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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Preost (talk | contribs) at 00:16, 17 August 2006 (updating/subst sig Ⓣ). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Frequently asked questions

  • When I start it up I get error "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application."
    This error means your computer does not have the .NET framework version 2 installed properly. Download
  • Will it ever work on linux?
    Probably not.
  • Does AWB work on other projects/languages?
    Many WikiMedia projects and languages are supported, see the "Select language and project" option in the file menu. Other languages will be added on request, though at the moment the interface is always in English.
  • I don't like or use Internet Explorer, please use FireFox instead.
    AWB does not use Internet Explorer, it does however happen to use the same web browser control that Internet Explorer does, the equivalent FireFox component does not provide the needed functionality.
  • How do I open the page in another browser if I can't use the one in AWB?
    Right click on the edit box in the bottom right side of your screen. Select "Open page in browser"
  • How do I edit a page that doesn't exist?
    Uncheck "Ignore non existing pages" in the "General" menu
  • How do I skip certain articles?
    Use the "Skip if contains" and "Skip if doesn't contain" in the "(2) Set options" tab
  • Can't you leave up a "stable" version, so I don't have to download new versions?
    It is important to keep people up to date with the latest versions, because their use of the software doesnt just affect them, but the whole of wikipedia. Having said that, I haven't made many critical bug fixes recently (though there have been enourmous changes), but then I do normally leave one or two old versions enabled, so each version noramlly lasts for a week or so at least. Of course as the software gets better, the versions can last for longer. Martin 09:01, 20 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

%%key%% in Add New Category

I noticed this feature in the latest version and wanted to comment on it. I edit primarily ship articles, and a feature like this would be extremely useful for me. Is there a way to configure it to do things other than reversing names? If it's not configurable I'd like to suggest that in future versions, it recognize and format common ship article names.

For example, HMS Quadrant (G11) should be categorized as |Quadrant (G11) and USS Enterprise (CVN-65) should be categorized as |Enterprise (CVN-65). For countries other than the US and UK, ship articles generally have titles like this: French battleship Dunkerque. In those cases, they should be categorized as |Dunkerque, French battleship or simply |Dunkerque.

I imagine the latter would be harder to implement, but if a future version of AWB could format HMS and USS in categories, that would be very helpful! TomTheHand 14:45, 17 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rules of use

I find myself notifying around a user per week to not use AWB for trivial things. I would suggest that one should make the text at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser#Rules of use a bit more specific when refering to trivial edits. How about:

*Avoid making insignificant minor edits such as only adding or removing some white space, moving a stub tag, converting HTML to Unicode, removing underscores from links (unless they are bad links), or something equally trivial.

(I put my additions in blue for clarity). Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 02:58, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think it should be displayed every time you start AWB =P --mboverload@ 03:04, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I tried to modify it a while ago. I would like new users to have to make a statement that they agree not to use AWB to just move stub tags. A popup at the start would be great too. It's just retarded, and it's pushing people's edit counts into the 10,000's. Alphachimp talk 03:56, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I can't explain how annoying this is for me, I work so hard to make the software, then a small number of people just use it for such stupid things. I don't think putting lots of examples of things not to do is a good idea, as it makes it seem like everything else is ok (plus, sometimes just converting html to unicode is ok, when there is a lot of it). When I have warned people not to use it for trivial edits most of them do just change thier behaviour, and on the 2 occasions they haven't I have simply removed their name from the list of users. I was considering a zero tolerance approach, but I thought that might be a bit too tough. Martin 09:34, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I was thinking about raising the standard in experience needed to be put on the enabled user list from 500 to 1000 edits. Martin 09:57, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not so sure about the 500-->1000 approach, but I agree something must be done. I think education is the key. I think these users signed up for AWB...and they're not sure what to do with it. I have been thinking of setting up some place, like a job fair, for work that needs AWB. Any user can go there and post their job. An AWB user can select a job, put in Accepted and work at it. I'm not sure how popular this would be, but I like the idea =P. Perhaps then we can implement the 1000 edit thing. Wikipedia needs AWB, and we need to make it easy for people to get work done with it, even if they're not the ones behind the controls. --mboverload@ 10:16, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think that this would be a bit too cumbersone. Decentralization, that is the way things are now, is a good thing.
Having received no objections, I added that blurb in blue to the instructions. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'd agree that decentralization is cumbersome, but you've got to realize that people are using AWB like a bot. Like "oooo, let's increase my edit count by moving whitespace on all of Wikipedia." Let's increase the requirement for AWB to 1000 edits, and make them state one (just one) legitimate use they plan (that'd force them to read about AWB, which would force them to read about whitespace moves).
As a side comment, unicoding can actually be very good, particularly in foreign articles. Essjay has approved a couple of AWB assisted bots just for that purpose. Some of the articles were really disastrous to edit. Anyway, those are my $.02. Alphachimp talk 16:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, unicodyfing should be done by bots, wherever necessary, not by people doing three edits per second. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 16:35, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Right. And bots have to go through an approval process. It's not that hard, but it forces them to demonstrate that they're going to be using it for something meaningful. Alphachimp talk 16:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think a list tasks needing AWB help is a good idea, I often think of things I need to do but don't have the time, Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Projects would be a great place to list jobs needing help, I will certainly add a few things there over the next days/weeks. Also I made this edit, which will hopefully clarify a few things. Martin 19:07, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

