually, I think I know what it means but I can't see a button that says 'Compile'). I do not know what 'the SVN' is. The list above is what I do. If I can get part of code working, I can build from there. I am grateful for your help. Lightmouse (talk) 13:14, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll put a release on [13] tonight. When it lists one 2069 or after, i've uploaded a version with the change in. —Reedy Boy 13:18, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
OK. I see what happens tomorrow. Thanks. Do you have any idea why it gives 'Invalid token' errors described above? Lightmouse (talk) 13:27, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
I suspect, that if you copied it from the edit box, you copied the <syntaxhighlight lang="csharp"> and it wouldnt like that... You just need to copy the text as its displayed on the page now, replacing whats currently in the text box. —Reedy Boy 15:19, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I got rid of <syntaxhighlight lang="csharp"> at the top and </syntaxhighlight> from the bottom. It said it compiled and did not make any complaints. So that is probably one step nearer the solution. But when I ran it on User:Lightmouse/sandbox, it did nothing. Does it work for you?


Lightmnouse, you could use AWB search and replace to make a copy of your js into the core of a standard AWB XML file.
Then create a dummy file with a single search and replace rule, and use cat and paste to make the config you want
Something like
txt.value=txt.value.replace(/ =>  <Replacement>\r\n  <Find>
/gi, '                        =>  </Find> \r\n  <Replace> 
');                           =>  </Replace> \r\n  <IsRegex>true</IsRegex>  \r\n  <Enabled>true</Enabled>  \r\n  <RegularExpressionOptions>None</RegularExpressionOptions>  \r\n  </Replacement>

Rich Farmbrough, 15:26 1 February 2008 (GMT).

Thanks but I have little idea what an XML file is. I have heard of XML files but I would not know which button to press, or menu item to select, to make one. I am also struggling to translate the first sentence of your kind suggestion into button presses. I did not have much more luck understanding the second. I now have the benefit of two helpful suggestions but I am too stupid to put them into practice. Sigh. Lightmouse (talk) 16:40, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
[14] - 2070 is online. Let me try the file —Reedy Boy 23:44, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Seems you have quite a few bad regex's. They compile fine.. But they then are complaing about mismatched []. Trying to work through and comment them out —Reedy Boy 00:06, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
Theres loads.. I've commented out some. When you try and process it, you will get an error. Go through and then comment out those that error! —Reedy Boy 00:10, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
I got it working! The errors were mostly due to differences in regex versions. In the monobook, the backslash character is used to make the following character literal. AWB does not do that as far as I can see. Thanks a lot for your help. I am very grateful for it. Lightmouse (talk) 14:38, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
When you save you AWB config, it creates an XML file. If you open that (in notepad or wordpad) you will see you will it works, very easily, especially if you have put a simple regex in AWB that you will recognise. Rich Farmbrough, 14:01 7 February 2008 (GMT).
I do not know how to save an AWB config, where to look to find an XML file and how to recognise one. I did look at the file called AutoWikiBrowser.exe using notepad but was not any wiser. I tried going to the 'Find and replace' bit, clicking on the 'Advanced' button, then typing 'blah blah' into the 'Find' field. After closing AWB and saying 'Yes' to save settings, the AutoWikiBrowser.exe file still looked the same. I am afraid that I am so naive about these things that your explanations seem so high level to me and I can't interpret them in terms of buttons to press or menu items to click. Lightmouse (talk) 20:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I found the XML file. I am currently using regex code that I add by clicking on the menu item under 'Tools', 'Make module'. Is there any advantage in switching to the XML file? Lightmouse (talk) 20:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Does AWB have a beep feature?

So it can contact when it finds a page to work on, so you are alerted if you are walking around the room or are in another window?

The Transhumanist 06:16, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep. It's in the settings. You have to go into one of the menus to get at it. Personally, I've saved the beep option into my default config. Tuvok[T@lk/Improve] 09:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

How to get AWB to avoid second visits?

Is there a way to get AWB to avoid second visits to a page? For example by updating a list of pages visited and being able to run a cross check either dynamically in real time or in one shot before start of a run. Lightmouse (talk) 17:44, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Remove duplicates before you start processing? —Reedy Boy 18:47, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Seems like you could save the log from AWB and update your wiki list of pages visited with that. Next time you want to work, use the list comparer to find the items that are not on the pages visited list.--Fabrictramp (talk) 20:49, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
OK. I tried going to the 'Logs' tab. I wanted to save all the pages that I had looked at (whether saved, skipped, or ignored). It did not let me do that. It divided them into two categores called 'Successfully saved' and 'Skipped'. I selected all the articles in 'Successfully saved' and used the right mouse menu option 'Add selected to article list'. Then I did the same with the 'Skipped' log. Then I used 'Save list' to get a text file. So I now have one list with all articles visited. It will be a little difficult to update it but it should be possible with a bit of fiddling around.
I do not know what a list comparer is. I tried using the 'Filter' button and that had something called 'Set operations'. It had two options 'Find difference' and 'Find intersection'. It did not seem to do what I want. Is that what you meant? Lightmouse (talk) 17:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
In AWB, go to the Tools menu, and choose List Comparer.--Fabrictramp (talk) 17:17, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and note to the AWB folk -- it would be wonderful if there was an option to copy the list comparer results directly to the article list, instead of having to save the xml file and then load it again.--Fabrictramp (talk) 17:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip. 'Tools', 'List comparer' has excellent functions and should do the trick. It would be great if I could have an option to get AWB to automatically save all the pages I visit. I suppose that is a feature request. Thanks for the help. Lightmouse (talk) 18:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
I have noticed that I can get it to list my contributions. So it does have a way of automatically knowing the pages I have visited. I just have to add the skipped list. Fantastic. Lightmouse (talk) 15:01, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

Regex to remove images

Can anyone provide me with a Regex to remove images ? Gnevin (talk) 20:46, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

You mean a regex to match an image so it can be removed? You dont really need this, AWB can remove single Images on the "More" tab.. Or using the IFD plugin, you can remove multiple images —Reedy Boy 21:01, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok great but not a clue how to use it the guide isn't the most understandable Gnevin (talk) 21:24, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/IFD plugin —Reedy Boy 23:40, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Seen that but not following it , i can't type into the bottom boxes Gnevin (talk) 00:53, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
You dont. You enter it in the box above. * [[:Image:(Name)]] It will then process it and add it to the box below. —Reedy Boy 17:46, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

How do I know if a feature request is being considered?

I have added some feature requests that have been hanging around on the list for a while. How do I know if a feature request is being considered? Lightmouse (talk) 15:03, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

If we havent explicitally marked it as "No", then its being "considered". We're low on developers, and the active developers are slightly low on time. Bugs are slightly more important... Some are easy requests, some are harder.. But still require the time to implement them... Which ones specifically? —Reedy Boy 17:50, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
My requests can be found by searching against my user name or clicking on:
I am no expert but I might be able to help with the regex code, some of my AWB regex already does some of it. Lightmouse (talk) 12:22, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
Regex help is always useful - especially if they are well tested (means we dont have to sit and work out complex regex's for the purpose). Makes the implementation into AWB a much simpler, as its just hte code for replacements and matches to look at —Reedy Boy 18:27, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
OK thanks. If you want to consider any of the features that I have requested, feel free to ask me for more information about regexes. Some of it is embedded in: User:Lightmouse/javascript conversion
Lightmouse (talk) 19:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

regex question

is it possible to match the second and third link (and further) to remove it?

what would be the regex for this? --84.234.42.68 (talk) 14:44, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Filter settings

I do not think this is a feature request or a bug, but I have suggestions about filter settings.

  • The 'Namespaces to keep' section has a default set of pre-ticked options. I have no idea why some are ticked and some are not. However, my suggestion is to tick the ones that are the most common target of AWB work. I do not know what users actually do but I imagine that the most common target of AWB work is 'Main'. I imagine that the talk space is the least common target.
  • The options usually have colons e.g. 'User:' but 'Main' does not. I would suggest that a colon is not required for any but they should be consistent.
  • The options should have names that are consistent with what Wikipedia calls them. What AWB calls 'Main' is called 'article' by Wikipedia. This may be a recent change but I certainly think 'article' is a better term.

Not a big deal but I thought that I would mention it. Lightmouse (talk) 12:38, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Could we have buttons for the "Non-talk space only" and "Talk space only" instead of right-click as this is one of the few places where things are hidden via right click. — Dispenser 01:30, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
rev 2093 - Designer isnt brilliant.. but it'll do i suppose —Reedy Boy 20:23, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Special:Prefixindex

The current version of AWB does not seem to generate a list from Special:Prefixindex. Is it possible to add that function? (I want to make sure that it is possible before I make a feature request.) Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 17:26, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Its more of a bug - ie as it should work. There is one outstanding for this partially atm. —Reedy Boy 20:16, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Found it! Thanks, Black Falcon (Talk) 20:27, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

AWB issues

On this computer for some reason I cannot access wiki.riteme.site. In order to make AWB run, I have to set it up so that an wiki.riteme.site URL is redirected to the secure site before it leaves the computer. Is this possible? --Rschen7754 (T C) 00:17, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Anybody? --Rschen7754 (T C) 06:05, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
run a webserver on your computer. Add 127.0.0.1 wiki.riteme.site to the hosts file and have all queries redirected to the secure site (which I seem to remember being on the wikimedia domain) via .htaccess. Maybe the hostfile is the problem anyway and there is already an entry - I have used that before to enforce a wikibreak. Agathoclea (talk) 10:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Request review of an AWB user

It's my understanding that AWB is not to be used to make controversial edits. Where do I go to request a review of a user who may be doing just that? Thanks. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 16:53, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Have you talked to the user yet?--Fabrictramp (talk) 18:08, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, yes and no. The user is in high dudgeon because of some reversions I made to their edits, and in the discussion connected to that on the article's talk page, I voiced a complaint about the use of AWB to make automated changes that really need to be done individually. So... the topic has come up, but not in a particularly calm and focused fashion. (The user has edited over 400 articles in the last 7 days in this way.) Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 18:13, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Here's a reasonable place. Fancy telling us who it is, then we can comment/take appropriate action? —Reedy Boy 19:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
Sure - I just didn't want to make the case if this wasn't the appropriate place.

User: Colonies Chris is using AWB extensively. His or her primary purpose seems to be correcting links to films, a totally non-controversial and helpful project, but with every pass, he or she is also unlinking every date in each article they work on. I understand that there is a tendency on Wikipedia to overlink, and that applies to dates, but since the standard for linking (MOS:LINK) says that a proper link "significantly adds to readers' understanding of the topic" that really requires an evaluation of the context of the link within the article to determine if it's significant or not, and shouldn't be subjected to automatic or semi-automatic de-linking. I haven't done a specific count, but looking at the user's contributions page at 500 edits, over 400 articles have had their dates stripped in just the past 7 days, and flipping back through the contributions, he or she has been doing this for a while, so possibly thousands of pages have been effected this way.

It's my feeling that stripping dats of their wikilinks should be done on a individual basis, that if it weren't done at all it wouldn't be awful (a little overlinking is better than underlinking) and that this user is, in effect, acting like a bot without a license to run a bot. I'd like to know if this users is abusing the license to use AWB, which is supposed to not be used to make "controversial" edits.

After I post this, I will put a notice on the user's talk page. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 20:14, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I should also add these links - a comment from the user on my talk page, my response, and the discussion on the talk page of the article in question. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 20:21, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

In response to this petulant nonsense, I'm simply going to re-post here the comment I made on the article's talk page.

I will just add that of all the many articles whose bare years I've unlinked (always in the course of making other edits such as spelling corrections or disambiguations), objections to or reversions of those changes can be numbered on the fingers of one hand - see my own talk page for the almost complete lack of any comments on the subject. Colonies Chris (talk) 20:48, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I want to belatedly point out the discussion here. I wasn't forum shopping, simply trying to find the right place to post. (In fact, I would prefer to have one discussion going on about this rather than two.)

I asked a question there which boils down to: since using AWB is a privilege rather than a right, shouldn't the onus be on the AWB user to show that they haven't been abusing it when question arise? Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 22:11, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

BTW, this isn't petulance. The edits on The Godfather Part 2 were relatively minor and easy to correct, but with potentially thousands of articles having been altered in this way, I am seriously concerned about abuse of AWB and what safeguards are in place to prevent them and protect the project. It seems to me that if there are no watchdogs, the project could be adversely effected by an AWB-empowered user making incremental changes small enough not to provoke a reaction on any one article, but which have a cumulative effect that would be protested if it were widely known. I don't understand what the safeguards are (if any) and how they work. For instance, why was it difficult for me to determine where to bring a complaint about possible AWB abuse? Why is there no process in place? Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 22:16, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

(out) I've withdrawn my complaint, with apologies, as per the reasons given here. The fault is my own, and I regret having accused User:Colonies Chris of making innapropriate edits and abusing AWB. Ed Fitzgerald (unfutz) (talk / cont) 09:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Only editing associated talk pages

I'm new to AWB and still getting to grips with it. I want to use AWB to add a WikiProject banner to all talk pages of pages in a particular category, but cannot find an option to do this (I have tried selecting the "Talk: namespace" checkbox and deselecting all of the others, but this removes all pages from the list).

I have read the manual, but cannot see any reference to this in there. Is there an easy way to import the related talk pages of pages in a category to the list without having to manually add "Talk:" to the start of each page name? Dan1980 (talk | stalk) 10:21, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Make list from category. Select all the articles, right click, "Convert to talk pages". Should do it —Reedy Boy 10:27, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, why couldn't I work that out... Dan1980 (talk | stalk) 12:02, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Uploading logs

How or when does it upload the logs? I've ticked all teh boxes, I think, but can't see how to make it upload the log. Sorry if this is obvious. Hiding T 12:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

AWB on jump drives?

