Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 4

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This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents 1 Some issues 2 New user, problem already 3 Quick Q 4 save if it contains 5 Not working 6 Regex problem 7 Long stubs 8 spaces 9 Line breaks after section headings 10 mdash replacement 11 handling of protected pages 12 Edit conflicts 13 Issue with notices 14 Feature requests 14.1 Namespace filtering 14.2 Line numbering 14.3 Auto-load settings 15 Loading user contribs on anonymous users does not work 16 Resizing windows 17 Erroneous "cleanup" of category comment 18 Watchlist bug 19 Mac OS X 20 suggested functionality addition 21 Script for Novels? 22 Minor bug 23 Unicodifying 24 problem with language link sorting 25 Petty thing for disambig fixes. 26 Context for "find" button 27 Bug in replacing the html markup 28 Typo.xml 29 500 edits rule 30 Other Wikis 31 Three more suggestions 32 Another idea 33 So... 34 Interesting coding 35 A new "general fix"? 36 General fixes 37 AWB skips non-existent pages? 38 Adding a tag to Talk pages 39 MS JIT debugging 40 template additions 41 Null Edits 42 Clarification of latest changes to Rules of Use 43 Why wait for WinFX before implementing the spell checker? 44 Non-English Wikipedias 45 Underscores in links 46 Wrong version 47 What's with all the paranoia? 48 Dashes 49 Edit Summary 50 New guideline proposal Wikipedia:Semi-bots 51 Bug - "Go to Line" 52 Strange RegEx Behavior in Version 2400 53 Feature request - images in categories 54 Buggery... 55 Manual Edit doesn't work 56 Opening IE 57 Minor Category Bug 58 You haven't updated your CVS Source for a while. 59 Adding category to template 60 Help me get it to work 61 Edit Summary Bug & Messy Diff page 62 Cannot open application

Some issues

Hi, I have a couple issues with the AWB. I know editors are supposed to be responsible for all their edits, but they often don’t check as carefully as they should, so maybe you could make tweaks to the engine to avoid some common problems?

First off, AWB tends to move {{LinkFA}} above the “other language” links. While that’s appropriate for most templates, the usage notes for {{LinkFA}} explicitly say it is to be inserted after the appropriate interlanguage link. Can you program AWB to ignore {{LinkFA}}?

That’s the big one. On a smaller, more personal level:
I’ve taken to inserting two commented out notices, <!--Categories--> and <!--Other languages-->, to help with organization. Sort of like invisible section headers. The AWB automatically moves them, completely defeating their purpose. Can you get it to either ignore or delete them? That is to say, I would love for it to ignore them, but I also don’t have a problem with it deleting them, since at the moment it’s something of a personal conceit and I’m sure there are users who dislike the idea. So, ignore or delete, either way, it’s just annoying to have them moved and thereby messed up.

Thanks in advance. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 20:30, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Concerning your second point, the comments, all AWB does is look for links of the form [[Category:...]] and [[xx:...]] where it has a predefined list of every language. It then alphabetizes (upon request) and puts them in the correct place, at the bottom. Since the commented sections do not meet these criteria, they are not moved by the AWB - rather, they are just left behind. It would be impossible to create a searcher that looks for all possible instances of such "header" comments and move them accordingly - all scripts would create lots of false positives. For example, on this page, it would move parts of your comment to the bottom thinking them headers. Hence, it is easiest just not to use such comments. Deleting, as said earlier, would also create too many false positives.

Going back to your first point, I just went to a random article on my watchlist, Mozilla Firefox. The very bottom is organized this way:

{{featured article}}

[[Category:...]]

{{Link FA|xx}}

[[xx:...]]

I don't know why that article does not follow the usage notes; my guess is that the usage notes and common practice are at odds with each other, so I don't know what to do. --M@thwiz2020 21:02, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It would be possible to match comments like <!--Categories--> and <!--Other languages--> sometimes, but not every variation on phrasing. I'll look into it. As for the placement of the LinkFAs, when I wrote that I must have read somewhere that the way AWB does it is the proper way, and I can't actually find an article that does it any other way, so to change what is common practice would probably not be wise. thanks Martin 21:09, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, at the moment I’m the only one who uses that, and there are no variations, just those two exact headings. Don’t worry about it too much, though, like I said, I’m( currently) the only on who uses it. I think it’s useful in terms of page composition and guiding new users, but while it would be quite nice to have it left alone by the AWB, it’s a pretty personal thing. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 21:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I see. It looked in the diffs like they were being moved up, rather than the language tags moved down, but I know diffs don’t quite reflect what was actually done. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 21:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I typed out some really long paragraph which, due to an edit conflict and me closing the window before noticing it, didn't get saved. Anyways, I said in brief that I've seen articles with lots of comments that break the categories into many sections, for example, <!--career categories--> and <!--religious categories--> on bios, and searching for <!--.*?[Cc]ategor(y|ies).*?--> would yield far too many false positives. --M@thwiz2020

Ah, I hadn’t seen those variations... -- WikidSmaht (talk) 21:49, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Where I've seen it I've replaced <!--Categories--> and <!--Other languages--> with <!--Categories and other languages-->. It would be possible for AWB to put these comments in, of course... Rich Farmbrough 21:57 22 March 2006 (UTC).

New user, problem already

I can’t log in. I click “Log in” and absolutely nothing happens. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 21:21, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

You have to make a list then click "Start the process", if you needed to log in you might have click "make list" or "Start the process" again. Martin 22:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I mean, nothing happens. The little green bar doesn’t move, the page doesn’t change, and I don’t get logged in. Clicking “make list” again just earns me the “not logged in” message again. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 22:31, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Make sure you are logged in properly in internet explorer then try again. Martin 22:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I’m definitely logged in in IE, since I’m using IE to make this edit. But AWB says I’m not logged in, and it won’t let me log in.( I can’t be sure, but it looks to me like the form isn’t submitting, as I said, nothing appears to happen when I click “Log in”.) -- WikidSmaht (talk) 23:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Do you usually use IE when editing Wikipedia? If not, try it directly and see if there any issues.

—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-03-21 06:39Z

I always use IE. No problems. Only the AWB is giving me trouble. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 15:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

OK, so, I was able to temporarily solve it by checking “remember me” while logging in in IE, but that’s not in the instructions, and it’s not something that’s viable for me to do all the time. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 15:43, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

• I have the same problem, and also have to click “remember me”, to get AWB working. I have IE7 beta 2 installed, I'm wondering if that maybe the problem? Anyway I don't really care that much since I use Firefox, most of the time.