unhandled exception problem in IRC watcher

I apologize if this has been reported before but clicking on the import watchlist on the IRC watcher app causes an unhandled exception (albeit one that can be ignored) and does not do anything else. Error message only happens when not logged in using IE but a better way for it to be handled would be with a standard error box saying pleae login. The error message is copied below. Pegasus1138Talk | Contribs | Email ---- 21:55, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Error message. Select show to expand.
Ok, thanks for the report. Martin 08:25, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feature Request

Can we get an option to make find/replace skip wikilinks? It's sort of messing up with people who have unconventionally spelled last names. Alphachimp talk 02:01, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually that was my bad - I removed Grammer before but when I got to adding the "g" section I forgot to remove it again. It's supposed to be 100% accurate, so it shouldn't fix people's names. --mboverload@ 02:05, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
But still, we should not be replacing any wiki-links. (Unless they are red, I guess). Alphachimp talk 02:11, 25 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Memory leak

I know that memory leaks have been raised before, but just thought I should mention that they are still there.

I am in the process of doing a big AWB run to tweak the succession boxes on Category:British MPs, and started watching task-manager as it skipped or ignored lots of pages (it's changing less than one in ten). It's rather alarming watching AWB's memory usage increasing by over 1MB per article; there are still 2700 articles left in its list, so I'll have to restart it several times before it's finished :(

I guess it may be no harm to put a brake on huge AWB runs like this one, but it'd still be nice if the leak could be controlled a bit! --BrownHairedGirl 16:26, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Its not a leak, the IE control is seems to cache all the pages it has visited, and as far as I can see there is no way of controlling it. That said, I have made runs of thousands of edits and memory usage never went above 150 MBs, so I don't exactly know how it is working. Martin 16:43, 28 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks Martin. I monitored it for the rest of the run, and what seemed to happen was that it went up to 650MB mem usage, then purged some of its cache or whatever and settled back to about 500MB. When it reached 650 again, it purged again, and so on. Still horrendously greedy, but at least it wasn't growing forever! (I have 1GB of RAM on this PC, so the cacheing thresholds/limits may be related to available memory). --BrownHairedGirl 20:39, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've had this huge memory consumtion problem before too (>256MB within 2000 pages), would it be feasible to have a routine run to clear this somehow every 500 edits or so? (An automated pause, flush, resume?) נxaosflux Talk 23:19, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The difficulty is that the IE control doesn't seem to have any way to flush it. Martin 23:23, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AWB Desks

After googling some bad spellings from WP:RETF using google wikipedia in AWB, i did some edits to some user pages. The user then asked if i could do this for them on all their userpages.

It made me think that an User:Reedy Boy/AWB Desk would be useful - People can request tasks/scans on Articles, categories and similar. If people who are interested in doing this create a desk, can we list it on the AWB Page?

Cheers

Reedy Boy 09:54, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually this has already been suggested and I have already written part of the page, want me to implement it once I'm done? --mboverload@ 09:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I would :D Reedy Boy 10:02, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I'm going to sleep. Feel free to throw one up at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Jobdesk or whatever name you come up with. I'll add on my stuff later. --mboverload@ 10:19, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Going to use Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User Desks Reedy Boy 10:23, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Surely using a single shared desk would be a better idea? That way it would be much easier to see what's going on, and discuss various issues/problems to solve. It would also be easier to find for someone who wants some help with something. Martin 10:27, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, i suppose it could/would be... This can always be renamed to account for this. Where does it want adding on the main AWB page? Reedy Boy 10:31, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps this idea should be integrated with Wikipedia:Bot requests? נxaosflux Talk 23:16, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a different perspective, but I feel I should express it. It is my strong opinion that nobody should ever modify my non-article posts in any way (asides from legal and matters of the general community), whether they be my userpage or my talk posts. If I spelled something some way in a post, that's probably the way I meant to say it. Please think first before running around and making spelling corrections to non-mainspace. A lot of people really don't appreciate it. (That's not to undervalue your contributions...just please be careful). alphaChimp laudare 21:39, 31 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Shortcut