Hello all, I poked around a little, but couldn't find anything about this... I was wondering if AutoWikiBrowser can be run from a jump drive, and if so, whether there are any caveats or limitations I should be aware of. Thanks in advance! —Dinoguy1000 00:31, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

When you say jump drive, I assume you mean USB flash drive. AWB doesn't install any files to the Program Files folder or anywhere like that. It's simply a matter of unzipping it to a folder on your flash drive. However AWB does add keys to the registry under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Wikipedia\AutoWikiBrowser, storing things like the recent settings and profile information (at least on my system).Harryboyles 02:07, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
That is indeed correct. Nearly everything is stored in the settings xml's, with the few minor settings that Harry mentions above. If you use profiles, usernames and passwords are hashed, so are fairly secure. But yes, as long as the pc has the .NET Framework, you'll be fine! —Reedy Boy 10:14, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
All right, that's exactly what I wanted to know. Thanks for your help! —Dinoguy1000 17:59, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

subversions

Is there an easy way of getting some of the latest subversions? Snowman (talk) 10:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean versions that are being tested and not released yet e.g. [15] ? Lightmouse (talk) 10:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Like version 2098. There was a link to a download page somewhere around here, but I can not find it now. I do not think that I can use the subversion download software. Snowman (talk) 11:03, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I am not sure. Perhaps it is at [16] . Lightmouse (talk) 11:46, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, thats my subversion snapshots. Period versions from the SVN built and uploaded there —Reedy Boy 13:00, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Great, there it is. It might be worth making that link more prominent with appropriate warnings about subversions, if your server can cope with the extra downloads. Sometimes it takes a long time between new released versions, and I am reluctant to use the current version because of bugs. Snowman (talk) 13:13, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
Yeah... It does need adding somewhere else - the server is hosted, so it is more than fine to handle MANY downloads. That is the exact reason i started releasing these - For those who want a more up to date version, due to bugs, or to help out with for testing, however, do not have the skills, or want to, download from the SVN and build using Visual studio. —Reedy Boy 13:33, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I've put a warning on my site, and also listed it on the {{AWB}} navigation box. —Reedy Boy 15:49, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Large list problems

Just an FYI that two admins (myself & Jogers) are apparently having issues getting large lists; either there is a timeout or a very incomplete list provided. The lists we use are Category:Film poster images, Category:DVD covers, Category:Album covers, Category:Book covers and the like. Anyone aware if there have been changes that are interfering with this? SkierRMH (talk) 01:35, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Im not aware of anything.. But i havent been really active recently. Jogers has developer access, tell him to fix it ;). Add it to the bug list, and it will remind me to properly look into it —Reedy Boy 20:14, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it is a bug in AWB because I have the same problem with DotNetWikiBot. So, nobody else has been getting this problem as of late? Jogers (talk) 21:20, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmm. What do you get when you do the query things directly to api.php? We've been seeing quite a few 503 errors... —Reedy Boy 21:46, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I also have recently (in the past week and a bit) encountered this issue. Everything was working fine at least until around Feb 11 or 12, and was able to generate complete lists from a category containing a little over a thousand members. However, somewhere after that point attempts to generate lists from that same category (which had perhaps another couple of articles added) result in a list missing about a third of those entries, plus a number of those that did get picked up are duplicated, some even triplicated, in the list. Have run it several times now and the same combined set of incomplete and duplicate entries comes up. Tried it out on a couple of other large (>1000 or so) cats, and likewise the resultant generated lists appear to be incomplete (with some duplicates). Smaller cats seem to run ok, but dunno what the 'threshhold' is for the display of this problem. --cjllw ʘ TALK 02:02, 20 February 2008 (UTC)
I also tried this at work this afternoon on my lunch hour; exactly the same problem... gets lists of up to about 3000 entries, after that, phhhht, gives a time out message. I'd second cjllw's note that this appears to have started about the 11th or 12th. SkierRMH (talk) 05:35, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I've asked about this at the village pump. Jogers (talk) 10:17, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, whatever was causing it, it seems to be back to working normally now.--cjllw ʘ TALK 23:05, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

Odd Image Issue

I was hoping someone could help me figure out what's happening with my AWB, as it seems to want to edit images in a strange way. I just downloaded the latest version, because my copy was out of date, and decided to pull up my watchlist to make sure it was working properly. When I opened, for example, Air-time, AWB had the following change selected:

[[Image:Camelbackhill.jpg|thumb|right|A camelback hill...]] -> [[Image:Camelbackhill.jpg|A camelback hill...]] .

Of course, previewing this change showed that the image simply took up the whole page, instead of being confined to the appropriate column, and it looked absurd. My question is, is AWB supposed to try and make such a change? Is there a new way of templating images that's different from the initial use, involving |thumb|right|? If it's not supposed to do this, any ideas what might be going wrong? If anyone can help, a reply here, or on my talk page, would be appreciated! Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 12:10, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed that too. It also tries to remove ...|200px|... etc from image links. Dan1980 (talk | stalk) 12:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
This has already been brought up in the bugs page. - Dudesleeper / Talk 16:35, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, thanks! I'll keep the "general fixes" switched off for now. Charlie-talk to me-what I've done 03:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, the link above doesn't seem to work? —TreasuryTag talkcontribs 09:28, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
I've archived it as its fixed for the next release —Reedy Boy 09:40, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Image-size removal

Mine seems to be removing image sizes randomly; for example, it changes [[Image:Example.jpg|200px|right|Test image]] to [[Image:Example.jpg|Test image]]. Why is this and what can I do? Cheers, —TreasuryTag talkcontribs 09:00, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

See the section directly above this. - Dudesleeper / Talk 09:08, 2 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, that was so stupid of me!! —TreasuryTag talkcontribs 09:26, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

Stub templates after categories.

Stub templates are displayed before categories in the default skin, so changing the way they're in markup unnecessarily confuses newbies. The fact that stub categories show before non meta categories is good, they indicate a problem with the article. The concensus is clearly on the logical order where the code is in the same order as what is displayed. -- Jeandré, 2008-01-19t18:46z

Wikipedia:Stub#Categorizing stubs recommends stub tag placement after categories. Also, stub tags are borderline WP:SELF (many link to wikiprojects!). --Qyd (talk) 01:48, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

How to search archived AWB discussions

The {{Google custom}} template makes it easy to create a link to custom Google search on the AWB discussion archives:

You may wish to add that link to the header information under #Discussion; that might cut down on repetitive questions. I would add it myself, but this is not my page, so I merely suggest it. --Teratornis (talk) 16:44, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Weird problem with AWB

Hello. When I try to log into AWB, a prompt comes up that says "User check problem", and it says that the page failed to load. It says to check IE and to clear cache, and I did both. So, why isn't it working? I've recently have had to use a 56k connection, would that have anything to do with it? Thanks. xihix(talk) 00:45, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

I'd suspect so, i've never run AWB on anything slower than broadband... It could be timing out during trying to access the page, due to the slow speed... —Reedy Boy 00:51, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
Really? I need to use it... I remember using it last month with 56k, and while loading was slow, I got my job done. xihix(talk) 05:34, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Hi, I am facing the same problem. while logging in to AWB, a message pops up that says "USER CHECK PROBLEM". I am using IE 7.0, Windows 5.1, .NET 2.0, and AWB 4.2.1.0. May be the AWB is not using automatic configuration script (Address) set at the LAN settings of Internet Options. Please provide me precise solution to log-in to AWB. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.103.42.50 (talk) 11:04, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe.. It should do, as it is now setup to do so... However, 4.2.1.0 is now disabled.. —Reedy Boy 08:37, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

AWB help

I have never used AWB before. I would like to set an AWB session up for it to find any article with {{F1-bio-stub}} in the article mainspace, and produce the following statement in the article's talkpage if not already there -- {{WikiProject Formula One|class=stub}}.

I am manually classifying these articles, and this will simply make a multitude of obvious stubs (there are many) faster and easier to classify.

When I use KingboyK's assessment plugin, it does not work. How do I have the assessment tool load everything in the category Category:Formula One people stubs and let me quickly get to work? Guroadrunner (talk) 07:19, 3 March 2008 (UTC)

Use the control on the bottom left. Select Category, then enter "Formula One people stubs" in the box, then press make list. Wait for a few moments for it to complete. Then right click, "Convert to talk pages". You can then setup the kingbotk plugin... Probably want a generic plugin, fill in the required boxes, and tell it you want to do manual assessment.. —Reedy Boy 13:11, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

AWB stats page

Do you mind separating the tables and using the <caption> element instead of <th> so that sort table bookmarklet works? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dispenser (talk • contribs) 04:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

Having a play with this at the moment. Looks like it's a matter of using "caption" and "th scope" as applicable rather than just "th" (fine), and splitting the tables (not necessarily fine, as it might look a right old mess... we'll see). --kingboyk (talk) 13:26, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Caption is butt ugly. On my fairly large monitor it runs past the table boundary, and it has no border around it. Do you know of any styling I can apply to the caption to make it look better? --kingboyk (talk) 14:06, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Never mind, I've found it. Will post back when I have a version ready for you to approve. --kingboyk (talk) 14:12, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, done, and I went one better by adding a javascript to the page to sort the relevant cells by clicking on the header :) Let me know if it's OK for you or if it needs more tweaks. --kingboyk (talk) 15:04, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
  1. Maybe the cursor should change to a hand, on the sorting headers.
  2. Try to use em instead of pixels when possible. Also, to center tables with css add margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;
  3. scope in the <thead> should be set to "col" [17]
  4. Maybe use the wikitable style?
Well other than those things, it looks good. — Dispenser 07:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Gosh you are hard to please! :)
  1. Send me the code (current code is in svn) and I'll happily commit it, but I'm not faffing around with stuff like that sorry :)
  2. I don't particularly want the tables centred. I think they look fine as they are. Do you?
  3. Righto, I'll look at that. -- Ah yes, that was a typo. Fixing now. --kingboyk (talk) 15:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
  4. What's that? You mean the CSS that Wikipedia uses for a table? Again, if you have some code feel free to send it to me (or Reedy, we both have svn and ftp access).
Cheers. --kingboyk (talk) 15:44, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Add style="cursor: pointer;" to the cell or row (tr)

need regex help to exclude particular lines in templates that contain link to images, anyone? (lines like: |blabla= fdfdsfds.jpg) thanks --84.234.42.68 (talk) 00:34, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

IFD plugin

Still having no luck with this plugin , i can the image to the list but when i hit ok it processes but leave my list empty ,help please Gnevin (talk) 22:42, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

You'll have to explain in more detail. Whats happening? Whats not happening? Maybe take some screenshots? —Reedy Boy 23:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Use the 'Logs' tab on the right to determine the reasons behind skips. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 19:14, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
You can close this as per [18] this edit thanks Gnevin (talk) 23:22, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Multiline replace

Can AWB find and replace a single line with multiple lines i want to find |dob= in a template with 

| bday            =
| bmonth          =
| byear           =
| dday            =
| dmonth          =
| dyear           =

Gnevin (talk) 23:25, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

Well... Technically, yes, if you use the newline and such, you could do it then replace with $1 $2 $3... The other, probably better way and easier way, would be to use/create a custom module. Let me know if your stuck. —Reedy Boy 20:48, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Usage stats

Please can more information be provided on this? Specifically:

  • Exactly what information is being collected and when?
  • Who is receiving this data and who has access to it?
  • What is the data being used for? Is it held permanently or temporarily?
  • Why have none of these details been provided previously or documented anywhere?

I think I can answer some of these myself but would like confirmation. Thanks, mattbr 11:17, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Username, wiki, AWB version, OS version, plugins installed, number of saves. When: At 100 saves or app exit whichever comes first, and an update at every 1000 saves or appexit whichever comes first. A message is shown on the status bar when AWB is talking to the server.
  • It's on my shared hosting account, password is available to any Sourceforge registered AWB dev but currently only myself and Sam (Reedy Boy) have the password. An overview is available to the public at http://awb.kingboyk.com/ .
  • Permanently; to get a picture of how AWB is being used.
  • It's documented: It was announced in the changelog, there's a privacy option in preferences which explain it, a link to the stats web page here, and there's an option to withhold the user name. No other personally identifiable information is sent or stored (we don't log IP address or MAC address or anything like that). AWB is of course open source and the source to both the client and server is in the repository for inspection.
Hope that helps. If you have any more questions fire away. --kingboyk (talk) 12:08, 9 March 2008 (UTC) Additional info added --kingboyk (talk) 13:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
PS If you didn't see the privacy option and wish to activate it retrospectively, I'm happy to manually amend the database to remove any record of your username. Of course the data is publically available by checking your contribs anyway ;) but I appreciate that some folks don't want these things stored, hence providing the option in the first place. --kingboyk (talk) 12:14, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, I forgot one: it also logs and submits the Windows culture code. I'm using British English so mine is en-GB (English as spoken in Great Britain). At least one bug in the past has been caused by wrongly assuming that everyone uses English ;) and also I want to get a handle on how many people who don't use English as their first language are using the software. If it's really high then we should look at localisation. Cheers. --kingboyk (talk) 13:01, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that, I think the preferences was probably the only place I didn't look! I think a bit more of an announcement could have been made that this is occurring and that data like this is being sent over the internet as I hardly ever go to the preferences as the details are saved in my default settings, the changelog only states that statistics are logged and I understood this to be in the program / on my machine (as the other 'logging' features do unless you specifically upload) and the stats page doesn't explicitly list this information. Perhaps this information can be detailed on wiki somewhere? I'm OK with my username being logged, as you say I can't hide the fact I use AWB since it is scattered all over my contributions; you make it too useful! mattbr 00:15, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
You may want to amend the message in the preferences window. Most server tend too keep some sort of logs when a client communicates and it usually includes the IP address. — Dispenser 03:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Ok, yes, i suppose, technically, it will be logged. But we mean that it isnt explicitally stored as part of our stats. —Reedy Boy 20:52, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Quick question

No 100% AWB related but what the no bots tag is it simply <nobots> ? Gnevin (talk) 09:10, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

See {{nobots}}. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 09:13, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Cheers , sometimes searching for stuff on wiki is like looking for a needle in a hay stack, you couldn't make a needle in a hay stack bot could you? :D Gnevin (talk) 09:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

A minor suggestion: AWB should handle {{Link GA}} the same way as it does handle the {{Link FA}} – by placing them between categories and interwiki links. Currently AWB moves GA-links above categories. So the proper output should be: 

[[Category:Cat A]]
[[Category:Cat B]]

{{Link FA|en}}
{{Link FA|sv}}
{{Link GA|de}}
{{Link GA|el}}

[[de:Article]]
[[el:Article]]
[[en:Article]]
[[sv:Article]]

--213.216.199.6 (talk) 14:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Which wikis use Link GA's? MaxSem(Han shot first!) 17:06, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I found the following that use {{Link GA}}'s or one that equals to it:
da: {{Link AA}}
es: {{Bueno}}
fi: {{Link GA}}
fr: {{Lien BA}}
ml: {{Link GA}}
no: {{Link AA}}
zh: {{Link GA}}
zh-yue: {{Link GA}}
--213.216.199.6 (talk) 17:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Undo changes

When viewing a diff, AWB says "Double-click on a line to undo all changes on that line, or single click to focus the edit box to that line." I've tried double-clicking all over the place, and I can't seem to get it to undo anything, so I always have to undo changes manually. Is there somewhere special I'm supposed to click, or some preference I need to set? --Sopoforic (talk) 20:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Apparently, there's something wrong with JavaScript settings on your computer. Is it enabled? MaxSem(Han shot first!) 15:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
I have it disabled for general sites, but enabled for trusted sites, of which *.wikipedia.org is one. Enabling it for all sites does cause it to work, but I'd rather I didn't have to do that. Is there some other site I should add to the trusted zone, or anything else I can do? --Sopoforic (talk) 16:52, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Diff pages are not at wikipedia.org, broswser considers them to be at about:blank. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 17:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Special pages

Is there a way to get AWB to do 'Links on page' for 'Special pages'? Lightmouse (talk) 19:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Creating non-existant talk pages

Hi. I was wanting to use AWB to post a load of {{multimove}} notices on talk pages but noticed it got stuck if a talk page didn't already exist. Is there a setting I'm missing somewhere or is AWB currently unable to create pages by itself? Sardanaphalus (talk) 12:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Uncheck "Skip non-existant pages". MaxSem(Han shot first!) 12:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks! Sardanaphalus (talk) 15:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Problem

I am currently having problem in running AWB, whenever it is started it gives this problem message:

This version is not enabled, please download the newest version. If you have the newest version, check that the Wikipedia is online.
Please press "Yes" to run the AutoUpdater, "No" to load the download page and update manually, or "Cancel" to not update(but you will not be able to edit).