Quick Q

I know that, on September 21, for example, the self-delinker will turn [[September 21]] into September 21, unlinked. What happened, then, in this edit? I know that a self-link and bolding give the same result, so the page doesn't look any different, but shouldn't it have removed the braces instead of the quotes? --M@thwiz2020 22:37, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

There is no code to remove bold syntax, I think it must have been a manual change or some custom regular expression. Martin 22:48, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I just made this edit with normal setings, which is correct, so the one you point out must have been some kind of custom setting. Martin 22:52, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

These 367 pages should have self links, at least on the first occurence it supports date preferences. Therefore I always (try to) do these pages with manual intervention, or General chanages turned off. I've been through the year twice checking and fixing manually, once last Sept, and once in the last few days, so I don't want to undo all that work! Rich Farmbrough 23:09 20 March 2006 (UTC).

Martin - While writing a regex for Rich, I noticed something: the %%title%% keyword works only for find-and-replace, not regular find. Can you please add the keyword to regular finds, too? Thanks. --M@thwiz2020 00:22, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Never mind - I just did it myself. It was actually quite simple - just a replace. --M@thwiz2020 00:41, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The keyword does work for simple and regex replacements. Martin 09:34, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

No, I meant the little "find" box on step three, not the "find-and-replace" box on step two. The keyword previously did not work in the find box until I updated the source code. See the diff between versions 1.88 and 1.87 of Main.cs. --M@thwiz2020 01:02, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

save if it contains

is it possible for you to add a feature under the first tab for 'skip if it contains...' that wouldn't stop on it but kept it on the list? maybe a 'save if it contains...'

the reason i ask is for a misspelling like 'occured', there are almost 400 articles listed. however, when reviewed only a minority actually contain the misspelling - people or another bot corrected them since google has chached it. thus most of the time i'm waiting for an article to actually pop up with the misspelling legitimately, and not correcting like i should be doing.

is it possible to do this? JoeSmack ^Talk 00:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Why do you want to keep it on the list? Rich Farmbrough 22:54 23 March 2006 (UTC).

Today I went though the misspelling 'offical'. There was a googled list of hundreds with AWB, but since google caches older versions of already corrected spellings (say i did this same check last week) most of it was bumpkis. I have a setting that will "skip if it doesn't contain 'offical'", which parses the list for me to correct (about an hour, depending). But if there was a "save if it contains 'offical'", then I could come back to the computer after it parses the list to have a real list to look at each spelling mistake, instead of having it mostly full of fodder. JoeSmack ^Talk 18:23, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

OIC. You could use a database dump, and parse it with perl or Martin's excellent tool. Rich Farmbrough 13:54 26 March 2006 (UTC).

I'm Having a related Problem where It doesn’t skip articles I tell it to skip. Such as if doesn't contain "music" so when I Change links to "Alternative" to links to "Alternative rock" So I don't get other types of Alternative but it doesn’t actually skip the articles I tell it to. I would like it to skip anything not containing "music OR album OR FM OR rock" and Possibly Skip if contains "Pop OR Metal" (other forms of Alternative music) and Do a separate run-through for each different Alternative Disambiguation. Could you please Explain how to use the Skip article function properly and also if their is a way to include OR statements or add more Skip Rules--E-Bod 17:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Actualy it does skip some (but not all) artiles. I just want to know if it suports Or satements.--E-Bod 17:34, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Not working

OK, so I’ve temporarily circumvented the login issue( still something I consider in need of fixing, or it should at least be added to the instructions). It still doesn’t seem to work for me. When I click “Start the process”, it loads the page, then it just seems to stop. It says it’s loading changes, but nothing happens. -- WikidSmaht (talk) 02:47, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

That is likely due to the servers mis-behaving, try clicking stop and then start again. On the first point, the problem appears to be that your computer doesnt stay logged in, I don't think that is an unreasonable expectation, if that is the problem there is no way it could be fixed in the software. Martin 09:40, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Regex problem

Having a \R in a regex cause the whole table to fail to load, with no warnings. Rich Farmbrough 23:05 22 March 2006 (UTC).

Seems fine to me, the problem must be more complex. Martin 23:12, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

OK I'll see if I've still got the offending XML, and if so let you have it. Rich Farmbrough 22:52 23 March 2006 (UTC).

Long stubs

The {{section-stub}} template needs to be excluded from the detection of "long articles with stub tags". It's not really a stub tag and it's natural for long articles to have them. BigBlueFish 18:04, 23 March 2006 (UTC)

spaces

Recently, I tried to use AWB to change WWI to World War I, for example. Unfortunately, the changes were made as 'World WarI' losing the space between War and I. I checked and the space existed in what I entered. Why should this happen with AWB? Thanks Hmains 04:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

It should not happen. Do you have a page link for an example of the problem you had? A diff link from history would be fine if you went ahead and manually added a space between "War" and "I".

—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-03-24 05:19Z

I couldnt reproduce a problem, It worked on this test, thanks. Martin 09:40, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Line breaks after section headings

I've seen a lot of AWB edits recently which remove line breaks after section headings, as part of the 'clean up'. These line breaks make no difference at all to the appearance of the article, and their removal makes it far more difficult to compare diffs. Could the AWB stop suggesting this change? To be clear, what I am talking about is changing

==Heading==

Text

to

==Heading==
Text

Worldtraveller 11:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Heck, I'll go farther, I'd like it not to take out line breaks at all in the case where it goes 1 -> 0. Often, (like here for instance) line breaks are used to enhance readability of the raw text and help editors a lot. ++Lar: t/c 12:43, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I TOTALLY agree!!! :-) I just made such a comment to someone, but haven't heard back yet. My question was, "Is this a policy or guideline, or just a personal preference?" In any event, I find this action very annoying (like overusing caps, bold, itallics, commas, exclamation points, and smileys >;-)!!! Maybe all those should be removed too. It also makes the text much harder to read when editing. Have a nice day. Rfrisbie^talk 14:31, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

No extra space is much more popular (based on analysis of the database) and is the standard used on featured articles. Martin 01:51, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think either of those things are relevant, actually, and I believe your second point is completely not true. It's a personal preference thing, and some people go one way, some the other. What's annoying is that removing the extra line is clearly bad, because it makes it far harder to compare diffs, and doesn't make any difference at all to the way the article displays. I don't think AWB should be used to foist one person's preference on all articles it's used on, particularly when these changes have negative side-effects and no real positive effects, and I would really strongly urge you to revise AWB so that it doesn't do this. Worldtraveller 15:11, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, I don't mind changing things to keep people happy, but I am busy for the next few days, so I probably can't change it too soon. Martin 17:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I would like this feature removed as well:

• It seems to contradict the advice given on the AutoWikiBrowser page under "Rules of use":

  Avoid making extremely minor edits such as adding or removing a single space or replacing an underscore in a template call with a space.