Just wanted to point out that the shortcut keys aren't working for me unless the cursor is in the editable text box. —Mets501 (talk) 22:31, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Other lang's for IRCMonitor

How add other channels to IRCMonitor (e.g. other lang's)? --Swix 23:09, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Help with settings and regular expressions

I wonder if somebody could help with me settings and regular expressions? (Not necessarily Martin who no doubt is very busy working on this fine piece of software :))

I want to tag talk pages with WikiProject templates so that the articles will be listed in the unassessed categories for Wikipedia 1.0. An example run is on Category:Living people:

  • If the talk page has no {{BioWikiProject}} template, or is currently a redlink, add {{BioWikiProject|living=yes|class=|importance==}}
  • If the page contains {{BioWikiProject}} or {{BioWikiProject|.*}} but not "living=yes", add the "living=yes" parameter
  • If the page contains {{Blp}} remove that template, because {{BioWikiProject|living=yes}} is a replacement for it

The net result would be all Living People articles would have the {{Blp}} warning and would be in Category:Unassessed biography articles from where Mathbot can pick them up. This would be a great help to WikiProject Biography. Can anyone suggest some settings/regexps I could try? Thanks in advance. --kingboyk 19:19, 4 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the same was as RegExTypo Fix

find="{{Blp}}" replacewith="{{BioWikiProject|living=yes}}" /> find="{{BioWikiProject}}" replacewith="{{BioWikiProject|living=yes}}" /> find="{{BioWikiProject|.*}}" replacewith="{{BioWikiProject|living=yes}}" /> Reedy Boy 16:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Something along those lines might work, except the last step needs to filter out living=yes. Now the new version is out I'll run some tests. Cheers. --kingboyk 16:46, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Watchlist issues

I just noticed that articles that I use AWB on (doing a simple replace using "What links here"), the ones that are on my watchlist get removed if I edit them with AWB. Is this a recognized bug? Do I have a setting (I use default) listed on that I shouldn't? It's never happened before, but the last couple times it's removed like 20 to 30 articles all of which were ones that I had just edited with AWB ?? K1Bond007 03:42, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks for the report, will be fixed in soon to be released version. The reason for the recent run of bugs is that there have been some major internal changes, but these are mostly done now, so after the next release all should be good. Martin 10:06, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
ETA on next release? --kingboyk 10:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm a bit busy at the moment, probably release later today (~ 8 hours). Martin 10:58, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've released the new version now. Martin 16:02, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Excellente monsieur! Thank you. --kingboyk 16:40, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Filter: Duplicate Articles

Any possibility of getting AWB to filter duplicate articles in a checking list? As sometimes when you add more categories, it may end up with the same article multiple times

Cheers Reedy Boy 16:05, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Already reported multiple times. See above. alphaChimp laudare 16:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also, this appears to be fixed in the newest release. alphaChimp laudare 16:46, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Save List to a File - Is there a load list from File?

As Above

If not, could it be added?

Reedy Boy 16:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Make From --> Text File alphaChimp laudare 16:14, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ah! Thanks Reedy Boy 16:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of minor issues

When saving and then loading settings, the Messaging append/prepend option on the "more options" tab doesn't get set.

A really minor thing, and my personal preference may differ from others: could the bot timer count down rather than up?

Cheers. --kingboyk 21:15, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed loading/saving thing in 3.0.1.9 Martin 21:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Transformed

This thing keeps labeling Transformed as misspelled, when it isn't. What's with that?--KojiDude (talk) 00:13, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's complicated, I remember there's a reason why I had 3 different variables, but I can't remember at the moment. Luckily this doesn't do any damage, it's just useless =D
<Typo find="\b(T|t)ra(nf|nsf)or(m|med|ming)\b" replace="$1ransfor$3" />
It'll be fixed in the next release. --mboverload@ 00:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've fixed this in 3.0.1.9 Martin 21:00, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling

I just noticed someone using AWB to replace a British spelling with an American one. Is this normal? Ardric47 20:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As per the wikipedia policies, no it shouldn't. Please provide the evidence, or the word change. Thanks Reedy Boy 20:24, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, this was my problem! I thought I knew everything about spelling, but it turns out that "humourous" is considered obsolete. To quote the OED: "The English formations, humoured, humourless, humoursome, are here spelt like the n. and vb.; but the derivatives formed on a Latin type, as humoral, humorist, humorous, are spelt humor-..." Ardric47 20:57, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I noticed one of those edits too, and came to the same (second) conclusion. :) --kingboyk 21:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Alphabetize category list?