When I clicked "Yes" the AutoUpdater started but it again gave error that it can't connect to the server. When I tried downloading manually and was directed to the download page, I found there a new version of AutoUpdater. I downloaded that and replaced the previous one with the new one. But still AWB gives the same problem message that "This version is not enabled.......... ". I have version 4.3.0.0 of AWB. What can I do to fix it? --SMS Talk 07:21, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

[19] - —Reedy Boy 10:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I have already downloaded it twice. --SMS Talk 11:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
You need to replace the updater in your AWB directory with that one, then it will be up to date.. —Reedy Boy 12:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I did that, as I have stated above. --SMS Talk 12:05, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I should really try and read things properly, especially when im half asleep... [20] is the update for AWB —Reedy Boy 12:42, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! I think you are very busy and having a tough routine. --SMS Talk 12:55, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Interface Tweaks

  • Add many keyboard windows shortcuts (alt-underlined letter)
  • Bigger input boxes in some places
  • Adds interface elements for /Feature_requests#Page list improvements
  • Revamped IRCMonitor interface
  • Menu shortcut keys
Zip of files changed — Dispenser 10:27, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
Could you make a patch against latest SVN revision instead? (right click -> TortoiseSVN -> Create patch) MaxSem(Han shot first!) 10:53, 9 March 2008 (UTC) Nevermind, committed by Reedy Boy. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 12:22, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
[21]. IRCM changes applied in rev 2253 —Reedy Boy 12:23, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I've applied most of the designer changes as of rev 2261. The listmaker change seems incomplete.. Presumably the new menu is supposed to be attached to somewhere..? —Reedy Boy 13:59, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
ListMaker patch, I didn't know how to add an onclick handler to get the context menu up lastnight. There are some thing I just don't know how to do, like in the profiles window the <edit> button doesn't work. — Dispenser 03:20, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Fixed the AWBProfiles code. The Listmaker changes will depend whether we get approval of it from the other developers... —Reedy Boy 21:14, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Any chance you can do the patch again against the latest SVN - Its whinging about conflicts... Thanks! —Reedy Boy 22:19, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
new patch. I re-did all the changes, it should be cleaner now since I knew what I was doing. I test it out using that horrid Luna (theme). I had been wondering what was up with the weird color choices on the splash screen. It typically recommended for devolpvers to change there skin every so often to detect problems with hard coding things like color variables or font size/family. This is what I supect the UI Fixes request is about. — Dispenser 01:28, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
DatabaseScanner
Some interface cleanup, added keyboard shortcuts
rev 2291 —Reedy Boy 12:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Main interface
Revised keyboard shortcuts, added tool tips to many items, and reorganized text structure layout
rev 2294 —Reedy Boy 13:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
ReplaceSpecial
Alot of work here. Mainly Keyboard shortcuts, resizing bar (list box is no longer at a fixed width), Menu reorganization and renaming
rev 2291 —Reedy Boy 12:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Notes and Issues

  • Alphabetize list in "Make list" generator drop down
    • I have actually though about that before... Not difficult, and would only require
namespace WikiFunctions.Lists
{
    public enum SourceType { None = -1, Category, CategoryRecursive, WhatLinksHere, WhatTranscludesPage, LinksOnPage, ImagesOnPage, TransclusionsOnPage, TextFile, GoogleWikipedia, UserContribs, AllUserContribs, SpecialPage, ImageFileLinks, DatabaseDump, MyWatchlist, WikiSearch, Redirects }
}
  • Ctrl-X shortcut should be the same as with the standard Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts
  • Should have the "Case sensitive" option be independent of regex in the Speical Replace's find-and-replace
  • Filter dialog should be using tri-state checkboxes (check, indeterminate, unchecked) instead of the Non-Talk Only and Talk Only buttons
    • Im not sure how you want to use the indeterminate - If they are checked it means those namespaces are kept on the filter. For indeterminate, do you want it to sometimes keep, and sometimes not..? The Talk Only/Non-Talk only buttons are just to make selecting multiple checkboxes easier. —Reedy Boy 16:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
      • When click on the group checkbox it toggle the group to checked or unchecked. When an item in the group is change, it changes the group checkbox to indeterminate. — Dispenser 18:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
  • UseVisualStyleBackColor is not needed in most cases as it appear to set to true by default or inherited from application setting
  • Help menu needs to fleshed out more, links can't be in the about dialog. Fix AWB's broken links w/ Feature and Bugs links (it shouldn't be escaping everything)
  • Possibly change the color of text boxes when the regex option is selected to easily indicate that it is in a different mode (Could cause conflict with different themes)
  • Inaddition to "Inside templates {{...}}" the special find and replace add "Inside HTML Tag (Attributes)". Regex: (?s)<\w+[^</>]*>

What holding up the ListMaker patch, are there any objections to it? If there are, then maybe I could address them. — Dispenser 22:21, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

When i discussed it with Steve (Kingboyk), we the designer was cleaner/tidier, and it looked better. Just like the "V" button wasnt as intuitive... —Reedy Boy 13:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I originally had U+9662 (▾) but VS wanted me to convert the document to UTF-16 which messed up the diff. I've now created a patching (edit: [22]) using the triangle encoded in UTF-8 w/o BOM, some additional tweaks and sorted the generator list. — Dispenser 18:34, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Cool, Definately some of the changes that i will make sure go in - For the major designer changes, i think it may be worth posting a couple of screenshots on here and seeing what peoples opinion is - If the majority dont care/think yours is better/are willing to get used to that and use it, i'll change it over. —Reedy Boy 10:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
There's an ASCII rendering at Feature requests page which is pretty close to patch. Right now the patches are a chaotic in the areas they touch as I'm fixing all my little peeves. In the future I'll hopefully be more concise with the changes but likely still huge. Before my windows installation when haywire I was working a combined options menu and preferences dialog. Hopefully, I'll find some free time to continue working on this (as well as all the other WM projects). — Dispenser 02:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Regexp substitution help needed

This is about using regular expressions for find-and-replace, advanced.

I want to go through the 15,000 pages that transclude {{Infobox Officeholder}}. Go to that template and you'll see that there are a pile of other templates that are redirects to it, but that using the correct redirect is considered important ({{Infobox President}}, {{Infobox Prime Minister}}, etc.).

So I need something that will detect {{Infobox.* and substitute whatever is picked up in the .*, and put it in the replacement. Making the replacement {{Infobox\1 doesn't work (it substitutes literally). Same for {{Infobox\$. Is there a way to substitute whatever was found? What bit of the manual did I fail to read? - David Gerard (talk) 10:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Found it! Find: {{Infobox(.*) Replace: {{Infobox$1 Note parentheses around the thing to be found. I finally picked up this detail from [23], the "Replacement and Capturing" section - David Gerard (talk) 10:47, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Watchlists and AWB

Is there a way to hide AWB edits on my watchlist, like bot edits, my edits, etc.? Because AWB tends to clog it up sometimes, and I was wondering if this can be fixed. SpencerT♦C 11:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Not specifically, no.... Unless you edited on a bot account, i suppose. —Reedy Boy 16:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Darn. Well, I don't run a bot, but I suppose that's out of the question. SpencerT♦C 19:03, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I think he means other people's edits, Sam. And the answer is "no". That would be a Mediawiki feature and it's not there (although as Sam says you can hide bot edits - I think - and your own edits). --kingboyk (talk) 14:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Another question

This is like the third time I've come here for something.. amazingly, I can't remember how to do it!! I'm on a new laptop and have been trying to download the .NET framework version 2 for some time. It takes a long time, so I just haven't had the patience to do it. On Saturday, I came to Phoenix on vacation and have high-speed internet in the room, so I finally took care of it. But now, I don't know what the next step is in the process of being able to use the AWB program. What am I supposed to click on, can I just go straight to the AWB program [which I don't know what the file is titled, anyway], or is there anything else I need to install?

I first came to this page on July 15, 2007, nearly a full year ago, so it's been quite some time since I've had to go through this process from the beginning, and I can't remember what to do at all. Could somebody please steer me in the right direction? Ksy92003 (talk) 13:51, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Dotnet programs don't need an installer, so provided you have indeed installed the dotnet framework version 2 all you need to do is extract the zip file to a folder on your computer and double click autowikibrowser.exe. Hope that helps. --kingboyk (talk) 14:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Ya know what? I just think AWB hates me. This is the third time that I've tried to install AWB, and every single time there's some easy problem that I just don't understand how to fix. Now it's saying again that I don't have the 0xc0000135 thing, so I just removed everything from my computer AWB related and am going to start from scratch, and hopefully that will work this time (it did before). The first thing to do would be to go to Sourgeforge.net, click on "Download" in the table, and then click on "AWBUpdater1401.zip", right? Ksy92003 (talk) 14:59, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Please reinstate approval

My AWB approval was withdrawn (for duration of a discussion at WP/ANI) because of a complaint.

  • A user complained about removing brackets around dates and threatened to report me to WP/ANI.
  • I said date link policy is at WP:MOSNUM and the debate should take place there.
  • I also said that there are popular misconceptions about date links so it does not surprise me that it is being questioned.
  • The user did not take it to WP:MOSNUM but took it to WP/ANI and said I'm not sure what the policy is.
  • Discussion at WP:MOSNUM and WP/ANI do not appear to support the complaint.

The discussion at WP/ANI has ended. Please can AWB approval be reinstated. Please do not take my word for it, please read:

Lightmouse (talk) 11:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Lightmouse is a responsible and valuable editor. I see no shred of evidence that he has acted incorrectly. Thunderbird2 (talk) 12:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
 Done. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 16:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 18:30, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Interwiki link sorting is done by AWB by sorting the interwiki links in alphabetical order by language code. However, a number of wikipedias prefer that the links are sorted alphabetically according to the name of the language, not according to the code. So the proper link-sorting order would be as follows:

aa, af, ak, als, am, ang, ab, ar, an, arc, roa-rup, frp, as, ast, gn, av, ay, az, id, ms, bm, bn, zh-min-nan, map-bms, jv, su, ban, ba, be, be-x-old, bh, bi, bo, bs, br, bug, bg, bxr, ca, ceb, cv, cs, ch, ny, sn, tum, cho, co, za, cy, da, pdc, de, dv, nv, dz, mh, et, na, el, eml, en, es, eo, eu, ee, to, fab, fa, fo, fr, fy, ff, fur, ga, gv, sm, gd, gl, gay, ki, glk, gu, got, zh-classical, hak, xal, ko, ha, haw, hy, hi, ho, hsb, hr, io, ig, ilo, bpy, ia, ie, iu, ik, os, xh, zu, is, it, he, kl, pam, kn, kr, ka, ks, csb, kk, kk-cn, kk-kz, kw, rw, ky, rn, sw, kv, kg, ht, kj, ku, lad, lbe, lo, ltg, la, lv, lb, lij, lt, li, ln, jbo, lg, lmo, hu, mk, mg, ml, mt, mi, mr, mzn, chm, cdo, mo, mn, mus, my, nah, fj, nl, nds-nl, cr, ne, new, ja, nap, ce, pih, no, nn, nrm, nov, oc, or, om, ng, hz, ug, uz, pa, pi, pag, pap, ps, km, pms, nds, pl, pt, kk-tr, ty, ksh, ro, rmy, rm, qu, ru, se, sa, sg, sc, sco, st, tn, sq, scn, si, simple, sd, ss, sk, sl, cu, so, sr, sh, fi, sv, tl, ta, kab, roa-tara, tt, te, tet, th, vi, ti, tg, tpi, chr, chy, ve, tr, tk, tw, udm, uk, ur, vec, vo, fiu-vro, wa, vls, war, wo, wuu, ts, ii, yi, yo, zh-yue, cbk-zam, diq, zea, bat-smg, zh, zh-tw, zh-cn

--213.216.199.6 (talk) 14:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It was a bug in the latest version, already fixed. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 16:58, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I am still getting interwiki link lists that become sorted alphabetically according to the language code, not as in the list above (by language name). How do I enable the listing according to the list above? There seems to be no such option, only the option "Sort interwiki link order" in "Options" which results lists having sorted according to the language code. Using version 4.3.0.2. in Finnish Wikipedia. 213.216.199.6 (talk) 12:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
You need a newer version. Try a SVN snapshot - [24] —Reedy Boy 12:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Still happening? Or would that have been done using an older version? --Closedmouth (talk) 06:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Redirect HELP NEEDED

Good day! It has been told me that some people in here (who run AutoWikiBrowser) could help me with my problem. I need to rewrite all Six Feet Under links to Six Feet Under (TV series) because we are about to make a disambiguation page for Six Feet Under (there are several Six Feet Under - things). There are more than 500 of Six Feet Under links... can you help me please?Lykantrop (Talk) 00:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Please help! Can somebody tell my something about my problem please?--Lykantrop (Talk) 19:04, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm on it, but it will take a while. EnviroboyTalkCs 02:41, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
I thank you so much! Could you explain me a bit how it works? Should I use AutoWikiBrowser too?--Lykantrop (Talk) 10:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

AWB on Wine with Mono 1.9

I'm really missing AWB on this Linux box. So I looked at the Mono site and saw that 1.9_4 (preview of 2.0) is available. So I installed the Win32 version of that in Wine 0.9.57, and started AWB 4.3.0.2: 

fun@heidi:~$ '/home/fun/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/AWB/AutoWikiBrowser.exe'
fixme:spoolsv:serv_main (0 (nil))
wine: Call from 0x7b840f50 to unimplemented function gdiplus.dll.GdipCreateFontFamilyFromName, aborting
err:seh:setup_exception stack overflow 16 bytes in thread 0011 eip 7b841946 esp 00410ff0 stack 0x411000-0x620000

At least it's a better error than previous ones! I've added it to the bug (and the bug for the missing function) and posted it to the wine-users list. - David Gerard (talk) 16:21, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I also tried it with native gdiplus and it didn't work, but did give a lovely .NET backtrace! See Wine forum thread (or mailing list thread) - David Gerard (talk) 18:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

In the meantime, if you still have a Windows licence, you might want to try the excellent and free (in beer) VMWare Server. --kingboyk (talk) 14:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