• It can cause history comparisons to show whole blocks of text as deleted and then re-inserted, which makes it difficult to check if any other change has been made to the text. This may not be relevant to the AWB edit, (if all it has done is house keeping), but it makes it difficult to check changes to a first paragraph with the automatic history diff either side of an AWB edit. (Thinks I: "diff" - how silly, I am using a UNIX term when trying to persuade a windows programmer of the merits of a RFC!).
• Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)#Spaces which sums up my view on this and I think for many editors as well:

  Spaces above and below headings are completely optional. Spaces between the == and the heading text are also optional (==Heading== vs == Heading ==). According to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, these extra spaces will not affect the appearance of the heading in any way; the rendered page is identical. Multiple blank lines will add white space, however.

  It is much like the issue of whether to use one or two spaces after a full stop. It only affects the appearance of the text in the edit box, so use whichever approach best facilitates editing for you.

  Note that the Start a new discussion tab on a Talk: page (the "+" link) inserts a blank line before and after the heading, and spaces in between the == and the heading text. Some editors find this easier to read in the wikitext source code.

--Philip Baird Shearer 07:59, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

The issue has, as indicated, been resolved. Martin 08:35, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Would you please elaborate on what the resolution is? I don't use AWB but I just ran into the same thing, i.e., an editor using AWB deleting all the spaces after headings. This renders huge chunks of text in red, so it took me a fair amount of time to compare the versions to see what else had been changed. Given that the MoS authorizes both styles, it seems counterproductive for AWB to facilitate such edits. (I'm one of those who prefer a space after the heading because, to my eye, it makes the editing easier.) JamesMLane t c 21:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

mdash replacement

I know that you (Martin) are busy for the next few days, but can you look at this edit when you get a chance? The mdash-replacement script seems to not be working. I don't believe it was a user-specified regex, because it seems like the user was simply redirecting General Motors to General Motors Corporation. --M@thwiz2020 22:03, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

I think the user must have done that themselves, as it doesnt do that for me in a copy of that article in my sandbox. Martin 22:18, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Martin's right — it was my doing. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa... ;-) ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 22:22, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

handling of protected pages

Running AWB with a bot account AWB is not handling protected pages correctly, it gives an error when trying to load the code (as it should since the code is displayed differently on protected pages) but it keeps trying to reload the page after the restart delay so it infinite loops. For a solution for this I'd suggest giving it a limited number of retries when it cannot contact a page then automatically ignoring it or even better make that a user definable value such as if page cannot be found retry x times before ignoring. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 06:52, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll make it so it ignores protected pages (if it can't edi them) in the next release. Martin 16:21, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Edit conflicts

This seems pretty serious... AWB doesn't identify the article revision that it's editing, so what would usually result in an edit conflict results in an effective reversion of any edits made after AWB loaded the edit page. This really ought to be addressed, and if possible enable some way of handling the resulting conflict. Related to that, it would be nice if edits that fail due to loss of session data could be detected and resent. BigBlueFish 12:13, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

AWB reacts to edit conflicts in exactly the same way as a normal browser, in other words, it is up to the mediawiki software to sort it out. At present, if there is a conflict, AWB will just ignore it and move on, there is no code to revert any changes, or indeed to try and save it again. Martin 13:01, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

That's not what happened when I tested it at Wikipedia:Sandbox. I loaded the page up in AWB, then added a line of text with Firefox. Then I added a different line to the loaded content in AWB and saved it; the save went ahead fine, losing what I added with AWB. The MediaWiki software didn't flag up an edit conflict, but that's presumably the fault of AWB. If it was working properly like a regular browser using the interface an edit conflict WOULD have been flagged. And it would still be nice (and fairly simple I'd expect) to respond to any errors that are flagged up. BigBlueFish 15:49, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

AWB is essentially a normal browser, it is largely based on the internet explorer core. I just tested it in my own sandbox, it worked as it should, which is exactly how it works when you do the same thing with internet explorer. Martin 16:03, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I've made it so it will now notify you when there is an edit conflict and re-start, before it just moved on (available in next version). But note that the mediawiki software handles conflicts quite well, and appears to merge the edits if possible (if the edits were on different lines as far as I can tell). So editing an article at the same time as someone else does not always generate a conflict. Martin 19:25, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. I didn't realise MediaWiki was so smart about edit conflicts. What happened in the sandbox was that it saw that the edit conflict was with myself, so it assumed that I intended to override my first edit. Nice to hear AWB will pick up on it too. BigBlueFish 21:51, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I've had edit conflicts with myself before. I sometimes save, click stop in Firefox, change a word or two, and then click save again. The MediaWiki software will then notify me of the edit conflict with myself. --M@thwiz2020 22:46, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is what you would expect, as you have edited the same line twice. Martin 18:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I may well be wrong, but I think it's mainly to do with the version number of the page you save. Rich Farmbrough 00:29 28 March 2006 (UTC).

Issue with notices

I just noticed an issue with the {{inuse}} notice. Whenever it triggers it requires user intervention to continue which is perfectly harmless in most cases and when being actively monitored (as it should be most of the time) but when being used in bot mode and being only semi-monitored it causes problems since the bot then grinds to a halt so could you set the notice to time out after like a minute and if that happens automatically ignore the page, or an easier way might just be to ignore pages with the inuse template in general. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 07:00, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll improve this, thanks. Martin 18:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Feature requests

Whoever archives this talk page needs to make sure that recent and unfinished discussions don't get archived. A couple of feature requests I posted were archived before anyone had a chance to respond to them. Partly my fault for posting them in a previous feature requests heading but I thought I might as well keep discussion centralised. Here they are again. BigBlueFish 14:08, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Sorry about that. I didn't notice that there were new feature requests there, since the heading was almost three weeks old. I'll be more careful next time I archive this page. --M@thwiz2020 18:02, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Namespace filtering

I know you can filter out non main namespace articles from the list, but it would be nice if this could be extended to allow you to choose namespaces to filter out. When pruning links to disambig pages, you generally don't want to edit any talk pages, but still edit image, category, portal and project pages if there are any. BigBlueFish 18:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

This will hopefully get done at some point. Martin 18:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Line numbering

Sometimes AWB makes a mistake, such as when wikisyntax square brackets are mixed with contextual ones. It's easy to identify these from the diffs, but with long articles it can be tough finding where it is. Since the diffs state the line number, line numbering down the side of the edit box like an IDE or a "go to line..." button would greatly simplify this task. BigBlueFish 18:49, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there is an easy way to implement something like this. Martin 18:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Maybe not line numbering (although I'm sure there's an ActiveX textbox alternative somwhere that incorporates line numbering) but a "go to line number" would be easy. It's a simple chore finding the position of the nth line in the article in string terms, and then just a case of sending the cursor to that point, or maybe hilighting from that point to the next linebreak. BigBlueFish 20:49, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Alright, I'll see what I can do for the next version. Martin 22:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Find is your freind for this. Rich Farmbrough 00:37 28 March 2006 (UTC).