Is this possible or requestable? --Kunzite 02:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is an option to alphabetise the list in the list context menu. Martin 09:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I know about that. I want to alphabetize the list of categories inside an article. --Kunzite 12:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
oh right, that is of course possible, but lots of people don't like categories being alphabetised, so I can't really implement it. Martin 12:40, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It's a shame, really. I liked that. --Kbdank71 17:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Could it be done as an optional setting? And alphabetization is helpful in other instances with lists within articles. Perhaps if there was a feature to alphabetize a selected section? I will often copy a section, paste it into Excel and sort the list. I added a lot of categories to articles this weekend (clearing some backlog from Category:Manga) and I noticed that someone went behind me and re-alphabetized all of the lists. I felt a little guilty for making him do all of that work. Thanks the program though, it makes re-categorization a bit easier. --Kunzite 13:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Keeps telling me to login

Even though I am logged in using IE6, it keeps telling me to login. I do login succesfully again, and it counts down and asks again. I've ensured the .NetFramework is up to date, I did a repair on it, still no luck. --Brat32 05:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Making lists from categories

Another feature request please Martin: ought to be extremely simple to implement and save a lot of clicking: the ability to select multiple categories in the article list and have the "add selected to list from category" menu item available. Category:Dead people has literally thousands of subcategories and adding their contents to the list manually one at a time is going to give me RSI! --kingboyk 17:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

If my eyes do not deceive me, the new version has this feature? Now to get it downloaded and see, but if it has you are truly a saint! --kingboyk 11:55, 6 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, indeed, absolutely tremendous, thanks mate. There's one slight issue (probably more of a design feature than a bug) - when selecting multiple categories and then running "Add selected to list from category" the operation gets aborted if one of the selected categories is empty. It would be helpful if AWB could distinguish between an empty category and an unpopulated category, and simply ignore the latter. It's not really an error and it's a bit annoying having to cancel the make list operation and deselect the offending category, then run the operation again. Thanks. --kingboyk 12:12, 7 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Non-English characters in text files

When I use AWB on the Spanish wikipedia, and have articles like Jaroslav Hašek and José Antonio Pascual in the text file, they don't import properly when I try to create the list. Instead, I get Jaroslav Haek and Jos Antonio Pascual, which obviously don't work. Is this a known bug, and can it be fixed? --Spangineeres (háblame) 01:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did you edit the text file with another program? That is the only known reason for this to happen. Martin 08:33, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm pretty sure all I did was copy/paste the text from CatScan into notepad, delete the irrelevant content, and save the file. Is that acceptable? --Spangineeres (háblame) 17:19, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

SVN access

It would totally rock if you had a /build directory in the subversion repo. Extra bonus goodie points if you had an svn:external pointing to Typos.xml . ;) I just hate having the svn capability at my fingertips, but still need to pull up sf.net to download new versions of AWB... the source is useless to me unfortunately. Thanx, keep it up! — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 03:05, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I have decided to put the typos on a wiki page, which will be loaded up when that option is enabled, see Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos, so svn access is not needed for that any more. Also, I would not recommend using the dev versions to actually edit with, so it is probably best to get the release version off sorceforge anyway. Martin 08:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Any chance of non-dev builds then? A release branch/tag? It it such a PITA to go thru the 3 or so pages to get the latest every time I want to use it, doubly so when when it's a new release so I have to track down which mirrors actually have the file. :( — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 11:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure I understand, why can't you just download the release package? If you want to fiddle with the code then it's probably best to just checkout the whole lot. I used to tag the release versions with CVS, but SVN doesn't seem to do it in the same way, and I haven't had the time to work it out yet. Martin 12:08, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Don't worry about it. I'm just being lazy. ;) But what I meant is, this is the current process I need to follow: 1. Open web browser and type into my address bar w WP:AWB 2. Click download TOC 3. Click download link 4. Click green "download button" 5. Click actual ZIP file. 6. Try another mirror when it's a really new version and the mirror chosen don't work. If it were in the svn repository, it is 1. Open folder with AWB in it 2. Right-click and choose "SVN Update". — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 13:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feature Suggestion: Retain Auto Mode Settings

The title says it all. I'd like it if my bot timing settings were retained when I reloaded the settings file. alphaChimp laudare 05:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've added this now. Martin 12:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

For the edit summary 'stub sorting', I think it should link to WP:WSS since most of the other edit summaries link to a WikiProject. ~ Amalas rawr =^_^= 14:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ok, i'll add the link. Martin 14:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Stupid? question