At the moment I'm actually just booting into Windows XP, because I live in Minefield (Firefox 3) and it's identical between KDE and Windows. Main visible side-effect is massive quantities of heat and running for two hours on battery instead of three ;-p The status of AWB on Wine at present is "doesn't work, try with a new Wine and a new Mono until you get something that works." Native .NET 2.0 won't be supported until after Wine 1.0 (probably well after - 1.1 is still flaky), and Novell don't take bugs on missing Mono functions that are breaking apps o_0 - David Gerard (talk) 10:37, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

List Comparer

I use list comparer to find which articles in my WP have been tagged compared to those which haven't been...however the current upgrade only lets lists load to 500 articles, so the comparer only finds articles beginning A to F for example, and no others. SriMesh | talk 02:32, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#List_limit —Reedy Boy 15:47, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

RBI's to RBIs

Can someone please use AWB to change all the RBI's in Wikipedia to RBIs? This is a baseball abbreviation for Runs batted in. The apostrophe in RBI's is incorrect. Thanks, Kingturtle (talk) 02:57, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you please specify a Category which contains articles, that possibly have this typo mistake. And also consider adding this to WP:AWB/Typos. --SMS Talk 07:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
'Tis Category:Baseball. Kingturtle (talk) 21:04, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Project templates

Hello. Is there any possibility to use AWB for adding WikiProject templates to article talk pages? Thanks. - Darwinek (talk) 21:05, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes! you can use User:Kingbotk/Plugin(which is shipped with the current version of AWB) to tag talk pages with the Wikiproject templates. --SMS Talk 21:18, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Beat me to it. I've been using the plugin to add the WikiProject Baseball template where appropriate, and it works great. Just a heads up on the instructions, though. They were written a couple of AWB iterations ago, so you need to look at the spirit of the instructions, not the letter. :) --Fabrictramp (talk) 21:20, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Great, it works! Just one more stupid question, how can I automatically make list of articles' talk pages in AWB? - Darwinek (talk) 22:34, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

If you have a list of articles, load the list into AWB, then in the List menu choose "Convert to talk pages". (Note that the Kingbotk plugin uses a list of article pages, not talk pages.)--Fabrictramp (talk) 22:48, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Great, thank you very much. Sorry for such a stupid questions, I usually use AWB only for fixing disambiguation links. - Darwinek (talk) 23:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Unless you ask, how would you learn? Besides, as I tell people at work, I don't mind stupid questions -- those are the ones I can answer! :) --Fabrictramp (talk) 23:09, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Errm... Kingbotk's plugin needs the list to be of article talk pages.... —Reedy Boy 23:11, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Why was this upgrade forced?

I have to ask again, why exactly is this upgrade required? If there was a serious bug found, that's one thing. But I use AWB for a limited, once a week task (distributing a talk page message), and having to upgrade seemingly twice a month is really, really annoying. Ral315 (talk) 05:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Depends on what you consider serious. Of course, most corrections are related to general fixes, but there are others, such as unability to retrieve category members in all versions prior to 4.3.0.2, for example (this was due to breaking changes in MediaWiki). MaxSem(Han shot first!) 07:41, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Adding infoboxes

Does anyone know a way to allow AWB to add something to the top of the page. I am going to start adding infoboxes to all the US Military personnel that don't already have one (and there are a lot of them) and I was looking for a way for AWB to scan them. I realize that it still may not be perfect and I will need to watch each one closely but there are a lot of them and I don't want to go in through the web browser and look for them one at a time.--Kumioko (talk) 23:15, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, If you look on the tabs in the middle under more, at the bottom, you can "prepend text", so you can at least add the basic infobox to teh page. You can then use keywords, or whatever you want to partially populate it... You can use the skip options to skip if it contains the template. —Reedy Boy 23:25, 27 March 2008 (UTC)
Thanks that helps a lot.--Kumioko (talk) 12:59, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Custom Project :)

Hey all. Not sure if i'll get a reply but i want to use the bot on my own wiki. Not on wikipedia as such. The url is http://wiki.tribalwars.net and when i enter that into the space provided in the custom project area etc it thinks about it, then gives me an error message like the URL should be in format from the index.php file etc. For the link provided above can someone explain what to enter into the box where i should put the URL in the custom project interface. Thanks! --84.68.167.86 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 17:07, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

Your site's BOT Api is too old. AWB needs fully functional meta=siteinfo and meta=allmessages to work on a custom wiki. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 17:22, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Right. So can you tell me how to get it to work on a custom wiki? Like a step-by-step guide because that would be the most awesome thing you could do. Thanks in advance :) --Oscardog1991 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 21:58, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
Update your site to the latest SVN versions of MediaWiki and Bot API. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 06:15, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

And these are free to download, can i have suggested links to these download sites(At school atm). Once these are installed then i enter what URL into the custom slot on the project interface? Thanks! --Oscardog1991 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 08:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC) Anyone know? Would be most greatful for the links :) --Oscardog1991 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 13:02, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Seems the help has dried up. Thanks for the help max but you have only completed half of the job. Need aid updating the things you suggest :) Please reply :) --Oscardog1991 (talk) 08:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
mw:Download from SVN & mw:API. Upgrade to the latest version. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 09:22, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
I really don't like the "feature" to make the AWB only work with non-stable releases, at least in combination with forced updates. There are sites that cannot update to a new version of MW. --90.128.80.52 (talk) 23:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
AWB is designed mainly to run on Wikipedia/wikimedia projects, custom/other projects is an aside. They use fairly up to date SVN versions of MediaWiki, therefore AWB will take advantage of some of the new features if it is a benefit to AWB/the servers —Reedy Boy 23:53, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
You always have the option of downloading an older version of AWB from Sourceforge and disabling the version check in it.
Nothing stands still on the Internet. The Mediawiki API is an important update and I think it's not unreasonable for us to have switched to it and thrown out the old code (imagine having to support 2 mechanisms for getting lists etc than 1). That said now we can look at usage stats we might be encouraged to be more considerate of non Wikipedia users as there does seem to be a fair few! --kingboyk (talk) 13:06, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
What's the way to disable the version check? It would be kind of a dev to add that to the FAQ / User guide. :) --Izno (talk) 22:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
We can't disable version check :) --83.203.47.238 (talk) 20:45, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
You'd have to know C# and hack the source code, basically. --kingboyk (talk) 14:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, thanks for the suggestion then. /endsarcasm. >_<. Perhaps a feature request can be put in on our behalf to be able to disable the version check, of course with a popup box that asks if you really want to do that. --Izno (talk) 03:53, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Adding a heading if not present

I want to add References heading along with {{Reflist}} wherever it's not present. How can I do that? --SMS Talk 16:52, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Just a note, you do only want to be adding it IF there are any references in the article... Otherwise, there isnt much point. —Reedy Boy 16:57, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
Actually yes I only want to add when I convert external links present in text as in text references using this. --SMS Talk 17:06, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
I had file a feature request a few days ago for the general fixes to automatically add a References section when it was missing. I could extract the relevant portions of the python code for conversion of C#. — Dispenser 06:44, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Dispenser, please do. We should be able to get it implemented quicker then —Reedy Boy 11:02, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
Please make an other addition in this feature that it should convert External links in text to in text references. --SMS Talk 11:08, 30 March 2008 (UTC)
# (C) 2008 - Nicolas Dumazet ( en:User:NicDumZ )
# Distributed under the terms of the GPL

# References sections are usually placed before further reading / external
# link sections. This dictionary defines these sections, sorted by priority.
# For example, on an English wiki, the script would place the "References"
# section in front of the "Further reading" section, if that existed.
# Otherwise, it would try to put it in front of the "External links" section,
# or if that fails, the "See also" section, etc.
placeBeforeSections = {
    'de': [              # no explicit policy on where to put the references
        u'Literatur',
        u'Weblinks',
        u'Siehe auch',
        u'Weblink',      # bad, but common singular form of Weblinks
    ],
    'en': [              # no explicit policy on where to put the references
        u'Further reading',
        u'External links',
        u'See also',
        u'Notes'
    ]
}

# Titles of sections where a reference tag would fit into.
# The first title should be the preferred one: It's the one that
# will be used when a new section has to be created.
referencesSections = {
    'de': [
        u'Einzelnachweise', # The "Einzelnachweise" title is disputed, some people prefer the other variants
        u'Quellen',
        u'Quellenangaben',
        u'Fußnoten',
    ],
    'en': [             # not sure about which ones are preferred.
        u'References',
        u'Footnotes',
        u'Notes',
    ]
}

referencesTemplates = {
    'wikipedia': {
        'en': [u'Reflist',u'Refs',u'FootnotesSmall',u'Reference',
               u'Ref-list',u'Reference list',u'References-small',u'Reflink',
               u'Footnotes',u'FootnotesSmall'],
    },
}

class bot:
    def __init__():
        self.referencesR = re.compile('<references */>', re.IGNORECASE)
        try:
            self.templateR = '{{(' + '|'.join(referencesTemplates[self.site.family.name][self.site.lang]) + ')'
        except KeyError:
            self.templateR =''
    def addReferences(self, text):
        """
        Add <references/> when missing
        """
        if self.referencesR.search(text):
            return text
        elif self.templateR and re.search(self.templateR, text, re.I):
            return text
        for section in wikipedia.translate(self.site, referencesSections):
            sectionR = re.compile(r'\r\n=+ *%s *=+\r\n' % section)
            index = 0
            while index < len(text):
                match = sectionR.search(text, index)
                if match:
                    if wikipedia.isDisabled(text, match.start()):
                        wikipedia.output('Existing  %s section is commented out, skipping.' % section)
                        index = match.end()
                    else:
                        wikipedia.output(u'Adding references tag to existing %s section...\n' % section)
                        return text[:match.end()] + u'\n<references/>\n' + text[match.end():]
                else:
                    break

        # Create a new section for the references tag
        for section in wikipedia.translate(self.site, placeBeforeSections):
            # Find out where to place the new section
            sectionR = re.compile(r'\r\n=+ *%s *=+\r\n' % section)
            index = 0
            while index < len(text):
                match = sectionR.search(text, index)
                if match:
                    if wikipedia.isDisabled(text, match.start()):
                        wikipedia.output('Existing  %s section is commented out, won\'t add the references in front of it.' % section)
                        index = match.end()
                    else:
                        wikipedia.output(u'Adding references section before %s section...\n' % section)
                        index = match.start()
                        return self.createReferenceSection(text, index)
                        return
                else:
                    break
        # This gets complicated: we want to place the new references
        # section over the interwiki links and categories, but also
        # over all navigation bars, persondata, and other templates
        # that are at the bottom of the page. So we need some advanced
        # regex magic.
        # The strategy is: create a temporary copy of the text. From that,
        # keep removing interwiki links, templates etc. from the bottom.
        # At the end, look at the length of the temp text. That's the position
        # where we'll insert the references section.
        catNamespaces = '|'.join(self.site.category_namespaces())
        categoryPattern  = r'\[\[\s*(%s)\s*:[^\n]*\]\]\s*' % catNamespaces
        interwikiPattern = r'\[\[([a-zA-Z\-]+)\s?:([^\[\]\n]*)\]\]\s*'
        # won't work with nested templates
        templatePattern  = r'{{((?!}}).)+?}}\s*' # the negative lookahead assures that we'll match the last template occurence in the temp text.
        commentPattern   = r'<!--((?!-->).)*?-->\s*'
        metadataR = re.compile(r'(\r\n)?(%s|%s|%s|%s)$' % (categoryPattern, interwikiPattern, templatePattern, commentPattern), re.DOTALL)
        tmpText = text
        while True:
            match = metadataR.search(tmpText)
            if match:
                tmpText = tmpText[:match.start()]
            else:
                break
        wikipedia.output(u'Found no section that can be preceeded by a new references section. Placing it before interwiki links, categories, and bottom templates.')
        index = len(tmpText)
        return self.createReferenceSection(text, index)

    def createReferenceSection(self, text, index):
        newSection = u'\n== %s ==\n\n<references/>\n' % wikipedia.translate(self.site, referencesSections)[0]
        return text[:index] + newSection + text[index:]

bracket

[25] - bracket should be removed instead of putting another --84.234.42.68 (talk) 16:07, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid there's no easy way for AWB to detect which way such situations should be handled. Thoughts? MaxSem(Han shot first!) 16:10, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Automatic insertion of "Replace this image"

If there's two infoboxes on the page, it should only do it for the first infobox (the first one which supports image display, anyway). Don't know if this is due to user error or what? In that case, there's two problems: inserting the image to two infoboxes, and the fact that {{Infobox East Asian}} uses the parameter "img", not "image". cab (talk) 00:23, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

That edit was made entirely using custom replacement settings, contact its author for details. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 04:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
That'll have been me faling afoul of {{(\ *)Infobox\ (.*) replaced with {{Infobox $2 - please alert me to any other such foulups on my talk page, and I'll go clean up after them - David Gerard (talk) 15:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Watchlisting

I just downloaded and tested AWB for the first time, so sorry in advance if this has been asked and answered before. :) How can I tell AWB not to watchlist the pages that I edit? I have "Add all to watchlist" turned off, but it still added the pages I edited with AWB to my watchlist. I have "Add pages I edit to my watchlist" at Special:Preferences turned on, tho, so I guess that has something to do with it. Shouldn't the "Add all to watchlist" option override that, tho? --Conti|✉ 15:09, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

usermessage

Hello. Does anyone know what the fix is for this problem? I'm running AWB Version 4.3.0.2; Windows version: 6.0; .NET Version 2.0.50727.312; IE version: 7.0.6000.16609. Do I need to change my monobook.js or IE settings? Thanks. —Viriditas | Talk 08:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Ral does it fine with the Wikipedia signpost (albeit, having to upgrade)... What problem are you having? If you have the list of talk pages, you can easily append to them what you want to deliver... I've done it myself, as have numerous others —Ree dy 15:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
I'm having the same problem as described by Lar in the above link. User:MPerel setup a test page to try and duplicate my problem. Try appending something with AWB to User_talk:MPerel/Sandbox and see if it works. When I do it, AWB halts and a "New message" box pops-up, with the text: "You have a new message, please view it before continuing. Please choose whether to open the message in Internet Explorer or your default browser." Then, I'm presented with two buttons to choose my browser, "Internet Explorer" or "Default". If I choose either one, it just brings me to my talk page, but doesn't allow me to continue running AWB. It seems that <div class="usermessage"> is halting my version of AWB. It's not a monobook issue, so I'm wondering if it is an IE config. problem. MPerel has a similar setup to my own, but she doesn't get the error. So, the question is, how can I append a page that has class="usermessage" on it? —Viriditas | Talk 23:07, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
What are your settings in AWB? I've never encountered any issues, and I'm sure one of my users must have run into this problem. Also, is this on a bot account, or your main account? Ral315 (talk) 20:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I've listed what I know above, and it's on my main account. I'm going to try it on my laptop instead of my desktop and see if that solves the problem. —Viriditas | Talk 10:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Option to use in Firefox

