Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 6

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Newest version

Where can I find the newest version of the software? --D-Day ^{What up? Am I cool, or what?} 13:26, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Try looking here. Hope that helps. SeventyThree^(Talk) 14:45, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

It did. Thanks! --D-Day ^{What up? Am I cool, or what?} 14:57, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

New lines

I am trying to find and replace text that includes new lines and the find and replace feature doesn't support it. I don't know how to use Regular Expressions but i looked at the link on the bottom of the AWB page to find out \u means new line. I have gotten this to work on some pages but now it is interpreting some wikiformating as part of the regular expression

I am trying to remove the links from the TLAs on ICAO airline designator (D) see comment But i Keep getting an error because only Characters other than . $ ^ { [ ( | ) * + ? \ match themselves and I don't know the Equivalent to <nowiki></nowiki> for regular.

I basically want to replace [[XYZ]] with XYZ without replacing anyting but TLAs --E-Bod 21:27, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

A newline is "\r\n". To use a special character literally (such as "$" or "^" etc.) you have to escape them, e.g. "\$" will mean the literal character "$". Martin 21:50, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks I got it to based on what you said [1][2] The code I used I made into a comment below.

I Could have saved time by doing by hand thoug. I'll be more carful of that in the furure. At least I know how to do it now--E-Bod 00:55, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Question

If I download this, will I still have my other browser as well?

Pokemon trobule

Does anyone who edits Pokémon-related articles have the autowikibrowser, I really need help. I Love Minun ^(talk) 18:26, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

What do you wish to do? I might be willing to help. --mboverload@ 23:09, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

No cat tag for talk pages

Hi. Can we eliminate the "No category" and "Multiple wiki-links" messages when the page in question is a talk page? They rarely need a category, and frequently have many links to the same user pages. bd2412 T 01:48, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

I've reconsidered this request and realized that it has no effect on performance, so ought not be bothered with. bd2412 T 05:44, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Bug

Try to Edit This page with AWB

LOL--E-Bod 03:00, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Why? nothing happens. Martin 08:49, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Well when I try to edit it it mistakes the prank on the top of the pages is treated as a New message and so i get that new message pop-up.

By the way is there a way to change the spacing of elements on the page. I have my Computer set to display text and other elements large. I did this because I used to set my computer at a lower resolution because I liked the larger stuff. Then i got annoyed everything was fuzzy so I put my computer at full resolution and went into preferences to make all the Elements as big as they were at the lower resolution. However this cases the Bottom (1)(2)(3) steps bar to take up half the screen and the New message.

Part of the message is cut off and i cant actually see the buttons. I can either press enter for IE or tab and then enter for FireFox but i can't actually click the button because the window size is locked.

I would really appreciate it if the Field bars were movable. I like the dividers that you can click in the middle and chose the size. The pop-ups should also be re sizable. Anything that is not re sizable displays cutoff on my computer.--E-Bod 05:28, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Re:stub order apparently used by AWB as default, etc

I just found a reason not to put some stub tags at the bottom of the article. Take a look at Category:Quebec airport stubs under the section S. Some of the "St" are in the correct place as "Saint" but the others are listed at "St". The ones in the wrong place are the ones I updated, while the correct ones I didn't do yet. It's minor but is something that other anal editors like me should be aware of. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure what you mean, how does the position of a stub affect its category sorting? Martin 14:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Go to Category:Quebec airport stubs and look at where St-Anselme Airport is in the list. Open it and move the stub tag above the Category tags and save. Reload the Quebec airport stubs and see where St-Anselme Airport is now listed. Ignore the [[Category:Quebec airport stubs|Saint Anselme Airport]] as I was trying that to force sorting. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 15:36, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh right, I see, because it has the stub tag and the stub category. You can put a sort key in the stub template directly, as demonstrated by Template:Hndis, I don't know why stubs don't all use this by default, I suppose probably because people arent that concerned with stub categories. Martin 15:50, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Feature request for stubs

I notice that an alert is given if the article is long and has a stub tag. Would it be possible to have an alert if the article is short and does not have a stub tag? Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (Talk) 12:35, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

It automatically adds a generic stub tag to very short articles. Martin 14:06, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Problem

Can anyone tell me what this means, please:

System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException: StartIndex cannot be less than zero.
Parameter name: startIndex
 at System.String.InternalSubStringWithChecks(Int32 startIndex length, Boolean fAlwaysCopy)
 at AutoWikiBrowser.MainForm.GetCatArticles(String PageText)
 at AutoWikiBrowser.MainForm.webBrowser4_DocumentCompleted(Object, sender,
WebBrowserDocumentCompletedEventArgs e)

This is the message I get when trying to make a cat list, then after it says "There was a problem making the list"??? Craigy (talk) 23:38, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

It means there is a bug in the software, probably caused by the page not loading properly. It will probably work if you clear your IE cache and try again. I am also overhauling the listing mechanism anyway. Martin 08:39, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

make the spellchecker ignore interwikis

see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Transcendental_number&diff=prev&oldid=57790986 for an example.