OK, maybe I'm just being dense, but can someone tell me how to copy text from the "diff"/"preview" pane? If this is not currently available, is it something that can be added? --Brian G (Talk) 14:51, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You can't…this is deliberate, the only thing that can affect that pane is AWB itself. If it were possible to lock it down completely to avoid random clicks and stuff, that would likely be even better. What text do you want to copy that is not available from the edit box? —Phil | Talk 15:15, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes, it would be convenient to copy text from the "current revision" side that has been changed by automated processing and isn't in the edit box any longer. Example: I saw a typo fix suggested and it looked like the word that was going to be replaced might be correct in British vs. American, so I was going to copy it and paste it into a dictionary to check. (Of course, I was wrong anyway.) The other thing is just me being lazy, if I want to copy the name of the article to paste into my regular (non-AWB) session, it is just tempting to grab it from the top of the preview, but yes, I could get that another way. --Brian G (Talk) 15:27, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I wish, if it weren't likely nearly impossible, to have the changes easier to find in the little edit box. Sometimes it will change 5 things in the article, but I want to hand-revert one and then have to go searching for it. It can be a real pain on some pages... — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 16:44, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Martin: Is there a way to put a transparent layer over the browser, and they put a tooltip there explaining not to touch it? --mboverload@ 13:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The webbrowser is locked most of the time, so clicking on links in it doesnt do anything anyway. Martin 13:15, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, but when you rollover the links they change, and when you click a button they change. That implies you can use them. mboverload is anal. =D --mboverload@ 13:18, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Also it is possible to "shift-click" the links to fire up a new browser window…which has the unfortunate side-effect of allowing the greedy IEControl to grab the focus, about which I have been whinging unreasonably at Martin . HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 12:44, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
You'll be pleased with the next version then, hopefully. Martin 14:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I've been pleased with every version so far…professional software-whinging dies hard . HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 19:27, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is a way to make it so if you try to highlight something it doesn't. using: 

document.write('<body onselectstart="return false" ondragstart="return false"');

(you have to put that after any other document.write's that write to the <head>. GeorgeMoney (talk) 16:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Couple of little UI tweaks

Please could we have:

  1. a "Start" button on the tool-bar to allow restarting after one of those strange stalling incidents
  2. a notification of the number of items remaining in the list on the status bar at the bottom
  3. a copy of the timer on the status bar (or simply move it there)
  4. Also, could we have "access keys" for the "Preview" and "Show Changes" actions, please?

I spend a lot of time with the panel hidden, chugging through long lists of articles, and it would be great if I could have these available without having to reveal the panel. TIA HAND —Phil | Talk 15:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

As of this post the dev version has #2 implemented in the toolbar, is that what you meant? --mboverload@ 13:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Its not exactly what he meant, but I have lots of other things to consider when implementing these things. Martin 13:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bug when recovering settings file

AWB fails to recover certain items from a settings file properly. If you set up an advanced replacement with a single space in the "with" field, the space gets saved but is not loaded: 

        <rule name="underscore fix" type="0" enabled="True">
          <regex />
          <replace>_+</replace>
          <with> </with>
        </rule>

For some reason this appears to inactivate the replacement, so instead of replacing the "from" text with nothing, it is just ignored.

Oh, and before anybody says, replacing it with &32; is notacceptable in this context (templates and links). HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 12:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hhhhmmm, I'm not sure where this problem is coming from, as this is the only part of the program that I didnt make, I'll look into it some more. Martin 13:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hacker info: .Net Framework object System.Xml.XmlTextReader in Rule.ReadFromXml() has WhitespaceHandling set to WhitespaceHandling.None, XmlTextReader.ReadElementContentAsString() thus ignores the space. XmlTextReader must be set to WhitespaceHandling.All. I'm currently looking into how that's best done. It can be fixed locally by doing something like:
          WhitespaceHandling saved_wh = rd.WhitespaceHandling;
          rd.WhitespaceHandling = WhitespaceHandling.All;
          r.with_ = rd.ReadElementContentAsString();
          rd.WhitespaceHandling = saved_wh;
But that's not the best solution. Martin: I can provide an SVN patch for AWB if you want to wait (in case you haven't fixed it already :). --Ligulem 14:02, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
A patch would be great, I assumed it was to do with the whitespace handling, but I couldn't see where exactly, thanks. Martin 16:10, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Done [1]. Cool, my first official patch on sourceforge! Oh wait, now we are going to patch MediaWiki :)... (just kidding) --Ligulem 19:13, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Martin 19:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bug report and feature mod request

Firstly, this problem happens when I bring up the find and replace page – I don't know what the problem is (to do with the checkboxes not showing), and it could well be me and not the actual software – any idea how to fix it? Secondly, would it be possible to make an option to turn the auto-mode (bot mode) delay off completely? The best we can do at the moment is to change it to one second, which is a bit fiddly when it comes to setting it. Thanks. — FireFox (talk) 20:25, 9 August '06

Bunched-together problem has been fixed --mboverload@ 22:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I haven't changed the timer though. Martin 08:09, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, thanks. — FireFox (talk) 20:01, 10 August '06

Skin

I have made a skin that makes awb browsing easier. It is at User:GeorgeMoney/AWB.css. It removes a bunch of useless links and stuff (why have navigation links, etc.. if you can't click them? ). To use it put the following in your monobook.js (if IE isn't your default browser): 

var isIE=((self.navigator.appName).indexOf("Microsoft"));
if (!isIE) {
document.write('<style type="text/css">@import "/w/index.php?title=User:GeorgeMoney/AWB.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css";</style>');
document.write('<body onselectstart="return false" ondragstart="return false"');
}

.