I think it would be nice if there was an option to use this in Mozilla Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 23:12, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, just noticed this in the FAQ - DiligentTerrier (and friends) 23:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Auto-update not working

Sorry, but I am finding AWB more and more irritating to use. Every time I try to use it, it tells me I have to update whther I want to or not. The auto-update function inevitably fails to work properly, so the only way I can use it is to uninstall the software and download a new version. Please let me continue using the version I have! It may not have the latest bells and whistles, but it does what I need it to! —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 21:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

What about when things are broken? As for the updater - We purposely put out "Updater Updates" when there are no AWB updates, so it will be all working come the next release.. But people just dont bother to uprgade. —Reedy 21:32, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it". AWB worked perfectly for me before, so why should I need to upgrade if I don't want to? —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 22:14, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
There's something wrong with having an updater that needs updates in order to update the main program. Perhaps the updater might need updating occasionally, but can't it be updated when the main program is updated? To do otherwise is recursive and, frankly, annoying from a user's perspective. Ral315 (talk) 20:15, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
It generally is, but i do know what you mean. However, there are cases where we put a new release before the next release, so it wont break due to different file names and such. It is done with the hope that people will upgrade... The Change Log shows when its been released seperately. I suppose, if it needed to update the updater before it could update AWB, it could be odne, but people would need to run the updater twice as it cannot replace itself whilst it is running. However, i suppose, when an updated updater release is put out, i can see it probably being worthwhile to repackage the last AWB release to include it.. Which could solve a few of the problems
I suppose, one point is, what exactly did everyone do before i wrote the updater...? —Reedy 10:06, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It won't work for me now, but it did a few versions back. How about permanently authorizing a stable version, and not forcing users to update every time a feature is added? In short, have two versions authorized. One would stay put as of the last bug-free version, and the other would be updated from time to time. If the updated version isn't working for some users, they can fall back on the old one until the bugs are ironed out in the new. Cheers! bd2412 T 09:30, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Reedy ,first of all i would like to thank you and the other devs for all the great work . However I have to say it appears every time .I want to use AWB it wants an update(which doenst work).In the past AWB had more than one version running with the oldest version being disabled after a while , can't we return to this system? In the past user where only forced to use the latest version if their version was quite old or a bug was discovered that effected editing Gnevin (talk) 10:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

When's next version?

What's the roadmap for AWB releases? When's 4.3.0.3?

Oh, btw, Microsoft .NET 2.0 will install cleanly in Wine 0.9.59. w00t! Just as well considering Novell don't consider missing functions in Mono that break real apps reportable bugs o_0 - David Gerard (talk) 09:58, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Haha. Bloody people. As for 4.3.0.3, thats the current SVN release ;). [26] - Im uploading periodic SVN snapshots there, so if someone needs something that was broken since the last release, they can at least get to use it if it has been fixed. A for the actual release, it probably wont be that far away! —Reedy 10:11, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Not that 4.3.1.0 will work in Wine 0.9.59 with MS .NET 2.0 anyway. Bah! I'll keep trying! (I'm hating Windows so much that I compiled Wine from source to try ...) - David Gerard (talk) 00:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Hmm, others are reporting much better results than me. I'll wait till 0.9.59 is in Wine's Ubuntu 7.10 repository and try again - David Gerard (talk) 09:19, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

How can I get my user page ignored by AWB?

I would like AWB to ignore my user page. How can this be done? - LA @ 07:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Adding {{bots|deny=AWB}} should prevent instances of AWB from editing your page, if you want to rule out a specific bot, the replace AWB with the bot's name. Bot AWB and pywikipedia based bot support the {{bots}}. — Dispenser 20:44, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Fix redirs and dab page links

hi, There's already a script (User:Dschwen/HighlightRedirects) that changes the link color of links to redirects to green. I have requested a script that does something similar for links to disambiguation pages. Can you get AWB to use those (if and when the second one comes into being) to make automatic fixes, e.g. change [[Calvinist]] to [[Calvinism|Calvinist]]? Thanks! Ling.Nut (talk) 05:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

AWB generally just loads the wikitext of the page - not the formatted page... So it would have to go through each link and load the pages in a similar way to that, however, that could start putting quite a lot of extra load onto the servers.. —Reedy 18:20, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

General fixes

An editor finds the removal of underscores in image names undesirable:

"I deliberately enter image names, including the underline characters rather than spaces, so as to avoid editing problems. I want the image name to be an entire block that is clearly an image name, not a caption that can be edited."

Is this sense? Is it worth disabling for image names? Or is it unlikely that people will treat an image name as a caption? Rich Farmbrough, 11:15 7 April 2008 (GMT).

I find it hard to consider turning underscores in image names into spaces any sort of bad thing. People (including me) habitually do this by hand where possible. - David Gerard (talk) 19:22, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Problem

When I listed the error as the program said I should it was marked as old. I downloaded the newest software available fromthe AWB link I found around here and when the UPDATER runs it has the problem. Anyone have another link so I can update my software. Thanks! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 23:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[27] —Reedy 23:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:50, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Newbie - Rules of use

Hi, I am new to AWB and I try to find my way throuhg. I have few questions:

  • removing underscores from links (unless they are bad links) seems to contrdict itself - why does AWB trigger removing underscores from links as a bad-link edit then???
  • wasting resources - using my common sense, I must waste more resources just by browsing through the database and letting AWB find pages to clean up for me pulling a lot of traffic than if I do "insignificant or inconsequential edits". I admit clogging logs with minor edits though - however, this whole point is quite discutable and I think may require more precise ruling.--Kozuch (talk) 15:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Internet Explorer

Will any version of IE suffice, or is a particular version required to support AWB?

Wanderer57 (talk) 22:21, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Can you PLEASE stop locking me out of the old versions?

I respect that the software is being updated and revised all the time, and I know that it's a lot to keep up with, and the majority of the users use Wikipedia. But I really enjoy using your software, not for Wikipedia, but for all Wikia wikis and others. Unfortunately, locking me out of the old versions means I have to get the new ones hacked, or I have to play a game of Russian Roulette to see if the new version works or not. Again, I completely understand that these upgrades are necessary for those editing Wikipedia, but can't you give the rest of us a choice? Let us take our chances with the old software that works, versus the new software that breaks? I know your first priority is Wikipedia and any bugs in the new software that aren't Wikipedia-related are probably going to be put on the backburner. So can't you leave us the option to use the older versions of AWB? It's really getting frustrating to be locked out of the old, working versions, and have to deal with the new ones that may or may not work for the rest of the wikis out there. AWB is a great tool for all MediaWiki wikis, and I'd hate to see most of the wikis cut out just because users get locked out of the older versions of this great program. Dr. Skullthumper (talk) 19:46, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

"Insignificant" changes

Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage#Guide states "Avoid making insignificant minor edits such as only: Adding or removing some white space; Moving a stub tag or category name". So why does AWB insist on making these changes? —  Tivedshambo  (t/c) 19:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

They are good changes to make if you are also making substantial changes.--Fabrictramp (talk) 20:28, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
You can also turn them off... —Reedy 20:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
I have answered this in my comment on your talk page. mattbr 20:48, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Controversial changes within AWB but not via AWB?

Newbie question: I'm just curious if the "no controversial changes" includes changes made by hand while using AWB, but not something automated via AWB. I was using AWB to make minor edits, then realized that the article needed more substantive edits, so I started editing in the text box; then noticed that the article sounded like a copyvio, so I googled it and found that indeed it was, so I blanked the copyvio sections (90% of the article) and put a copyvio template. Since at this point, the edit could be controversial, should I have quit AWB and done all this within a normal web browser? Or does the fact that I'm not automating this edit make the difference? Thanks! -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 21:48, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

AWB can be used in an automated/semi automated fashion. If it was on a bot account, it would/could be contraversial, but the other main use is like you are doing. People do expect other changes to take place (and the edit summary is not always exactly correct). Contraversial changes would be going through blanket changing something that there isnt a decision/policy saying it has to be one way or another. Hopefully that helps —Reedy 08:39, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Why is Win32 Required?

Any particular reason this won't run under Linux using Mono and CSharp? By limiting to Win32, you are excluding use of this code by those who choose to use Free software. Rknasc (talk) 13:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

We are not limiting anything, it's Mono's incompleteness. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 14:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
I get Windows free... So therefore thats free software. ;) #When.27s_next_version.3F for more info. —Reedy 14:46, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Don't let the BSA police find out you get Windows free! They can get really nasty. (insert here the standard Free Beer vs. Free Speech discussion - interestingly enough, there is a Free Beer that is free in the other sense of the word.) Rknasc (talk) 15:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Its legally free - Via MSDNAA :) —Reedy 15:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
That actually answers my question. Apparently someone has tried it and found it uses specific features lacking in Mono (I wonder if the Mono folks know that). Rknasc (talk) 15:26, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, they do. It was reported, and they were like, yeah, we know the stuff isnt complete, but we have stuff to tell us that... —Reedy 15:41, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
Someone could really rewrite the app to get rid of all the .NET crap... :D--Kozuch (talk) 18:38, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Make list from Cateogory (recursive)

Does this feature actually work for anyone? When I try to use it, it goes on forever without returning a result. The Transhumanist 14:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yup. It works fine for me (and others..) —Reedy 14:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)
Huh, for me it goes on for several hours and then aborts ("operation aborted" - I just tried it again and let it keep running overnight). I really need to use it on the categories "Health" and "United Kingdom-related lists". Since it works for you and not me, would you please run it on those, "Save list" to wiki-marked up text files, and cut and paste those files to User:The Transhumanist/Sandbox01 and User:The Transhumanist/Sandbox02? Otherwise it would take me days to use "make list" on all the subcategories individually. The Transhumanist 20:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)


Cancel that request. The problem seems to have gone away after I blanked my monobook.js page. I don't have time to track down which script caused the problem, but when I figure it out, I'll certainly let you know. The Transhumanist 16:52, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

External processing

I'm very pleased to see there's now a built-in way to push pages out to an external script. Unfortunately I can't get it to work, and I can't find any documentation about it, beyond its existence. The external program seems not to be being called - and if I set it to a non-existent filename no error is generated (at least, none visible to me). I'd also like to know what character set the file for input/output is using, and whether there's any way to get the external program to generate the edit summary (or token thereof). Pseudomonas(talk) 22:50, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Its not documented as i never really got round to it. For the edit summary, as it stands, there isnt currently, but could be implemented... For the rest, let me get back to you. —Reedy 19:44, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok. If an error occured, it just returned the original article text. I've made some tweaks in rev 2359 to make it pass it out to an error handler. The file is being read in as UTF-8 encoded... Any more questions, just ask (will upload a SVN snapshot soon) —Reedy 19:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I'll try again. BTW, if you want to use a standard input/output/error approach (which I like), the code snippet linked from my userpage might be useful to you. Pseudomonas(talk) 07:08, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
User:Pseudomonas/AWBPerlWrapperPlugin - For lazyness... Standard input/output/error..? —Reedy 23:29, 21 April 2008 (UTC)
Standard Input is a stream which most programs can read from, standard output they write to, standard error is for errors, warnings, comments, debug info etc. so if one uses sed or grep or something, the transformations occur between std. input and std. output. Perl calls them STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR; Java System.in, System.out, System.error. Pseudomonas(talk) 15:59, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

AWB review

Who do I ask if I'd like someone's use of AWB reviewed? - jc37 18:56, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

You can put it here or send it to one of the developrs like Reedy.--Kumioko (talk) 19:55, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. It looks like it won't be necessary atm. Though I may have a few suggestions soon as to some updates to clarify "rules of usage". Especially misleading edit summaries (in light of recent arbcomm rulings, such as Betacommandbot), and "fait accompli". Thanks again : ) - jc37 20:12, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Adding message to end of template subst

After substing a template I would like to be able to add something like <!-- Substituted from [[Template:Doctl]] --> to the end of the template, so others know where the template is located. Appending or prependsing text doesn't seem to work as it wants to stick it to the very end or beginning of the page and I would like it right after the substed text. Here is where I got the idea from. Any ideas? Thanks! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 01:33, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

You should need to do this. If the template are meant to be subst they should already include such text. If the template doesn't include this text, then either it has been made to be subst, no updated for subst, or the content may change on a semi regular bases. — Dispenser 03:31, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I guess I don't understand what you mean...at all. For example: {{Welcome}} is supposed to be subst'ed as per the guidelines. Yet when my bot substitutes it, it does not contain a message about where the template originally was. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 22:18, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Scrap that. I now see there's a section when setting the template to subst to add a comment. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 22:22, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity

Hey, I was curious about this edit... how did it know to add Category:Living People?—Chowbok ☠ 19:41, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

I think, cause it had no death category... —Reedy 21:13, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

br removing

proper <br /> tags are not removed in [28] (general fixes run after </br> to <br /> change, but if run before it removes the improper </br> tag --84.234.42.68 (talk) 22:31, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

another example [29] - but this is rather connected to a space after tag --84.234.42.68 (talk) 14:01, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

/doc pages and includeonly sections

Hi. Just had the following alert and discussion on my talk page ([30]):

Hi. I had to revert your recent modification to Infobox Former Country. This change removed the underscores from many variable names, severely damaging the template's use. While I am certain that it was not your intention to remove the underscores (AWB loves to do that), I could not see what you were really wanting to do. Either please make the desired changes manually or let me know what you would like done. Thanks 52 Pickup (deal) 09:29, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for repairing the template and for the alert. AWB was meant to tweak a category, but, this template using a /doc page, nothing happened. Or at least, I'd've assumed nothing would've happened. I've noticed AWB doesn't seem able to handle /doc pages, so perhaps it's now time I left a message/request on its page. Sardanaphalus (talk) 09:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)}}
It looks like AWB gets confused when includeonly tags are involved. I've seen this problem come up a couple of times before in other places. Unfortunately I know nothing about how AWB works, but it would be nice if this were to be fixed. 52 Pickup (deal) 09:50, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

This may be old news (if so, sorry) and/or a solution is in the pipeline, but I thought I ought to flag the situation here. Sardanaphalus (talk) 10:00, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty damn sure that AWB didn't preform GF in namespaces other than 0 (article), as I remember having to re-write a few of those rules. Looks like this is a regression to me. — Dispenser 02:11, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Your comment prompted me to check for updates and I've just had AWB updated from 4.3.0.2 to 4.3.1.0. Perhaps that might remove the underscore behavior. Meanwhile, is handling metadata on /doc pages on the to-do list somewhere? Sardanaphalus (talk) 10:07, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Fixed in rev 2365. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 06:24, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Shouldn't you be matching [^<>\[\]\|\{\}]? And wouldn't it be easier to fix all the wikilinks at once? — Dispenser 01:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
No. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 07:09, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Wrong name I guess

I have earlier registered for using AWB, but not been able to find the reason why it keeps denying me to use it. Today I realised that my user name could be miss-spelt. Looks like it has been entered as Wikiality instead of Wikiality123. Can someone help sort this out please. Cheers Wiki San Roze †αLҝ 20:23, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Would someone please kill the "feature" that strips underscore characters out of photo filenames

Every so often i see editors using AWB messing up articles on historic places, such as Rjwilmsi did with List of National Historic Landmarks in New Jersey. It does not save filespace or help in any way for the AWB to strip underscore characters out of photo filenames. In fact that makes it easier for editing changes such as a line-break or another space to get inserted into photo filenames, losing the link to the filename.