While you can use find instead, Martin has already implemented code for the line go-to feature. It will be available in the next version. --M@thwiz2020 01:32, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Auto-load settings

Sure would be nice if AWB could auto-load either a user-specified settings file or a default settings file (e.g. always load 'settings.xml') when the program loads. (If this has been suggested and tabled previously, I apologize.) ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 15:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Loading user contribs on anonymous users does not work

I have not been able to load user contributions for anonymous users as of yet. Signed-in users works reliably, though. Kelly Martin (talk) 16:36, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

It seems to work for me, which ip didnt work? thanks Martin 18:59, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Resizing windows

It would be fantastic to be able to resize the windows or hide the lower-left window (the one with task list ans settings) altogether. It's rarely used while actually running a task and a larger edit window would be very helpful.

Also, it would be helpful to have the most common unicode characters (²³–—°) available from a pulldown menu. Thanks! - Emt147 ^Burninate! 18:25, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Erroneous "cleanup" of category comment

Here's an example of an errorneous category "cleanup." A note was made at the bottom of the Education article in an attempt to keep people from adding the History of education category. When AWB came along, the category was added back anyway by User:Kelly Martin. Is this a "software" or "user" error? Rfrisbie^talk 04:04, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Old
- <!-- [[Category:History of education]] redundant -->

New
+ <!-- redundant -->
[[Category:History of education]]

Yeah AWB doesn't rely handle comments well, guess it's a combination of user and software error. AWB should not shuffle commented out categories around causing them to become un-commented, and the user should have checked the diff more carefully and fixed it manualy. --Sherool (talk) 04:17, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll improve this in next version. Martin 22:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Watchlist bug

Something I've noticed happening with the new version of AWB (v2.1.4.0) is that it overrides the watch/unwatched setting for pages that are already edited. I have it to not add pages it edits to my watchlist, and it deleted Hurricane Katrina, Hurricane Iniki, 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and other pages I had edited with AWB to fix a redirect. Is it doing that just for me, or is it a bug? Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 04:39, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

It is a bug introduced recently after I changed something else, I'll fix it now. Martin 08:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Mac OS X

Is there any similar software for Mac OS X? Did anyone tried to port it to ROTOR or Mono? —Claunia 09:56, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

• Please tell me there's not. My wife and kids would never see me if there was. As it is, I've been bringing my XP laptop home from work to use AWB. If I could do the same thing on my platform of choice (my Mac mini in the den) I'm afraid she'd leave me. ;-) ⇒ BRossow ^T/_C 04:30, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

suggested functionality addition

Can you add functionality to read Special:Log/Newusers and correctly interpret the last 50 or last 100 names on the list and adding links to their talk pages to the list. I think it would be a fairly simple matter to do once you could get it to unserstand the layout of the page. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 23:04, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Script for Novels?

Commander Keane suggested I 'Go through some pages in Category:Novels and make sure that the names of novels are in italics. For example Dream_Park should start as:

       * Dream Park was originally a novel...

   rather than...

       * Dream Park was originally a novel...

   Wikipedia:Maintenance has other things that you can do. ' see?

Is it possible to have some easy way to do this in AWB? Computerjoe's talk 14:06, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Try replacing '''%%title%%''' with '''''%%title%%''''' 14:10, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Minor bug

Just a little issue; if you have a long list (which scrolls) and you select an entry a good way down and start the process, it works its way down to the bottom, then keeps doing the last remaining article on the list. When it takes the last article off the list, it leaves a white space, where, because it scrolls, it should scroll the whole list down and make the scrollbar boundaries shorter. When you manually move the scrollbar the whitespace disappears but it would be aesthetically better (and would show more articles) if it updated properly first time. Thanks :) BigBlueFish 15:01, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

Done.Martin 08:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Unicodifying

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the "unicodify whole article" checkbox seems to do two things: it replaces HTML entities like ° with °, and it also replaces URL-encoded entities like %3A with ":" . The former makes perfect sense, but the latter seems dangerous. It breaks URLs (see here for a link I broke) and I can't see when you would want that functionality. Am I missing something? —Chowbok 19:55, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

P.S., not to dis AWB, which is a great tool I really appreciate. —Chowbok 19:56, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll improve this behaviour in the next version, as % encoding only should be converted when inside wiki links. thanks Martin 20:28, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

problem with language link sorting

As can be seen here the tet language link is not being properly sorted by awb when it runs through the language links. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 03:01, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

It's a new wiki, I've added them all now. thanks Martin 08:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Petty thing for disambig fixes.

Can you put Fixing [[Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links|links to disambiguation pages]] in the summary menu? Also, can you create some function to give disambig editors a choice as to which term to sub in for a disambig link? Cheers! BD2412 T 03:03, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Context for "find" button

Hey, thanks for fixing the unicode thing so fast. Now I have a minor feature request... when searching for terms in the article with the "find" button, it's generally helpful to have some context after the search term (for instance, I'm currently looking for articles that incorrectly use "it's". Naturally, I have to see what comes after "it's" to know if it's incorrect or not). When whatever you're searching for is at the end of the line, you have to manually scroll down to see what comes after. This gets tedious after a while. Is there any way it can be set to put the found term two or three lines up from the bottom? —Chowbok 18:52, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Bug in replacing the html markup

The AWB framework is being used to replace things like <i>X</i> with ''X''. One should be careful in using those as it can damage formatting, as you can see here, where the wikiparser got confused. Just thought I would let you know. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 01:05, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I've changed it so it won't this mistake again, thanks Martin 08:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

One strongly suspects that <math> markup would be more suitable than the somewhat tortuous situation which prevails. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 21:56, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Typo.xml

In case anyone was interested, I compiled an AWB-compatible xml file with several hundred common typos from "absense" to "yeasr" (all extracted from a free online dictionary of typos), and I've found it quite useful. I don't know if the spellchecker feature has been developed for AWB yet or if there's another file somewhere else that I haven't found, but if anyone would like my xml file tell me and I'll upload it or email it. AmiDaniel (Talk) 07:52, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Please upload it for inspection, and link to it from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Projects under the entry for the typos project. You could put it at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Projects/Typo if you liked: see User:Phil Boswell/AWB for some examples of how to format it so people can use it. Thanks —Phil | Talk 21:54, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

I could scan the database to find articles that contain these typos if you want. Martin 21:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