I would like to make this skin a public AWB project to make developing it easier.

Also, there brings up the problem of people who actually use IE, because they will have the AWB skin as default. I think AWB should modify the info into something like "AutoWikiBrowser" and then for the code we can have "((self.navigator.appName).indexOf("AutoWikiBrowser"))" instead.

GeorgeMoney (talk) 23:31, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Awesome! Tnx! — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 00:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Doesn't work for me. --mboverload@ 07:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The reason it doesn't work for you is because you added it to your css file instead of js. GeorgeMoney (talk) 14:20, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thoughts?

What are anyone's thoughts on the matter of using a skin for awb and making it publically developable? Any thoughts are welcome. GeorgeMoney (talk) 00:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm liking it in both VP and AWB. — RevRagnarok Talk Contrib 01:11, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I see the point. We shouldn't get sidetracked. --mboverload@ 02:24, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I think the default monobook skin that is there is kind of "obtrusive" in AWB. There are so many things with useless stuff like links you can't even click. GeorgeMoney (talk) 03:00, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I also have a special css with AWB, however I use it with an own username (nl:Gebruiker:JePeAWB/monobook.css) so the css is only used when I'm working with AWB. JePe 12:23, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

"Avoid making insignificant minor edits"

Why? /Grillo 19:49, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wastes resources and clogs up watchlists. Martin 19:59, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I'll add that to the project page. /Grillo 23:05, 10 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

File --> User & Project Prefereances

On that preferences thing, you haven't put a close event on the close button

D

Cheers

Reedy Boy 19:38, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

3.0.2.1 - Sort Alphabetically doesn't work....

Any ideas?

Cheers

Reedy Boy 19:40, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, i made lots more big internal changes, these little things are really annoying. thanks. Martin 19:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, keep up the good work. I like the way its big internal changes, yet only a small version change on the version numbers Reedy Boy 20:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

On the other hand, when I create a list using the "Links on page" option, the list is presented sorted alphabetically even when I haven't asked for (and don't want) it to be sorted. --Russ Blau (talk) 00:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
They are presented in the order given by Query API. Martin 08:39, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Feh. Not your fault, of course, but the Query API doesn't give you any choice in how the list is ordered. I'll have to take it up with Yurik, I guess. Thanks for your labors! --Russ Blau (talk) 14:00, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
If you save the article into a text file, then open it up in AWB, the order of the links will be kept. Martin 14:18, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

shortcut keys

The new shortcut keys don't work if you loaded the page while you were in another window.

For example: My list of pages is a, b, c, d.

Page A loads fine, I use ctrl + s to save. I am still in the awb window.

Page B loads, ctrl + s.

I go to another window.

Page C loads while I am in another window, then it beeps, so I go to the awb window. ctrl + s doesn't work.

I am still in the awb window, and page D loads. ctrl + s works.


The end.


GeorgeMoney (talk) 23:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Other MediaWiki project request

Would it be possible to add OrthodoxWiki[2] into the next release?

Also, what is the possibility of the next release being modified so that it can be pointed at any MediaWiki project?

Thanks! —Preost talk contribs 03:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You might use m:MWiki-Browser (download), which is a stripped down version of AWB that has generic wiki support (enter the domain name of the wiki into the wiki field [3]). --Ligulem 08:59, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! Just what I needed. —Preost talk contribs 14:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
The reason it won't/can't be enabled for any mediawiki project is that to work properly you need to know some details about things such as namespace names etc. I suppose i could let the user enter all the details, but that isn't high on my priority list. Martin 09:25, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

weekly release?