Step 1 error: Here is an example of an AWB edit stripping underscores out of photo names

Step 2 error: Here is an example of an AWB edit by the same editor, inserting date formatting upon dates that are part of photo names, making the photos disappear from the page.

The second AWB error would have been prevented if underscores were included in the photo file name. PLEASE STOP AWB from stripping the underscores out of filenames! They serve the purpose of helping prevent the next AWB users from messing up photo connections on the second pass. doncram (talk) 21:30, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

section stubs

AWB removes section stubs, why? [31] --84.234.42.68 (talk) 20:32, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

I know why - it's because when the article's over a certain length, it automatically removes anything in the format {{xxxx-stub}}. And I agree it's really annoying; not only does it remove sect-stubs from articles if the article itself is over the magic length, but a large infobox, for example, can also expand an article enough that the software thinks it's incorrectly tagged as a stub. Not sure how to fix it, though. — iridescent 01:56, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Section stub handling had a bug, it's fixed now. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 10:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Can someone who understands the coding remove the automated replacement of "Related topics" with "See also" from the General Fixes? While it's not widely used, the "Related topics" is explicitly permitted by the MOS — and I can't find a way to turn this replacement off without losing so many other fixes that it makes AWB virtually useless for general clean-up work. — iridescent 23:57, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Bot tab present but greyed out?

Hi guys. Having got User:FlagBot onto the approved bot list, I now have the bot tab appearing in AWB. However the "nudge" button is the only bit of that tab that is live - the rest is greyed out (or the bot tab is grayed out, for the benefit of future searchers). How do I access fully-automated mode, or does that require 500 edits or something? (currently on 482) FlagSteward (talk) 14:23, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

All these options only matter if "Auto save" checkbox is checked, which aparently you haven't done. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 14:36, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
If you mean the Auto save checkbox on the bot tab, that's one of the things that is greyed out, so I can't check it..... (AWB 4.3.1.0 on XP SP2 BTW) FlagSteward (talk) 15:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
I can't reproduce it with that particular version. Try deleting Default.xml from the directory where AWB resides. If it doesn't help - come to #autowikibrowser, I'll try to help. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 15:25, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks - renaming default.xml appears to have sorted it. I've had a quick look at the two .xml files and nothing jumps out at me as the cause, although there's various changes accumulated in 8 months of general fiddling with AWB. The one possibility is that the old one is a 4.2.1.0 version xml file, is it possible the 4.3.1.0 parser just got a bit confused by an old-style xml file and couldn't set options for the bot tab other than the status of the Reset counter button? If that is the case, it might be worth checking for pre-4.3 xml files and displaying a warning?
Whilst I'm here, a minor feature request - if there's more than 1 Profile set up, could we have a dropdown on the toolbar for switching Profiles? Now I'm bot enabled, I find myself switching Profiles quite a bit. FlagSteward (talk) 16:28, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've cracked it - it's all Kingbotk's fault. ;-0 The problem is having ManuallyAssess="True" in the Kingbotk plugin settings of default.xml. Change that to ManuallyAssess="False" and everything is fine. Sounds like a minor fix is necessary? FlagSteward (talk) 17:38, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
With the serialisation, adding/removing settings causes no problems. Renaming settings does (i have bodged releases up before by this). —Reedy 17:40, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
What means "fault"? Manually means manually, you shouldn't be able to edit in bot mode then ;) MaxSem(Han shot first!) 17:48, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Well yes - but it should be something like happens with regexes, it should be disabled once you're logged in with a bot since it causes AWB to fail in an unpredictable way - greying out most of the bot tab but not all of it. And no, I'm not quite sure how I came to have that setting the way it was,;-/ I don't think you can access it from the GUI (??) so it must have been whilst I was fiddling with the plugin settings in the early days. FlagSteward (talk) 18:18, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Dead bots

I checked every bot on the checkpage and noticed that lots of them are unused for a long time. I've removed the following accounts because they are obviously abandoned, not approved or simply blocked:

These bots haven't edited for some time (since last summer as a rule of thumb), so if you see your bot here, please tell us if you still need it:

Thanks, MaxSem(Han shot first!) 18:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

CJBot is dead following my Mac conversion! Computerjoe's talk 19:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Peelbot is dead for the same reason as Computerjoe. Any chance of a mac version of AWB? Mike Peel (talk) 21:56, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I dont own a Mac, and i dont think MaxSem or any other of the Dev team do.. People have gotten running AWB running on macs more successfully than linux (ie full usage running)... When mono is more fully implemented, AWB should work fine! —Reedy 22:14, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Just use Parallels.—Chowbok ☠ 22:35, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
Or if you have a Motorola chipped Mac, use Virtual PC. Slow, but usable.--Fabrictramp (talk) 22:57, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
You could also pledge some money to CodeWeavers to develop wine further. They've hired many of the wine developers to continue working on the project and donate much of their code back. Plus, no need for a Windows license. — Dispenser 15:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Removed 3. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 06:42, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Unable to install

I have been having trouble installing my AutoWikiBrowser. Details are at Wikipedia:Help_desk/Archives/2008_April_25#AutoWikiBrowser. Selected excerpts are as follows

I tried to run the .exe from within .zip 

What does the following mean:
Description:
  Stopped working
Files that help describe the problem:
  C:\Users\test\AppData\Local\Temp\WER1FF1.tmp.version.txt
  C:\Users\test\AppData\Local\Temp\WER30B4.tmp.mdmp
Read our privacy statement:
  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=50163&clcid=0x0409

Also, the exact error message I get upon attempting to extract is: 

Error: Access is denied.
Cannot create C:\Program Files\AutoWikiBrowser\AutoWikiBrowser.exe.

When I replied that I wanted detail about this error I got the following: 

Extracting to "C:\Program Files\AutoWikiBrowser\"
Use Path: yes   Overlay Files: no
Error:  Access is denied.
Cannot create C:\Program Files\AutoWikiBrowser\AutoWikiBrowser.exe --TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  23:11, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
What OS etc? As it just sounds like a permissions issue... —Reedy 23:17, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
I use a Feb 2007 Hewlett Packard Pavillion DV9000T with Vista Home Premium. I generally use the Firefox 2.0.0.14 browser, but have access to MSIE.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 05:58, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Its vista permissions. Try extracting AWB somewhere such as your Documents - where you will have more permissions. —Reedy 11:22, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Am I suppose to move the zip file to documents and extract to documents?--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM) 03:12, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Version bump after typo list access fix?

After fixing AWB typo list access [32] I think it would be appropriate for a new point release of AWB, as presumably everybody who uses the typo fixes needs this update? (PS thanks for fixing the typo access, for a while I thought the problem was me and I'd gone mad...) Rjwilmsi (talk) 14:47, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. I'll make a test run, then we could release it in a couple days, I think. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 14:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
If anyone *needs* it now - SVN Snapshot at rev 2391 —Reedy 15:01, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks guys. I've been using the SVN version for typo fixing for a few weeks now and the current version seems ready to release. Rjwilmsi (talk) 17:38, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah.. Does seem ok. Think max has a few things he wants to finish etc. Hopefully next couple of days... If people do need it, at least now with the SVN snapshots, its just a bit easier for them :) —Reedy 18:33, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Append/prepend text.

I'm helping User:Steve Crossin so that his bot adds the following to articles:


== References ==

{{reflist}}

However, I can't make it so that the new section (References) goes above the External Links section, because the Append/Prepend function adds the text at the end. Is there a way to override/modify this? Thanks, · AndonicO Engage. 01:55, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I suppose, it will be the order that the text is appended, that general fixes are done afterwards (I did suggest trying to do it with general fixes enabled..) Let me check something. —Reedy 11:01, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
public string ProcessArticle(string ArticleText, string ArticleTitle, int wikiNamespace, out string Summary, out bool Skip)
         {
             Skip = false;
             Summary = "Whatever the summary wants to be";
 
             ArticleText += @"==References==
{{reflist}}";
 
             return ArticleText;
         }
Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Custom Modules
Put the code you want to apppend in a custom module, and then with general fixes enabled, it will be moved to the right place during the full processing. Simplest way IMHO!! You can have extra skipping criteria etc if you want, and add that there. Poke me on MSN later steve if you need more help —Reedy 11:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Use the pywikipedia noreferences.py script instead. It's already being run by DumZiBoT for a few month now, only on pages related to its other jobs and its stable. — Dispenser 03:39, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

There is an option for google search. Yahoo can include and exclude articles that google does not. Would it be possible to have an option for a yahoo search? Lightmouse (talk) 20:09, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I suppose there probably could be... I just use google for nearly everything... Does anyone else actually use Yahoo? ;) Put this on the feature request page please... If there is any other interest from other users, it will most certainly be implemented, as it shouldnt be overly difficult. —Reedy 21:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I have added the feature request. Lightmouse (talk) 22:16, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Increase visibility of changes

I have a feature request that I do not know how to explain. I would like to see more of the 'Show changes' section i.e. the bit at the top that has the old and new bits in yellow and green. I think other people have suggested slimming down the area for options and settings, however I do not think anybody has suggested a change to the top. It occurred to me that a lot of the area at the top is consumed by the large font title of the page and other space used up above and below it. I wonder if it would be possible to either eliminate it or move it off the top of the screen via scrolling. As far as I am concerned lots of pixels at the top of the screen are currently wasted. Like I say, I am not sure how to explain it. Does anybody understand what I mean? Lightmouse (talk) 19:22, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what your settings are or what you mean by the title - on mine, the only thing above the diff box is the window frame itself and the menus, and the size of those is determined by your PC's display settings. The diff box already scrolls. — iridescent 19:33, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

And for most people, they now have 17" + monitors at a decent resolution... —Reedy 20:01, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me try to explain again. I started AWB and it got to the point where it does 'Show changes'. So it has the old paragraphs in yellow on the left and the modified paragraph in green on the right. That is the useful stuff. But above it, the space is taken up by:
  • a large font message saying Double-click on a line to undo all changes on that line, or single click to focus the edit box to that line.
  • a column heading saying Current revision and Your text
  • a line number
All that takes up the same space as 7 lines of text. This is about 30% of the available space for the yellow+green 'Show changes' bit on my screen. My suggestion would be to delete the message about double-click and single-click. It is always there using up space but does not maintain its value after the message has been understood. Do you understand what I mean now? Lightmouse (talk) 22:20, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Just scroll down and it'll magically vanish... — iridescent 22:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I know that I can scroll to get rid of the unwanted text. That means I have to move the mouse from the bottom left of the screen to the top right and then back again. I can see only see the following reasons for it:
  • 1. It is hard-coded and nobody knows how to remove it.
  • 2. There is a belief that experienced users forget what double-click and single-click do.
  • 3. It was put there a long time ago and nobody has questioned it.
What would happen if the message were removed? Lightmouse (talk) 22:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, maybe I'm missing something but I really don't see the issue - I've done 40k+ AWB edits and never once had this problem. There's no "moving the mouse to the top right" involved - just scrolling your mouse wheel should scroll the text in the diff window (unless you've clicked on the text in the diff window, in which case it'll scroll the edit window until you re-click in the diff window). Is anyone else having problems with this? — iridescent 22:56, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think we are miscommunicating. What bad thing would happen if that message were removed? Lightmouse (talk) 23:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Back when I was actively using AWB, I found it annoying that the single click would focus in the edit box preventing me from scrolling the window. I suggest changing it to double-click to focus and right click to bring up menu. The menu should have the following options when nothing is selected on the page: Focus line in text box (bold, Windowism), Undo line, Undo block (undo consecutive lines), and Undo section. The font could be smaller, but the margins are more significant. We can't remove the message as we need to inform new users of the functionality. Alternatively we could provide this in a tooltip, but that tends to be non-obvious. It would also be nice if it didn't screw up something when reverting added lines. — Dispenser 23:21, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
We'll try to fix that another way: by allowing to scroll the diff with mouse wheel even when it's not focused. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 12:15, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

myskin

I'm rather curious as to the reasoning behind using the myskin skin when loading pages and history? I have configured the myskin class with black backgrounds that makes the text sometimes unreadable. I would seem to me that Chick is a better choice as it has the minimal skin of elements. — Dispenser 00:26, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

It reduces load time. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 14:25, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
myskin in my instance is Firefox specific and happens to be bigger than additional CSS for chick skin. A more consistent rendering can be archived across different users. — Dispenser 03:25, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
My tests show that vanilla myskin is lighter than chick. Surprisingly, modern also looks good so far, we may want to switch to it a bit later, when all major third-party wikis will have it. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 14:44, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Adding project banners

Hey all, technophobe checking in. How would I go about adding {{WikiProject Discographies}} to all talkpages in Category:Discographies? That'd obviously include skipping those already with the template, and so on. You probably understand my request better than I do if I'm perfectly honest. It's a new project, and this would certainly help get it up and running.