500 edits rule

500 edits? I've made less than 250 in the year I've used Wikipedia. Which means I have to wait until 2007 (or later) to use AWB? I'm sure it would be an effective tool for me to use and that I would use it well. I have no alternate recommendation of a way to separate the wheat from the chaff. However, I think this policy might be unfair to those who make few large edits rather than tons of little ones. I am not suggesting that I am in the former group. I'm just saying. Thoughts? -- Dwiki 08:26, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Editors that tend more towards a few large, sweeping rewrites instead of lots of little typo and formatting fixes won't really benefit from this tool. —Chowbok 15:03, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, in your opinion. Perhaps the reason that those editors don't make lots of little edits is because it seems counterproductive to waste your time doing it slowly when there's software out there could help you do it quickly, like AWB. Perhaps those editors are looking to branch out. Perhaps those editors don't like being told by other people whether a tool will or won't benefit them. I'm just saying :) -- Dwiki 20:17, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Follow up - sorry if that seemed personal attack-y. I was trying to make a joke. I'm just frustrated that it seems like some people may have been using Wikipedia long enough or have an editing style that is terse enough to comply with the 500 edits limit, while other equally-qualified Wikipedians under 500 edits would have to justify their use in order to get to use it. I want to use AWB. I don't have 500 edits. I have no desire to try to convince someone that I should get to use it anyway. It's Free Software, available now, that I want to try out and potentially transition to using. I probably wouldn't even use it long-term -- it is IE based, after all -- but I might. And I can't. It's very frustrating. -- Dwiki 03:11, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Maybe it would be good to put users on a probationary period for 1 month after registration, during which time their actions will be more closely monitored than experienced AWB users. Set an absolute minimum of, say, 200 edits and 120 days of use, and waive the probationary period for registrants with 500+ edits or 1 year of use.--Jonathan Kovaciny 03:30, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

IMO these should just be guidelines. I see not reason why users <500 edits may apply for use of the tool and be subject to concensus. --Oldak Quill 20:59, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I think they are just guidelines. Similar problems occur when editors have beaucoup edits on a foreign-language Wiki but < 500 on the English Wiki. Apply and make your case on the requests page. --Richard 17:27, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Other Wikis

I'm an admin ([1]) on a small wiki (PlanetSide Wiki) my friend hosts. I'd like to use AWB to do a general clean up of the 800+ articles. Is there anyway I can have one of the developers contact me so that I can go about working with them to achieve this? Thanks. --Zsinj^Talk 04:09, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

It'd be a good idea to allow the tool to be used on any MediaWiki-run site (or compatable). Of course, because sites have different formatting rules and whatnot (which users are able to use) - configuration files should be quite flexible (which they may be already) and documentation thick. --Oldak Quill 21:02, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Three more suggestions

• Create a mechanism for batch list creations similar to current find and replace system where you can have the option to import from either file or pre-made batch including an incl. only option (for example doing a list off what links here (incl. only) on template:test, template:test2, and template:test3) That would make creating lists for bot mode much easier. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 23:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Create a mechanism to have a list of always ignore article titles in wikilinked comma seperated format (i.e. User:Pegasus1138, George W. Bush, User:Jimbo Wales so that the bot would always skip those pages by default since on the runs of my bot I've gotten several requests that various pages should be always excluded on subst runs. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 23:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)
• Make use of a system for templates similar to current system used for categories which I think would be fairly easy to implement since it would use a similar style of semi-automated find and replace mechanism. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 23:17, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Another idea

I see the reasoning behind having the line "Using AWB" in the edit summaries but at least for bot edits if not for all edits there should be an option to not include that line since A) for bot edits it's uneeded and would be the equivalent of adding using pywikipedia or using perl to all bots that use those to make their edits. For non bot users it's great for full disclosur and such but there is a definite stigma that has started to appear towards AWB edits and having the option the option to remove that line would get rid of that stigma. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 23:21, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

Plus, it makes me jealous. --Dwiki 19:31, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

It's gone for me. Prodego ^talk 02:39, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

It actually explained something to me as to why this edit was simply going through removing spaces. I would have been even more interested if they hadn't have had the AWB link on the edit showing that it was a routine type edit. Ansell 02:36, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

So...

I assume this has already been previously brought up, but I really can't be arsed to look through three archives, so I'll ask it (again?). Have there been discussions on making AWB work with Firefox or Opera? I personally almost never use IE (haven't used IE in about a year), is there any way I can avoid using IE to use AWB? NSLE _(T+C) at 10:49 UTC (2006-04-05)

You don't have to use IE to use AWB, AWB uses the components provided by IE, so as long as IE is installed (and I think officially IE can't not be installed) it will work. Martin 10:59, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Since it's limited to just wikispace I can't see any reason why the IE rendering engine isn't perfectly accectable. I have a horrible disdain for IE in general, but in AWB it's just a way to present the page.--Mboverload 22:17, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Interesting coding

I'd not seen this before: * [[Dexter's Lab#Dial .22M.22 for Monkey|Monkey]] from [[Dexter's Lab]]

• Monkey from Dexter's Lab

Rich Farmbrough 16:08 5 April 2006 (UTC).

A new "general fix"?

I guess it's best to explain this by example: in Chico Cabaret, you'll see that a new user has created external links to internal articles, in other words where brackets would have done he wrote a full URL out. Could AWB automatically convert these URLs to normal internal wikilinks as a part of general fixes? I've been trying to think of legitimate reasons an article would have an external link to another en-WP article, and can't think of any. And this does kind of poor man's wikilinking does happen quite a bit, so it would probably be a useful fix. Thanks for your time. --W.marsh 02:08, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

There are legitimate reasons why Wikipedia would need to cite itself using external links. Remember, Wikipedia content is often mirrored offsite, so if you are citing something specific on Wikipedia (and not just a see also) then you have to use the external link. For a good example of this, check out Wikipedia and notice how it has a lot of external links linking to en:wiki pages. --Cyde Weys 02:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

General fixes

"Apply general fixes Fixes common mistakes in "see also" and "external links" sections, removes excess white space."

When excess whitespace means the difference between having == Heading == and ==Heading== I disagree that AWB should be going through modifying just this. See the discussion here for an explanation of this style being completely up to the page designer and has no need of standardising, especially by people who don't have to look through the page code constantly. Ansell 02:47, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Disregard this. This was something I was doing in regex and not any particular behavior of AWB. --Cyde Weys 02:51, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

AWB skips non-existent pages?