Can AWB's new version be released weekly, rather than every few days? I find it annoying having to download new ones all the time, of course large bugs could nessitate daily releases.-Ravedave 17:36, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Noramlly versions are left enabled for at least a week, there was an exception recently due to some breaking changes in the format of the typo page. Martin 17:41, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bug - replacing with Uppercase

AWB tried to replace {{link FA|hu}} with {{Link FA|hu}} on Alaska, but it just added it underneath it. -Ravedave 17:44, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The LinkFA tag was duplicated, AWB removed one of them. Martin 18:00, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oops we are both wrong, the article had both, and AWB just put them next to eachother, I manually removed the duplicate. -Ravedave 18:34, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The 'beeping' sound

I found this useful, when it beeped to tell you the page was ready, and it seems to have gone? Can we have it back (or at least have the option to enable it if we want)? Thanks, — FireFox (talk) 18:07, 12 August '06

I didnt mean to disable that, it's an unfortunate consequence of the major internal changes I made, i'll add it back, with an option in the preferences menu for next release. Martin 18:26, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks. — FireFox (talk) 18:29, 12 August '06

Is this insignificant?

The rule says not to make insignificant minor edits, obviously. I plan on changing any links to Inuyasha to InuYasha. Is that insignificant? --Zeno McDohl (talk) 19:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inuyasha redirects to InuYasha. So, unless the redirect is going to be deleted, I would suggest to leave it. I read somewhere (I think on a page about popups fixing redirects) that it takes 10,000 clicks of a redirect link to be equevilant to the server load of fixing the redirect. If you are also doing other stuff like cleanup and retf then you can fix the redirect.
But, alone, it would be insignificant.
GeorgeMoney (talk) 20:03, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm well. I'm not fixing it because it's a redirect. I'm fixing it because Inuyasha is the wrong casing. If it's left that way on pages, new users may assume that's the correct casing and will continue to use that on edits they make. --Zeno McDohl (talk) 20:09, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In that case correcting a genuine error is not insignificant. Martin 20:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Fixing a redirect on a large scale is more of a bot job, and is a significant edit. alphaChimp laudare 13:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. So do you want to say that Zeno should make a request to get a bot license, only to change the links as he said? I would say no. Let's not be overly buerocratic here. If the link is misspelled, then he can fix it without a bot license. Like any AWB user here would do too. --Ligulem 13:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Nah, I'd do it for him if he wanted a bot (and my bot is an awb bot). alphaChimp laudare 14:01, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I think he can do it himself (if he wants), after all he asked nicely, which shows that he cares well. Such a task is also a good start to learn using AWB. What links here of Inuyasha shows less than 500 entries, so there is no need to bother a mister bot with cap in hand or jump through hoops at WP:BOTS ;). --Ligulem 15:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bug?

Is this me or in the latest version, the edit summary does not get saved in the settings??? -- Grafikm (AutoGRAF) 20:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Probably something that has been 'broken' during the upgrade of the internals. Thanks for reporting, Martin will let you know Reedy Boy 23:16, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Just tried it in 3.0.21a and its fine.... Reedy Boy 09:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

One more bug (editing window)

I'm using the new version (3.0.2.1) under XP and IE for search-and-replacement purposes, but the editing window in the lower right part of the screen has become impossible to use. The text size is gigantic, so I can't see more than a fraction of a single letter at the time. I've tried reinstalling with the same result. Regards. Valentinian (talk) 06:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

There is an option in the file=>preferences menu to set the text box font, or reseting the settings should put it back to normal, though i'm not sure why it changed. Martin 09:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks a lot. It had changed the font size to 975 for whatever reason. Thanks again. Valentinian (talk) 20:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Where can one get a more indepth guide to using AWB?

I'm still quite lost trying to use the thing.. — Prodigenous Zee - 10:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

My AOL Instant Messenger screenname is mboverloadALT. --mboverload@ 11:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

AWB generates a "page does not exist" error when trying to make a list from articles that link to a deleted article. See for example BJAODN: lots of pages link to that deleted page, it should be orphaned but AWB refuses to create a list from it. --Zoz (t) 18:01, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I'll change this. Martin 18:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Feature Request: Scheduled Bot Mode

I realize that this might be controversial. My AWB bot does some really basic functions that might be better achieved on a routine schedule. To be honest, it's getting a bit annoying to go through the routine series of clicks that I need in order to run my bot. That's not to say that I won't continue to run my bot, but I'd like some way to keep it running during a vacation or the like. Obviously, it could easily be blocked (or stopped via a talk page message) if it started acting up. Here's what I propose:

  • The ability to click the "Start the Process" button at a scheduled time on a daily basis.
  • The ability to create some sort of a macro to automate a series of routine clicks.

alphaChimp laudare 21:08, 13 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This would be ultra complex to add on as a whole new feature, adapting the software as needed probably wouldnt be too difficult, but at the moment i am aiming for a stable bug free release. Martin 09:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

File list context menu

Martin, would you be willing to add a "Open page in browser" option to the right-click context menu in the file list? It would be much appreciated, thank you. --kingboyk 10:16, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

ok, fixed in next release. Martin 09:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

disambig

I've been using AWB on the Polish Wiki [4] and it's been working like a charm with one minor annoyance, the "clean up" option moves the disambig template to the bottom of the page but on pl Wiki we like to keep it on the top of the page, is there any way to switch off/customise this options? Cheers, Яǿǿ72 ✉ 12:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problem creating list of dab pages