Could anyone interested please reply on my talk page? Thanks plenty. Seegoon (talk) 20:12, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

There is the "Kingbotk" plugin included with AWB which will do this for you. Presumably you are wanting someone to do this with a bot? If so, i can do this... User:Reedy Bot is approved for this task —Reedy 20:47, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll take what I can get! That sounds great. Seegoon (talk) 21:55, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
That category and its subcategories then? —Reedy 10:24, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
If you please. Seegoon (talk) 16:48, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Just for future reference, if you got User:FlagBot to do this, he'd have a fair crack at automatically assessing the article for Stub or Start class as well - but I imagine that discographies are essentially lists and so there's no real advantage in getting him to do it. (and I've other things on my plate right now to be honest) Discogs might be good for testing some List-assessment code though. :-)) There's also various bots around that regularly add new articles in a category to a Project - SatyrBot is the one I know best (see User:SatyrBot/WikiProject Services) but Satyr is currently taking a break to build a new house or some nonsense :-) - but I think there's others around the place. FlagSteward (talk) 18:03, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Or I can have BCBot do it. βcommand 2 18:30, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
About 1400 articles, wont take long to do. —Reedy 18:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
once I sick BCBot on it, will only take about 10 minutes. βcommand 2 18:57, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
o_0(c) User:Cometstyles - How only 10 minutes?? —Reedy 19:23, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
140 edits a minute? Even for a bot...CRAP! Oo §hep • ¡Talk to me! 21:04, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
Ive had BCBot making over 5,000 edits an less than 20 minutes. βcommand 22:18, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 Done there where only about 7 pages that needed tagged. βcommand 22:36, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
My bot had already done the rest.... —Reedy 15:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

I could not find where the bots takes requests. I would be grateful if someone would run a bot to add {{WikiProject Warwickshire|class= |importance=}} on the talk pages for the category Warwickshire, but NOT the subcategories because a lot of pages will be included about Shakespeare. I understand that it will try to assess Stubs and Start class pages as well. I guess that there will be between 1000 and 2000 pages. I started doing this manually and did the As, Bs, and Cs. Snowman (talk) 15:07, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Saving a 'Make module' script in AWB

I have a script that I add using 'Make module'. The script rarely changes but I have to reload it and recompile it each time I start AWB. I tried saving it in a settings file but that did not work. Is there a way of saving the script in AWB so that I do not have to do this? Lightmouse (talk) 20:19, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

It has to be recompiled every time purely based on the way that it works - Its created and loaded into memory for use. I dont know if its a change since the last release (though, im sure its been there for a bit), if the module is enabled, AWB should load it on loading the settings. I've made some tweaks relating to this for the next release, but thats only for the datetime stamp. When i've finished this tagging run in one of my open AWB's in Visual Studio, i'll have a peek at it and check its all working as it should. —Reedy 20:29, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the recompiling is the easiest bit. My process is:

  • Open the file where I keep the code
  • Select all using Ctrl-A and copy the code
  • Launch AWB
  • Select 'Tools', 'Make module'
  • Use multiple key clicks to get the module white space selected. Note that 'Select all' using Ctrl-A does not work - but that is a different issue.
  • Paste the code
  • Select the enabled checkbox.
  • Click the 'Make module' button
  • Click 'Done'

I am fully ready to be informed that I am not being efficient about it. Please do. I am looking for simpler methods. Somebody suggested script could be kept in a default place inside AWB but I did not understand at the time. Currently my code is kept outside AWB and I think that is the biggest inefficiency of my method. Lightmouse (talk) 20:45, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

AWB *should* save it and load it from the settings file... —Reedy 20:49, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

OK. Now I am investigating further. I tried 'File', 'Save settings'. Unfortunately, it comes up with an 'Error saving settings' dialog. It says 'Object reference not set to an instance of an object'. That means nothing to me. Perhaps I got that far before and gave up trying. The code compiles and runs fine in AWB but it can't save it.

Incidentally, I did wonder if the dialog 'Are you sure you want to exit' could do a sanity check as to whether settings had changed. I think this is the sort of thing that Notepad does. If a change is made, it says 'Do you want to save the changes'. I know that AWB cannot test for everything but is there any future in such a feature request? Lightmouse (talk) 21:38, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Presumably that was on the SVN Version?? (im suspecting so as i was getting the same error). I've tracked it down and fixed it, it was due to a bad code commenting by Kingboyk, and it was throwing an exception relating to something else (which i've improved the code for). The bad comment was meaning some of it wasnt saved, but then when it loaded it was fine, but caused an error when it was saved again. rev 2454 fixes that. I've also added you a context menu (undo, cut, copy, paste and select all) to the txtCode box of the Custom Module form. —Reedy 21:53, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

As for the other thing.. It could be possible. Put it on the feature request page! —Reedy 21:54, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I have added a feature request. Will Ctrl-A also work? I can't download the SVN version right now. I am using version 4.3.1.0 (alternating indents to make it easier to read on small screens) Lightmouse (talk) 22:10, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Try my latest SVN Snapshot - [33] —Reedy 22:15, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I have just tried rev2456:
  • The error dialog on save has gone.
  • It saves the 'Make module' script and it is there after I have exited and relaunched AWB.
  • The Ctrl-A 'select all' method works.
  • The timestamp on compile is there.
Several helpful improvements. Thank you very much. Lightmouse (talk) 20:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Cool! —Reedy 15:47, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Setting up AWB for specific edits?

I'd like to make my bot do this, which is something I somehow managed to do manually. Any ideas as to how to do this (and preferably in layman's terms)? Microchip 08 18:04, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Enabling general fixes should do that for you. Please note, you shouldnt really just be making edits that do JUST that. Try enabling regextypofix too, and make it skip if no edits need to be made. —Reedy 15:44, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Removing stub tags

Sometimes AWB removes the stub tag when there is a {{verify}}, {{refimprove}}, {{wikify}}, {{cleanup}} (and so on) template on the page. It may be better, if AWB indicates that a stub tag may be removed in the absence of any of the cleanup-type templates or headers. Snowman (talk) 15:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Example? MaxSem(Han shot first!) 16:56, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
What I observed AWB removes the stub tag when the article is of considerable length. --SMS Talk 16:39, 17 May 2008 (UTC)
Sort of, yeah, if it matches a number of characters.. —Reedy 22:06, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

RegEx 'replace'

Is there an option somewhere to set AWB to treat strings entered in the 'replace' box in F&R as regular expressions? Even with the RegEx box ticked, anything entered in the replace section is treated as plain text. Thanks in advance. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 21:11, May 19, 2008 (UTC)

Weird, so $1, $2 (for capture groups etc), doesnt work if its regex? Its just regex on the find?? Hmm, that needs fixing if so —Reedy 21:58, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can see. $x just gives the literal string '$x' in the article, not what it is supposed to represent. Regex works perfectly in 'find' though [oh, and this is in the latest version]. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 22:03, May 19, 2008 (UTC)
Righto, thanks. IMHO, that is a bug.... Enabling the regex text box, should at least allow you to have a regex replacement field, and if not regexy (ie $x) it should replace as literal text. —Reedy 22:05, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
Want me to file a bug report? Here is a screenshot of the bug. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 22:08, May 19, 2008 (UTC)
Yes, please! Link to the screenshot aswell please! —Reedy 22:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

[too many colons!] Bug report filed. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 22:22, May 19, 2008 (UTC)

Cheers! —Reedy 22:25, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Username change

Hello! Recently, I changed my username from Billy to Archanamiya. Would someone please update the list to reflect this? Thanks! archanamiya · talk 15:54, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Done as per the Checkpage —Reedy 18:05, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

AWB Rules/Regexen

I was wondering whether a regex could be generated to look at a talk page with Wikiproject banners, look at the ratings [classes] that the article has been given, and add the highest one to a different template [or is there a way to have AWB stop evaluating rules when the previous one evaluated as successful to achieve the same thing?]. Getting the ratings from other templates and adding them in is child's play, but only putting the highest rating, and not all of them, into the template is rather tricky. I have created a rule for each rating that looks for said rating on the page and adds it in, but even with an appropriate 'if not contains' section I end up with is something like: 

|class=B|class=Start

instead of simply 

|class=B

Even if this required all of them to be added, and then another rule added to clear the extraneous ones, it would be most useful.

Sorry to ask so many questions, and thanks in advance. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 16:48, May 20, 2008 (UTC)

Disregard this, it works using a custom module. RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 21:08, May 22, 2008 (UTC)

I've read the manual several times now (how unusual!), and can't figure out how to make AWB do this.

Every couple of months or so, I work through Category:Dead-end pages and check for pages marked with the {{deadend}} tag that do have links to other articles, so I can remove the tag. (Yeah, I could ask for a bot to do this, but I also give the articles a final triage at the same time). Currently, I have AWB only give me the articles which contain "[[", but this gives a lot of false positives, as anything with categories or interwiki links also shows up. In the article statistics box on the start tag, AWB gives me the number of links in the article (and the database scanner also has that info), but I'll be darned if I can figure out how to tell AWB to skip articles where the number of links is 0.

Any suggestions?--Fabrictramp (talk) 17:12, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

Doesnt exist by default, but would be easily addable (skip if contains no links) —Reedy 17:02, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
rev 2468 - Added. Just need to make the checkbox saved (will do that later) —Reedy 17:03, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Oh, will stick snapshot up later when i've done this. —Reedy 17:06, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks!--Fabrictramp (talk) 17:10, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Media in category "Category:World War II"

Does anyone know how to delete these "debris" from deleted images?--mrg3105 (comms) ♠♥♦♣ 03:54, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

What sort of debris? —Reedy 16:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Commons use?

I'm trying to figure out how to use AWB on the Commons to fix some PD tags relating to the Musopen project. However, when I try to switch the Project: to commons, it tells me "Software disabled". Is there a CheckPage equivalent over there I need to request access on? Thanks.--uɐɔlnʌɟoʞǝɹɐs 16:40, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Never mind, when I did it this time, it actually sent me to the page, instead of complaining silently. Thanks anyway!--uɐɔlnʌɟoʞǝɹɐs 16:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
Commons:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage for future reference. —Reedy 16:47, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Does 'Skip if contains' use AND or OR?

Does 'Skip if contains' use AND or OR? What about phrases versus discrete words? Lightmouse (talk) 17:55, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

If you make it regex, you'd be able to do (one|two)... That'd do OR.. —Reedy 19:38, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I will try that. Lightmouse (talk) 19:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Search/Replace strings with carriage returns in them

I'd like to do search and replaces on strings with carriage returns in them. That is, multi-line search strings. How is this done in AWB?

The Transhumanist 18:41, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

\n MaxSem(Han shot first!) 18:53, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Category sorting

I haven't used AWB myself lately, as I recently switched over from a Windows/Linux dual boot setup to an all-Linux one and am oh-so-patiently waiting for a Linux AWB port (hint, hint!), so I don't know the source of this problem, but I've been coming across an increasing number of cases where a user does an AWB run which removes the {{lifetime}} template from articles, replacing it with birth and death year categories, but does not replace the {{DEFAULTSORT}} template — with the result being that the run moves Woody Guthrie, frex, from being sorted under G for Guthrie to being sorted under W for Woody. Can somebody clarify whether this is a technical issue that needs to be programmed into the next update, or whether there needs to be some user education done? Bearcat (talk) 16:02, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Linux port isnt waiting on us ;). When mono has full implemented v2 of the .NET framework, with WINE, you should be alright... As for the rest of it, thats more a question for Max i feel.. —Reedy 16:26, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

AWB:Bugs and features

You guys are doing a great job but you should not be afraid to say, no longer accepting requests. Looking at that list I'd know I'd be overwhelmed . Perhaps it's time to say no more feature request till the backlog is cleared . Also perhaps bugs should be sorted into subsections such as plug ins , call stack errors, interface, text changes (typos etc) ,settings bugs Gnevin (talk) 10:15, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Probably would be a good idea sorting the bugs page much like the Feature Request page - Feel free to do this. I'll do it later if it hasnt already. Call stack could be anything, but like plugin, GUI, updater, etc would make more sense.
As for the actual feature request page, i dont think closing it would be a good idea tbh. We get some little ones that are/can be sorted easily and usually are. The list does need going through and some marking as outside AWB scope, or not viable or similar. I have quite a bit more free time now, for quite a while (no more uni until late september). Hopefully, i'll be able to start working through some more of the requests soon. I've done one fairly major one (well, minor request but to get it done it made sense to overhaul the list maker) with Kingboyk's help, making it more modular and now accepts search plugins. —Reedy 13:02, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Get from categories

I just updated the software to 4.3.2.0 and now I am unable to make a list from a category from a Wikia site. I've tried messing with the settings to no avail and didn't see any troubleshooting section with this. I have the project settings set appropriately, and AWB is still able to make lists from Watchlist and Contribs. Any idea what could be the problem? Here's the page in question. 75.13.179.157 (talk) 14:50, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that MW 1.12 release that Wikia uses contains completely screwed category listing code that doesn't treat well our fallback tricks for earlier versions. Suppose, we must either remove the fallback parameter or perform some tricky detection. Fuck. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 16:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

List maker

Okay, I can't figure this one out. How can you import a group of article into the list maker? I can export lists galore to edit out articles I don't want processed; but the only way I can get them back into the list is to take the list and upload it to my sandbox then I do the links on page option to grab the links and put them back in the list. There has to be a faster way to do this? Thanks for your time and for such a great program! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 00:28, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried the text file option? You need a text file with one article name per line. Rjwilmsi (talk) 07:42, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Or like * [[Link]] —Reedy 09:40, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
That's how I have the list exported is *[[Link]]. What do I need to do to upload that list or articles back into the list maker? §hep • ¡Talk to me! 16:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
God, I feel like an idiot. I must have looked over the "From text file" selection 100 times. Wow. Thanks for putting up with me. :) §hep • ¡Talk to me! 23:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Don't feel too bad. I thought it was broken the first time I used it, because I chose "from text file" and then no dialog box to choose the file came up. Never occurred to me to press "make list". Duh. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 23:31, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Ahhh well. If we made it popup automatically, i'd see 2 problems with that, 1, its out of the style of the way the others work, 2 people would get annoid if it kept popping up everytime you selected it, especially if it was accidental ;) —Reedy 10:03, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
No complaint with the way you implemented it. My only complaint is with my own brain. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 17:43, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Was more of a funny aside :) —Reedy 22:48, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Which means now I can complain about my glasses, because I totally missed your wink. :) --Fabrictramp | talk to me 15:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Skipping

I have got the skip if only white space box ticked but my bot is still editing only white space in some of its edits. Also I dont know if this is mean to happen but while using the tagging feature it misses many articles that I personally think should be tagged with uncat e.t.c such as 14032_Mego. Or is it just that it doesn't tag pages this small? ·Ãḍď§ђɸŗЄ· Talk 19:15, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I have the same issues with the white space skipping. It doesn't work. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:23, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I have looked through some of the edits it still made and they mainly seem to be edits that add white space just under headings. e.g. It will add white space under ==HEADER==. Hope this helps. --·Ãḍď§ђɸŗЄ· Talk 19:37, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#White_space_bug - Its weird, as to do the compare, it first removes ALL whitespace between the original text and the curernt text to look if they are the same... —Reedy 19:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Bot access

I have AWB access for my bot : User:TinucherianBot , but the AWB page for Bots configuration is uneditable now .. Why ? -- TinuCherian (Wanna Talk?) - 07:07, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

It is ok now, i had loaded my normal user settings -- TinuCherian (Wanna Talk?) - 07:08, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Auto-tagging

AWB adds stub tag "when appropriate". What exactly it means? Matma Rex (talk) 15:26, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Quick save

The manual says in the Section about bot options that there is a 'Quick save' check box. I am using SVN 2882 and I can't see it. Where is it? Lightmouse (talk) 10:53, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Its redundant and has been removed, also removed from user manual now. —Reedy 10:55, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 10:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The screenshot needs removing or updating too. Lightmouse (talk) 10:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

SourceForge Awards

Hey Guys, If you've got a sourceforge account (or, you could create one ;), please vote for AWB in some relevant categories - SF Project Page. Nomination link. —Reedy 15:16, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

How is edit rate calculated?