If a page in the list doesn't exist yet, AWB skips it? Is there a way to allow AWB to create pages that don't exist? (we're trying to add {{cvgproj}} to all talk pages under our project, and would like to have AWB add it to all talk pages in the list, even when a talk page doesn't exist). --Interiot 16:05, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

I'll add an option to the menu. Martin 16:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Woo, thank you! If there's anything I can do to help the AWB maintainers, let me know. For instance:

As mentioned in the header of this page, I can create real-time database queries on the toolserver, that can end up being loaded into AWB's list (via its text file interface). If you guys need any queries to be written, it's generally pretty simple, just let me know. --Interiot 09:50, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, I was going to recommend taking Beland's perl script for finding bad links and giving it to Interiot to run on the Toolserver, but now the Toolserver is down on en. Gaah! --M@thwiz2020 23:37, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Adding a tag to Talk pages

I want to add a WikiProject tag to the Talk pages of all the articles in the list I've made. Is this possible with AWB? --Jonathan Kovaciny 20:22, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

BUMP - so how do i do this?--Jonathan Kovaciny 15:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

Sure, do a regular expression find and replace, and for example replace "^" with "{{template}}\r\n" without the quotes, this replaces the beginning of the articles with the template and a newline. Martin 15:54, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

MS JIT debugging

Is there any reasonw hy this shoul pop up?Sceptre ^(Talk) 15:25, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

template additions

Could you add a way to add a template to all pages on a list similar to how the cat thing works or how the talk page messege box works? thanks. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 13:59, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I have a similar request to this and also to the one in the section "Adding a tag to Talk pages" above. I would like AWB to be able to operate on the articles when it receives a list of talk pages, and to be able to edit the talk pages when it receives a list of articles. This might be achieved with the addition of an option to the right-click menu in the article list box? (Please don't lose the ability to be able to select a category in that list and add to the list further from it). Examples:

• I would like to be able to navigate through Category:The Beatles and subcategories and add WikiProject templates to the talk pages of the articles listed there
• Category:WikiProject The Beatles articles lists every article managed by the Project, but because membership comes from having a talk page template, the category contains talk pages. I'd like to be able to build a list of the attached articles from this category so I can perform an AWB run on them.

I think these changes would only take a few minutes to implement and would add yet more significant functionality to AWB. Thanks. --kingboyk 20:39, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I think these features are unnecessary, as they will make the software too complicated, particularly as they can both be achieved with small effort already. e.g. regex replace "^" with a template to insert the template at the start of the article, or replace "$" to put one at the end (^ and $ are represent the start and end of the string in regular expressions). To edit the talk pages of a list of articles, just do a find and replace on a list of articles in notepad, simply replace "[[" with "[[Talk:" for example. These may seem unsatisfactory, but work perfectly, save much of my time, waste little of yours and avoid much over-complication. thanks. Martin 22:22, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

You're the boss :-) but I don't think it would take much time to implement (half an hour? it's a simple invert, a regular expression, and a menu item) and being hidden away in a right click option means complexity isn't an issue. What you're advocating would require building the list in AWB, saving it, opening it in a text editor, running a regexp, and then what? Saving it to a sandbox and running AWB on that? (since there doesn't appear to be an option to import a list from a file). Multiply that by maybe hundreds of times and that's a lot of person hours which automation could save. --kingboyk 22:27, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Followup: As an alternative, if my diatribe hasn't convinced you :), could you add a "import list of articles from a text file" facility? I can save it to a sandbox and delete the list afterwards, but not everyone has the luxury of a delete button. --kingboyk 22:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to stump for this as well, it would be quite handy. ++Lar: t/c 22:40, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

It does already, "make from" a text file, this gets all [[Wiki links]] from a text file. Martin 22:42, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

TOLD you that was easy. Er... OK, ya I remember using this before back when I was having trouble with it loading categories for me. Never mind... ++Lar: t/c 23:49, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah yes, silly me. What it doesn't appear to do is travel through categories (I'm hoping someone will say "of course it does you fool" and show me how :)). If a right click on one or more categories within the article list added the contents to the list it would be most excellent indeed. --kingboyk 00:59, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Null Edits

As you probably know, sometimes if links are changed within a template, the WhatLinksHere gets broken and is only fixed by performing a null edit on the article which uses the template. I have this problem with {{WPBeatles}} and performing null edits using Popups on every article which uses it would take a long time. Seems like the perfect job for AWB (I'm assuming there's no "null edit only" option at present; I couldn't find one). Repeated thanks for your wonderful work, AWB just keeps getting better. --kingboyk 20:21, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it does (I just did it last night). All I do is set the action clickbox where you set "replace category" etc to 'none', make sure that the "apply fixes" and "auto tag" aren't clicked and start editing. It will open each article on the list with no changes. --Syrthiss 20:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Purges don't correct the whatLinksHere??? I thought a purge was good for just about anything that ailed an article??? ++Lar: t/c 21:11, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I think what kingboyk is talking about is categories that are included in a template placed on the article. When the template is added to an article, every time is saved it dynamically applies that category as if it was in the text of the article. If you are doing a recategorization for articles that are in that category only through the use of the template then what you have to do is change the category on the template and then touch each article with the template on it to get it to dynamically fall into the new category. --Syrthiss 21:18, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes (but it's article links I'm talking about and not categories). Same concept applies though. Each of the hundreds of articles would have to be purged, because the Mediawiki links table is organised by article id. --kingboyk 21:20, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Special:Whatlinkshere/WP:TBP contains a handful of links, despite its inclusion in Template:WPBeatles. I'll try a purge on one article and a null edit on another and compare results. --kingboyk 21:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

I thought it was no longer necessary to do the 'touching' (see m:Help:Job_queue) Tim! 21:23, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

That thought occured to me too but I haven't checked the job queue. Will do that too. --kingboyk 21:25, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

"The job queue length is currently 28,602." Maybe that's the problem. Anyway, it's no big deal :) --kingboyk 21:26, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Looks like that was indeed the problem. --kingboyk 01:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Clarification of latest changes to Rules of Use

Can I just check that we're not forbidding "making extremely minor edits such as adding or removing some white space or moving a stub tag" in every case, but rather doing these in the absence of any substantive change. In other words: if you're performing a task and these changes are done alongside the particular change you want to make, this is OK; if you make no change other than these, that's bad. Am I correct? HTH HAND Phil | Talk 09:45, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is the intended meaning. I've added the word "only" to reduce the ambiguity. thanks Martin 10:02, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Why wait for WinFX before implementing the spell checker?

Just curious... I can't seen any reference in WinFX to built in spell checker capabilities. Why wait for it before implementing the spelling checker? RichardJFoster 15:11, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

WinFX does have a built in spell checker, it is not enabled in the current beta version for this type of project yet though. It is enabled when using XAML, as demonstrated here. Martin 16:29, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Ah! I'd agree with the article though... it certainly is a lesser known feature! I couldn't find any reference to it in the MSDN searches I did.... RichardJFoster 17:10, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Non-English Wikipedias

We would like to use your program on non-English Wikipedias. Is there anyway you can make this possible? Maksim-e 09:40, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Currently, the software supports en, de, sv and fr. Computerjoe's talk 09:44, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Very limited support though, not everything works on other languages, I just got the essentials working so if someone wants to adapt it properly they can. Martin 10:05, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Whether you can add support of Russian or we should do it? 85.116.116.57 22:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Underscores in links

There are a verty few cases where underscores are desireable, mod_perl for eaxmple. Would itbe worth having a stop list for this? Rich Farmbrough 12:03 14 April 2006 (UTC). See here and here. Rich Farmbrough 12:06 14 April 2006 (UTC).