I think I am having trouble getting a complete list of {{disambig}}. I am trying to see which disambiguation pages are not in {{hndis}} with the thought of then going through and changing some of them from disambig to hndis where it is appropriate to do so. I tried to make a list from Category:Disambiguation and another list from Category:Lists of ambiguous human names. I saved them both and launched list comparer. I expected that there would be many names which were only in disambig and a smaller number that were in both lists, but none in hndis only, since the hndis template puts it in both. Oddly, almost 800 of them show up as being only in hndis. I checked some of them manually, and they show up in Category:Disambiguation, but are not being added to the list by AWB. Am I doing something wrong? I can give more details or examples if you want. Thanks, --Brian G (Talk) 21:08, 14 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

hhhmm, I can only imagine that the enourmous size of the disambig category is causing some problem somewhere along the line. Martin 09:16, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bugs

  1. Doesn't recognise piped categories ([[Category:Foo|Boo]] - or at least certain variations where the piped name starts with a #), and attempts to readrename the category.
  2. Shouldn't attempt to substitute the unicode encoding &#x7c back into | - if someone is using that code, it's probably to avoid a syntax clash.
  3. Incorrectly replaces underscores with spaces in in-page (anchor) links (ie, [[#link_on_this_page|link]] with [[#link on this page|link]] )

Other than that, it's good :) Stevage 08:32, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

  1. What do you mean, when re-categorising or adding a category? I see what you mean now, fixed in next release.
  2. It doesnt substitute that unicode.
    Here was the example page: ISO/IEC 8859-4. I was just adding categories with unicodifying switched on, and it changed [[pipe (computing)|& #x7c ;]] (two spaces inserted by me) into [[pipe (computing)||]]
    Ah, yes that's becuase it is in a link, I'l change that. Martin 13:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  3. That is not an incorrect replacement, it makes no difference at all.
Are you sure? When I checked it, the link with spaces instead of underscores didn't work. Stevage 13:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I am sure, this link and this link both work, first with then without underscores. Martin 13:37, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, cool, sorry to be a pain :) The link I originally saw this on must have been defective anyway. Stevage 14:40, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Martin 08:45, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling errors

It would be great if there were a page on which folks could list spelling mistakes that are frequently made, e.g. paticularly ... particularly so that AWB could regularly be used to start at the top of the list and hunt them down and change them. Of course it should only list DEFINITE errors, not humour/humor etc. The list would become ever longer and would have to be subdivided every so often (eventually by first letter I imagine). - Kittybrewster 11:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos Martin 12:13, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Weird bug?

This has happened quite a few times to me when I'm running my bot – for some reason, at random intervals it will stop editing and try to log in again, saying at the bottom "loading page to check if we are logged in..." etc etc. However, it refuses to log back in until AWB is restarted, which can be very annoying when it keeps happening. Any ideas? — FireFox (talk) 13:34, 15 August 2006

Had it actually become logged out? Martin 23:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
There's no way to tell. It would just load a blank screen and display the above message. — FireFox (talk) 10:27, 16 August 2006
I've had the same problem stated above with version 3.0.2.1a. In Internet Explorer after this problem occured it still was logged in. Harryboyles 11:54, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Won't run?

So I click "Start the process" and the entire program freezes. Happens every time. I'm using WinXP SP2. Any ideas what's going on? --Zeno McDohl (talk) 23:10, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Did you make a list of articles first? when it had frozen, did it shut down happily? Martin 23:38, 15 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, it had a list of articles. When it froze, no it didn't shut down happily, the program stopped responding. Had to kill the process. --Zeno McDohl (talk) 00:05, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Okay well it works on my laptop but not my main computer. If anyone could tell me how to fix it, that'd be great. Thanks. --Zeno McDohl (talk) 23:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Problem when replacing categories

Unless I'm mistaken, in the past when I asked AWB to replace cat A with cat B, and the article was already in both A and B, it would just remove the article from A. Now it seems to just do the replace, leaving two instances of cat B. Is this a change, or am I doing something wrong? --Kbdank71 15:36, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't changed this code for a while, possibly the problem is because the duplicate category is only removed when you have general fixes enabled. I'll have a look at it anyway. Martin 16:38, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bug: Font size in textbox

It seems that in the latest version the font size in the textbox on the lower right is so large that it's completely impossible to use the box to make any changes to the edits... --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 18:16, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I just noticed the bug has already been adressed above. Sorry. --Fritz Saalfeld (Talk) 18:17, 16 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
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