The log time intervals do not appear to match the edit rate. How is edit rate counted? Lightmouse (talk) 11:34, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Codes not the simplest to follow. Every 60 seconds, it works out how many edits its done in the last minute (so its current edits per minute), and uses that for epm, so its not an average, just the last minute, it would seem. Looking at my bots contribs, i know it was doing 9-11 epm, and the contribs for that minute period, are about those values. Note, it wont be 00 --> 00, it might be 13 seconds to 13 seconds in the next minute.... Have you noticed a large discrepancy? —Reedy 12:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

It is approximately the same. It is just that I sometimes calculate it myself using the inverse of the inter-edit interval of the last two edits. I saw a 5 second interval and expected to see 12 edits per minute but it said 11 edit/min. I saw a 6 second interval and I expected to see 10 edit/min but it said 11. I was just curious about the mismatch.

The pedant in me would ask whether 'edits/min' should be changed to 'edit/min' to fit our mosnum style of keeping plurals out of abbreviations.

Using the inter-edit interval of two edits would give the peak value and would be the most rapidly changing rate. The method you describe is a 1 minute rolling average. I do not think there is a right or wrong method. It depends what the user wants to do with the information. Lightmouse (talk) 14:06, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I suppose, either way, its only to give the user a rough guide of whats going on... —Reedy 15:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I can't think of a scenario where a faster rate is required. I just thought that perhaps it was inaccurate but clearly it is not. Thanks for telling me how it works. Lightmouse (talk) 15:08, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Can a wikipedia page request that AWB not fix it or warn AWB users?

A page I've worked on keeps getting mis-fixed by AWB due to a known bug (removing paragraph markers in block quotes). Can I put some sort of directive on the page to warn AWB users? Espertus (talk) 18:31, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Whats the page? As we can blacklist the page against general fixes... For the time being at least —Reedy 18:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for leaving that out. It's Stephen Donaldson (activist). Thanks. Espertus (talk) 21:19, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[34] —Reedy 21:27, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Do you think that it would be worth developing a solution whereby a piece of text could have 'no bot' or 'no AWB' section markers? A user has just asked on my talk page for a similar function. Although in this case, it is not an AWB bug but the solution could be similar. Lightmouse (talk) 16:14, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Date format in log window

Can the date format in the log window be made to show ISO 8601 format (2008-06-08) rather than slash format (08/06/2008)? Lightmouse (talk) 11:46, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

It just uses the Windows defaults, so it should be clear enough for every user. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 13:15, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Ah. I did not know that. I thought that it was the format chosen by a AWB developer. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 14:02, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Bystander bot switch off

I have seen things on other pages that allows bystanders to switch off the bot with just one click. For example see User:SmackBot. However, the code for that appears to be restricted to admins. Does anybody have any equivalent? Lightmouse (talk) 12:56, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Depends on the type of bot. That one blocks the bot, some have shutoff pages, but AWB, if you leave a message on the users page, they will be alerted that they have a message, and cant continue till its dealt with. —Reedy 15:14, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The AWB 'stop on message' feature is good. But the shutoff button goes just that step further and allows a single click. I would like the code to do it. Lightmouse (talk) 15:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The only "easy" way to do this, would be to have a page that has "true" if the bot is ok to run, of "false" if not, just i'd have to be checking the page at every page load.. —Reedy 15:47, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like it would add a lot of time. I wonder how the admin only version Smackbot does it? Lightmouse (talk) 11:28, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

It's for admins only because it blocks them :) CWii(Talk|Contribs) 19:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

More than one 'skip if contains'?

Sorry, I'm sure this has been asked before (or is patently obvious to everyone else) but how do I set AWB to skip articles that contain any of more than one phrase? For instance, say I was patrolling some pages in a category of musicians, and I wanted to skip any that contained the phrase "infobox musical artist" or any that contained "infobox person", but I wanted to pick up articles with other infoboxes or no infobox at all? Is there a way to do that? J Milburn (talk) 09:51, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, try skip if contains infobox( musical artist|person) and check the regular expression option, leaving 'case sensitive' unchecked. Rjwilmsi 12:44, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks very much. J Milburn (talk) 14:45, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Removal of blank lines

Begin: Copied from Lightmouse talk page
Lightbot removed some blank lines today in article The Last Jim. Before there were two blank lines between {{Reflist}} and {{Gasolin'}}, now there is only one. As a matter of fact, I did leave two blank lines there on purpose as with only one the artcicle looks rather cramped: The list of references is practically glued to the band template. I understand the practical rationale behind the removal, but I don't like the graphical result. Would you have an idea about how to solve this problem? – IbLeo (talk) 12:09, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The removal of blank lines is not specifically a Lightbot task, it is a task controlled by AWB 'General fixes'. Feel free to revert it, I do not mind. However, if Lightbot does it, the chances are that any other bot using AWB will do it. You could raise this with the AWB developers at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. I hope that helps. Lightmouse (talk) 12:22, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. Well, I don't really see any reason to amend AWB. It would be a cleaner solution to get a proper space in the article between the reference list and the band box with just one blank line in the source (it is annoying to have to put two blank lines for it to look good - so I won't revert). Would you by any chance know where this issue could be brought up? Cheers. – IbLeo (talk) 15:01, 13 June 2008 (UTC) End: Copied from Lightmouse talk page

The problem in a nutshell: The bottom of article The Last Jim looks cramped as there is no air between the reference list and the band info box. The only workaround solution I found was to add 2 blank lines in the wikitext, but one of them got removed by AWB. Any ideas about a "clean" solution that leaves air in the article with just one blank line in the wikitext. – IbLeo (talk) 16:30, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Adding a <br>, seems to work and AWB doesn't want to fix anything when it's added. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 14:57, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
Right, it does. Thank you. However, as I see it this is a workaround solution (just like adding two blank lines was). I am starting to think that I should probably bring up this space issue with the people working on the templates itself (i.e. {{Gasolin'}} et.al.). – IbLeo (talk) 07:02, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

how to set up external processing?

I've been looking into the external processing feature in AWB but can't get it working. Can anybody suggest the right settings to use say MS Word or even notepad (I'll update the user manual if they work)? I either get unhandled exceptions or can open notepad without passing in the article text. Thanks Rjwilmsi 23:46, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Im not really sure that notepad/MS Word are the most appropriate for the external processing... Certainly wasnt designed for that. You may be able to get notepad to work, by outputting to a text file, and then telling notepad where the file is.. But that doesnt mean it cant..
Yeah, just done it. On vista by default there wasnt enough rights to write to c:\windows.. So, copied notepad.exe to D:\, selected it in the external processing. In the arguments/parameters, enter %%file%%, and select a file name at the bottom (test.txt). Then process the article. Notepad will pop up, and show the article text, when you close it, AWB will load it back in and then carry on with normal processing. Hope this helps —Reedy 10:50, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

User:Pseudomonas/AWBPerlWrapperPlugin - Need to improve the code based on that. —Reedy 10:59, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

AWB Linux (and other open source OSes) bug

Sure, its nice that "Wine bug on AWB has been filed". But I would rather fill an "AWB Linux bug" - as an official request to make AWB work on open source operating systems. I am not really sure it would be kindly accepted into AWB bug list though. --Kozuch (talk) 15:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Steve and Myself tend to use windows as our primary operating systems, and im pretty sure Max does also. I do use Debian and such on regular basis.
With the Wine and Mono bugs, that is all that is really stopping AWB working on anything that != Windows. However, for v5 of AWB, MaxSem is working on getting AWB to edit via the bot api (also waiting on this becoming more mature and fully in a MW quarterly release). Its not a bug, as AWB is designed and developed on windows... If we could spend say a couple of hours and have it work fine cross platform, im sure the time would be spent, so until Wine/Mono are in a fully usable state (ie everything AWB needs to operate, was waiting on the web control stuff), its not really going to happen. If when that has come, there are "bugs" in AWB that only exist on !Windows, such as features that would never work, we would be able to add checks into AWB to disable them in linux and such. —Reedy 17:55, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
That's the polite answer. The less diplomatic but rather more to the point answer, as given by User:Bluemoose ever since he first created AWB, is that we are Windows programmers and AWB is a Windows program. It not working in other OSs is not a bug but a feature, and yours is I'm afraid a "frequently asked question". Now, all that said, if a mono expert wishes to join the team and help make AWB portable to other OSs I for one would welcome him or her with open arms. Otherwise, don't hold your breath. I'd love to devote the time it would take but right now I don't have the time to learn mono and don't consider it a high priority. I'm pretty sure the other devs are in the same boat. --kingboyk (talk) 14:57, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
Sure guys I understand your reasoning, but this is rather an ideological issue to me (and I hope to others too). Wikipedia with all its freedom should be just against all this Windows lock-in. I dont say AWB is bad because of this, I just think it is (very) limited.--Kozuch (talk) 18:57, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

"False — Adds page to a list of false positives, in a file called False positives.txt

I notice that the user manual has the following:

  • False — Adds page to a list of false positives, in a file called "False positives.txt"

I can't see it on the interface. Where is it? Lightmouse (talk) 11:32, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Options --> "Enable button to log false positives". That enables it. —Reedy 11:38, 15 June 2008 (UTC)
I hope that won't cause locked file conflicts if multiple copies of AWB are running Sam? --kingboyk (talk) 14:58, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Aha. Thanks. Lightmouse (talk) 11:51, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Public domain help page

Over at mediawiki.org there is a public domain Help: namespace for exporting to other wikis. I was thinking that an overview help page about AWB would be a nice little bit of promotion (Help:AutoWikiBrowser?). Thoughts? --kingboyk (talk) 14:59, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd pitch in anyway I could. Sounds like a good idea to me. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 19:02, 16 June 2008 (UTC)
Cool. Good idea steve, with AWB working fine with custom wiki's (ie up to date ones), its probably a good idea. Your AWB usage stats give a good idea of the current widespread usage of the software. —Reedy 19:05, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

identify orphaned talk pages?

AutoWikiBrowser has encountered a problem and needs to close.

FYI, I extracted AutoWikiBrowser4320.zip to a network drive and tried to run it there. I get "AutoWikiBrowser has encountered a problem and needs to close." When I moved the app to my C: drive, the problem goes away. I just thought you might want to know. – Quadell (talk) (random) 19:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Its probably permissions on the network drive relating to executables. —Reedy 20:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Not in this case. Other exes run fine. – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:02, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Does it fork from a local drive? Details of error message? MaxSem(Han shot first!) 12:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
My "My Documents" is set to a share on a network drive. It says "AutoWikiBrowser has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience... Please tell Microsoft about this problem..." and yadda yadda. The error signature is
EventType : clr20r3     P1 : autowikibrowser.exe     P2 : 4.3.2.0     
P3 : 483150ad     P4 : mscorlib     P5 : 2.0.0.0     P6 : 471ebc5b     P7 : 37d0
P8 : b     P9 : system.security.security
I could send you the full dump, but it's pretty long. – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:59, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

" P8 : b P9 : system.security.security " - Some security issue. AWB does request some more elevated permissions from the PC that other applications might not. Just because others work, doesnt mean AWB would. Presumably, the network service/similar is denying the requests straight off. Might be worth either paste bining the logs, or put them on a subpage somewhere 15:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Talk Page Tagging

How do I tag all the talk pages of a set of articles, e.g. all the articles of municipalities in a district of Germany. OOODDD (talk) 02:47, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Make the list (of article pages) from the category, and then go to the "list" drop-down menu at the top and click "Convert to talk pages". Your list will be all the talk pages. Then put your tag in the append/prepend section. Got that? – Quadell (talk) (random) 12:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
Then what? OOODDD (talk) 03:31, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm trying to understand your question. Have you used AWB before? Are you asking how to use the app at all, and this is how you want to do it? Or are you experienced with AWB, but unsure how to do this specific task? – Quadell (talk) (random) 11:54, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Find and replace feature

I don't know if this is currently possible with AWB. But im trying to work out a way to remove "Mark Prindle reviews" from several articles as per [[35]]

The difficult part is that the line that needs to be removed looks like this "* [[Mark Prindle]] (6/10) [http://www.markprindle.com/can.htm#out link]" The link on every article is different so it makes things difficult.

I can find and replace the first part, so the easist soloution to this, is if we could get AWB to replace the whole line. So i set it to find *[[Mark Prindle]] (6/10) and set it to delete the whole line. Is this possible?? and if so how can i do it???

The other option that ive been trying to work out is to use regular expressions, but because the link is in the middle of the line, its hard to do. So the first idea is alot easier if it can be done.

Cheers Printer222 (talk) 13:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you have to use regular expressions. If you have it search for
.*\* *\[\[Mark Prindle\]\] \(6/10\).*

...and replace it with nothing. That make sense? – Quadell (talk) (random) 14:30, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Works perfectly! Thanks for that, now im going to sit down and try and work out how it works. Gives me somthing to do. Thanks heaps!! Printer222 (talk) 14:43, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Custom module question

Would it be possible to modify the following, so that text is inserted right after a WikiProject banner? 

        public string ProcessArticle(string ArticleText, string ArticleTitle, int wikiNamespace, out string Summary, out bool Skip)
        {
            Skip = false;
            Summary = "";

            Match m = Regex.Match(ArticleText, @"\[\[[Cc]ategory:");

            if (m.Success) ArticleText = ArticleText.Insert(m.Index, "foo\r\n");
            else ArticleText += "\r\nfoo";

            return ArticleText;
        }

Thanks! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 15:17, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

It would, but, how would you cater for any/all templates, you cant just look for the {{}} as it might not be a wikiproject banner. —Reedy 15:24, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, should have specified, it's {{WikiProject Cricket}}. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 15:41, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
User:Kingbotk/Plugin. MaxSem(Han shot first!) 15:42, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure that puts the template at the top. I want to place {{reqphoto|sportspeople}} right underneath {{WikiProject Cricket}}. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 15:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
public string ProcessArticle(string ArticleText, string ArticleTitle, int wikiNamespace, out string Summary, out bool Skip)

        {
            Skip = false;
            Summary = "";
            string Tag = "FOO";
 
            Match b = Regex.Match(ArticleText, @"\{\{WikiProjectBanners(.*?)?\}\}", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Singleline);

            if (b.Success) {
            ArticleText = Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"(\{\{WikiProjectBanners(.*?)\}\}(\r\n)?\}\})", "$1 \r\n" + Tag, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Singleline);
            return ArticleText;
                           }
            
            ArticleText = Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"(\{\{WikiProject Cricket(.*?)?\}\})", "$1 \r\n" + Tag, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase | RegexOptions.Singleline);

            return ArticleText;
        }


This seems to work well, and it is (hopefully!) WikiProjectBanner compliant as well. Replace FOO with whatever you want to add to the articles. Hope it is of some use! RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 16:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much! §hep • ¡Talk to me! 16:38, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
No problem, if there are any bugs that you can't seem to squish, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do. Perhaps a generic version of this should be added to the custom modules page... RichardΩ612 Ɣ ɸ 16:40, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
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