Wrong version

the CVS keeps giving me 2.1.8.0 when it should be giving me 2.3.0 I don't know if that's an issue with the CVS or with the way your uploading the new versions but it's a pain to have to download the build version from sourceforge every time. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 19:49, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Browsing the repository (e.g. http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/autowikibrowser/src/) is well out of date due to sourceforge having some kind of problem, if you checkout properly then it gets the newest version properly. Martin 19:57, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

Figures... it seems that they're having issues more and more often now with their various download systems. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 20:08, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

What's with all the paranoia?

I guess I just don't get it. Kurt Weber 16:18, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure what you're refering to. Martin 16:44, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

The fact is we have no real definition of bot. Autowikibrowser is coming dangerously close to one and shares the major issue of being able to magnify screwups hugely (which is probablly one of the biggest points of contention with bots). Also while afaict a diff is presented and users are supposed to check it they often do not do so properly. a "bot" with an inattentive human operator checking edits is just as bad as a bot with noone checking edits. Plugwash 17:08, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I've said it before and I'll say it again; anyone causing more trouble than is reasonable (i.e. a very small amount) should not be allowed to use any kind of extra tool. Also to say "they often" do not check the diff is very mis-leading, as a lot of people have done an enourmaous amount of good work with various tools (including this one), the problem lies with a small number of people, who, like I said, should not be using any kind of tool. thanks Martin 17:19, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand why people treat the AutoWikiBrowser any differently than other bots. The python class of bots are open source and anyone can download the code and run one - with the AWB, at least you have to be on an "approved" list. People say the AWB has to have the words "AWB" in the edit summary, but python doesn't. People say you have to check AWB edits but not python edits. The paranoia is, basically, caused by the fact that the AWB is seemingly more open than other bots even though it's not. That's the root of the problem. --M@thwiz2020 19:02, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Fact is we don't really have any policies for handling tools like this. If the tools are based on a bot framework they tend to be registered as bots and held to the same standards as bots even if they aren't running fully automated (i belive up to and including banning unauthorised ones that cause trouble). But because autowikibrowsers authors insist its not a bot and the admins seem to have agreed its users don't seem to be being held to the standards of bot operators. Someone care to start drafting a policy for the treatment semiautomated editing tool users? Plugwash 20:25, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

See WP:SBOTS. --M@thwiz2020 20:34, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't understand the logic behind these comments, the AWB authors (e.g. me) have not "insisted" on anything at all, I don't care what label the software is given, the note saying that AWB is not a bot is purely because without it people would assume it is a fully automatic bot like the pywiki. Also "the admins seem to have agreed its users don't seem to be being held to the standards of bot operators" is totally unfounded, as an admin I feel, as evidently do a lot of others, that people using software tools (AWB, popups, VandalProof etc.) have to at least keep to the standards generally accepted for normal editing and bot editting, if a user somehow feels they can ignore these standards they simply should not be allowed to use any extra tools. I'll add a note on the main page to spell this out. Martin 21:13, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

In reply to Plugwash: you're wrong. As often, this is unfounded botophobia. Please assume good faith of those that are using AWB. Claiming that they are all sleeping while they click on save (and they have to do so for every article) is assuming bad faith. Please be also aware that some edits done with AWB are best done with AWB, because it gives more security than manual edits alone. And also even more security than command line tools alone, because you see each diff in an original browser window. This window and the contents it provides is only created by AWB and presented to the user. The only difference is that the process to create that diff view is semi-automated. BTW a diff is always presented per default (in contrast to manual editing, where you can click on save without a preview or diff). So each diff must be confirmed by the user. Please also note that if doing a series of similar edits the editor becomes normally quite experienced to these edits at hand. So it is natural that he can go faster compared to an editor using only a browser. The percentage of the net user interaction time spent on viewing diffs is much higher on AWB than with a POB (Plain Old Browser). You can see here the emerging of new technology. This is normal that some people are frightened by this. Unkown new stuff always scares people. If you have a problem with an AWB edit talk with the editor that has done it. She or he is responsible for it. Please be kind and try to understand the edit from a larger point of view. Not only from the perspective of your three or four featured articles. And also note that if the community rejects a series of edits, any user will be notified very promptly. There is no specific danger caused by AWB. To the contrary, I would say. --Ligulem 20:36, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

Quite frankly, it's ridiculous. Since it is open-source, what's to stop me from modifying it so it no longer places the AWB notice in edit summaries and then using it without being on the list? It's insane. Kurt Weber 13:17, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

You can't edit the code on SourceForge unless you're flagged as a "developer". However, anybody can download the source code and compile it themselves on their own computer without "committing" it to SourceForge. You can then run it without being approved and without the edit summary. However, python bots are also open source, don't have an approved list, and don't put anything in the edit summary. What's the difference between AWB and python? Impression. That's all, nothing more. --M@thwiz2020 18:27, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Dashes

Why it doesn't unicodify dashes? Jogers (talk) 11:38, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Since we use a fixed width font in the edit box (because it makes code more readable) dashes are very hard to distinguish there and curps (author of the original unicodify bot) got a number of complaints about them being changed. Plugwash 13:32, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I see. Thanks. Jogers (talk) 14:29, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Edit Summary

due to the massive faulting of people who use AWB even productively yet again I am requesting that there be a checkbox option (or a top menu one) to not include the line "Using AWB" to the edit summary due to this rampant botophobia issue people are having with AWB. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 18:37, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

I have not witnessed faulting of anyone who has been using the software sensibly, last time you requested the sumary tag I did remove it, but it was then requested that it be added back on. It will not be removed. Martin 19:14, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Part of the semi-bots proposed policy states, "Edit summaries of changes performed by semi-bots should be clear as well about the performed changes as about the auxiliary software used (e.g. "using WP:AWB"), when such software is used." I know it's only proposed, but it shows the wiki community's want for such notices. --M@thwiz2020 20:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Martin, I must have missed the discussion, do you know where it is archived? Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 20:53, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately it was on IRC. Martin 21:01, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

This smacks of more bot paranoia, I'm not asking that it be turned off by default, I'm asking that it be on by default but an option be given in the menu bar or as a click button to disable the addition to edit summaries of the using AWB line which I think is fairly reasonable. Also check the talk page on the semi-bots proposal and you'll see that there are some vocal objections to it and it will most likely not pass. Pegasus1138^{Talk | Contribs | Email} ---- 21:05, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

New guideline proposal Wikipedia:Semi-bots

There is a proposal for a guideline at Wikipedia:Semi-bots by Francis Schonken, which will have influence on the use of AWB if adopted. Please comment at Wikipedia talk:Semi-bots --Ligulem 16:42, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Bug - "Go to Line"

Since i updated to 2400, "Go to line" doesn't work anymore.--Amir E. Aharoni 16:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

A strange consequence of upgrading the textbox, will be fixed next release thanks. Martin 18:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Strange RegEx Behavior in Version 2400

Hi, i only started trying AWB carefully ...

I'm a Perl lover, so my favorite feature is of course regular expressions support.

I tried entering this in the "Find and replace/Set" dialog:

Find: <br ?/?>

Replace: <br/>

I want to replace stuff such as <br> and <br /> with <br/>

However, instead of <br/> it puts in <br />. Where did that space come from? Exactly the same settings produce <br/> in version 2.3.0.0.

Thanks for your attention!--Amir E. Aharoni 19:31, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

This is because one of its general fixes is to replace <br/> with <br /> as I was advised this was best practice. Martin 19:43, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

OK. It leaves <br> untouched, though. Why not go all the way? If we were speaking in Perl, i'd say s{<br/?>}{<br />}i.--Amir E. Aharoni 22:07, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Feature request - images in categories

At the moment, making a list from Links On Page includes the images on the page, as well as normal wikilinks. Using Category on a category with images in gives me articles and subcategories, but no images. Would it be possible to include images as well? SeventyThree^(Talk) 01:05, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

If you could list an image category by name rather than display the image it would be possible. Martin 19:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Buggery...

Strangely, AWB has ceased functioning for me as of versions 2400 and 2500 (I don't really know what version I was using before). After taking forever to load the first article, the main window only displays the "Editing..." view, no changes appear to have been made in the editing field, and all buttons except "Stop" and "Find" in the "(3) Start" tab are greyed out. Screenshot available on request. (Yes, I wanted to submit this at Sourceforge, but the provided link just gives me a blank page. Maybe it just isn't my day...) Sandstein 19:23, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like servers were down briefly, or as sourceforge wasnt working as well maybe your internet was down, that said sourceforge is just as unreliable as wikimedia. Martin 19:38, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Manual Edit doesn't work

I was wondering if anybody was having the same "problem". If the page exceeds the preferable size of a page, AWB does not allow me to do manual edits to the article. I try to type in some fix with no luck. Is this suppose to be that way? Gadig 19:41, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It's not meant to be like that, it's an annoying result of the recent upgrade, i'll fix it, but sourceforge is down again. Martin 20:49, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

Opening IE

Is there a way of turning off IE opening whenever there are new messages? I understand the reason (and agree with it) for stopping editing when a message comes in but is there any need to suddenly have IE pop up? CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 02:47, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It's a wikipedia policy that requires a bot-semibots from going on with new messages --mboverload 03:01, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I'm possibly not making myself clear. I know about and agree with that policy but I'm not using IE at all. However, everytime there is a new message then IE runs. I want to choose which browser I read the message in. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 03:27, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be anal, really, but what does it matter what browser it opens it in? I'm just looking at the practicle side of this - why would they spend the time to put this feature in? --mboverload 06:20, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It's easy to make it use the default browser, I'll change it. Martin 08:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Martin. There is a reason for not wanting IE. For some reason every Wikipeida page that I've viewed with IE pops-up a script error. This does not happen with the IE based MAxthon or Firefox. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 15:54, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Minor Category Bug

Edited an article with an extra "]" on the category:

 [[Category:Category name]]]

AWB moved the extra "]" in front of the category list:

 ]
 [[Category:Category name]]

I noticed it and corrected it by hand so I don't have a diff to point to. Thanks. -- JLaTondre 03:16, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

That is because a category shouldnt have 3 closing brackets, there isnt much I can do about that, but it doesnt cause any harm. Martin 08:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I recognize categories are not supposed to have extraneous brackets and I doubt it happens that often so I see no problem with ignoring it. However, don't you already do some fixing of brackets on links? I wouldn't think it would be that hard to create a regex that catches extraneous brackets on categories. Of course, testing all the possible side affects would be the gotcha. :-) In terms of payback for time invested, it would be pretty low. Thanks. -- JLaTondre 00:17, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

You haven't updated your CVS Source for a while.

Friendly reminder from your brothers in the Ealitian family. Fix it, or else. (This post is sarcasm) --Avillia 07:35, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I have, sourceforge is just very slow at the moment when browsing the repository, checking out properly works fine. Martin 08:44, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I keep checking out version 2.1.8.0, according to the about box: Have you been forgetting to update that, by chance? Or is something inherently screwy with me? --Avillia 17:06, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I just did a fresh checkout, and it all seems fine, so I can't explain the problem. Martin 19:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

SourceForge has been having trouble with the CVS servers, as I found out when updating Flcelloguy's Tool there. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 19:58, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Adding category to template

Developer notice: I've commited a change to Main.cs that adds the category inside noinclude tags if the title of the page is in template namespace (Main.cs, new revision: 1.120) --Ligulem 18:46, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

ok, thanks. Martin 19:43, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Help me get it to work

I've been approved for AutoWikiBrowser (Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage). I've downloaded it and the .NET framework. It opens fine, but after I log in, it tells me I am not authorized and in a sends me to the Check Page. -- Mac Davis] ?? ญƛ. 03:27, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Edit Summary Bug & Messy Diff page

In my third edit[2] using AWB (First was test and second was smoother Plus some manual editing to) the diff page is really messy. It claims changed lines i can't actually see the difference. Did it just remove exes black spaces. I don't know what it really did.

Also I tried to comment in the edit summary but the Program doesn't understand the Character limit and has overflow and thus didn't add the Using AWB to the end because it ran out of space. Also was

Both times i have used it outside my user sub-page it claims to be making more changes than i did. [3] is it just making changes in character that we just can't see. Is it O.K. To let it do this to the page or is there a way to let the diff page not look so messy. Did I make the Edits properly. Should we be Mixing Manual Edits into our AWB edits (because we don't want too many minor edits)--E-Bod 03:36, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

It didn't claim to make any edits it didnt do, the diff deosnt lie. If you can't see any change then it is because it removed some whitespace. It is perfectly ok to do a manual edit as well keeping the suggested edit, in fact I would generally adivse against doing otherwise. Martin 10:02, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

I Think you are saying that you are saying to let it do the "suggested edit" with the other edit's we are doing. But I'm not sure if you'r generall addvise is we should manually edit or you'r general adivse is we should not manually edit and just keep the edits the Program sugests. Anyway Thanks for your Responce I feel allot More comfortable using AWB now--E-Bod 16:18, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

OK I get What's Happening [[4]]. I'll Use the Edit Summary "Disambiguation link repair - You can help! & clean up (Remove Excess White Space)" with the AWB tag Becose that Explains My edit better--E-Bod 16:30, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

What I mean is do manually edit as well. But it really depends what exactly you are doing, just be sensible and everything will be ok ;-) Martin 16:28, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Cannot open application

MOVE BACK TO MAIN PAGE --mboverload@ 00:10, 28 June 2006 (UTC)