Oh shit, I didn't even realize that it checked the external wiki links. I'm sorry. Hopefully this is a quick fix that bluemoose can do? --mboverload@ 20:00, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

AWB doesnt have a spell checker, you were using find and replace, of course that is applied to the whole article, there is nothing to fix. Martin 20:10, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but can you not make an option to disable editing of the contents of external wikilinks? That's what I was getting at. --mboverload@ 20:12, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Well in theory, but it certainly would not be a quick thing to do, sorry. Martin 20:18, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

=( I have no idea at all how I would implement this in all my regexs..... --mboverload@ 00:38, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

If you've got the searchstring "xyz", using "[^(\[\[[^\]][^\]]:[^\]]*)]xyz" should be the same as before until we've got an opening "[[ab:defxyz", where "abdef" are not "]". That probably needs to be improved on a bit to cope with different length prefixes such as m:meta and simple:simple english. It'll also catch [[WP:]] prefixes at the moment. Hope that helps, and the code isn't too confusing (too many square brackets, eugh) - drop me a line if I can help. SeventyThree^(Talk) 17:17, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on some javascript to deal with this sort of problem, when it works, I'll share it with Martin, and if he wishes he can C# it and use it in AWB. Rich Farmbrough 21:18 11 June 2006 (GMT).

.NET Framework

Im having trouble downloading the .Net framework, can someone tell me what to do I Love Minun ^(talk) 12:13, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

• What's the nature of the difficulty?  Regards, David Kernow 13:24, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

'Google Wikipedia' on French project

Making a list using Google Wikipedia in the English and German project does generate a valid list. But in the French one, the list is always empty. My userid is correct, as the 'Category' search succeeds. A minor bug in the search criteria or site ? By the way, if the Dutch wikipedia could also be made available, this would be wunderful!! - DéRahier 15:40, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

I'll have a look at the google thing, as for working on the dutch wp, please translate these variables:

         strlangcode = "en";
         strcategoryns = "Category:";
         strtemplatens = "Template:";
         struserns = "User:";
         strimagens = "Image:";
         strtalkns = " talk:";
         strarticletalkns = "Talk:";
         strspecialns = "Special:";
         strportalns = "Portal:";
         strmediawikins = "MediaWiki:";
         strnext200 = "next 200";
         strsummarytag = " using AWB";

Thanks Martin 12:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I would translate those like this :

         strlangcode = "nl";
         strcategoryns = "Categorie:";
         strtemplatens = "Sjabloon:";
         struserns = "Gebruiker:";
         strimagens = "Afbeelding:";
         strtalkns = " overleg:";
         strarticletalkns = "Overleg:";
         strspecialns = "Speciaal:";
         strportalns = "Portaal:";
         strmediawikins = "MediaWiki:";
         strnext200 = "volgende 200";
         strsummarytag = " met AWB";

Thank you ! DéRahier 20:37, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

A curiosity

I'm adding a category using AWB. Just to be "clever" I thought I'd pick up the persons name from the previous category. My regex is limited to people with 2 names, but it seems to sometimes work and sometimes not. Not a problem, I will re-run without the cat add, and pick up the stragglers. But it would be nice to know what is going wrong, if anyone has an idea. Also the regex may be useful to others.

<FindAndReplaceSettings>
 <findandreplace enabled="True" regex="True" casesensitive="False" multiline="True" singleline="False" />
 <datagridFAR find="\|(\w*, \s*\w*)\]\](\W)*\[\[Category\:Baseball players who have hit for the cycle\]\]" replacewith="|$1]]$2[[Category:Baseball players who have hit for the cycle|$1]]" />
</FindAndReplaceSettings>

Regards, Rich Farmbrough 21:37 11 June 2006 (GMT).

I don't think you need to escape the colon, but it should work escaped as well. What happens when it fails - nothing, or mangled text? I'd probably replace , \s* with ,\s+ and (\W) with (\s*), but that's personal preference. Perhaps the difference between \W and \s is screwing things up? SeventyThree^(Talk) 13:57, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

I agree with your personal pref, the space was a typo, but I used * as I prefer to allow for peopleleaving spaces out where poss. The difference was that nothing happening. However if I re-submitted the article it worked (but then looked like this)

 
[[Category:Blah|Bloggs, Fred]]
[[Category:Baseball players who have hit for the cycle|Bloggs, Fred]]
[[Category:Baseball players who have hit for the cycle]]
 

As if AWB was sometimes doing the search and replace first, sometimes the category add. Rich Farmbrough 16:12 13 June 2006 (GMT).

That behavior makes sense if you've got

 
[[Category:Blah|Bloggs, Fred]]
[[Category:Baseball players who have hit for the cycle]]
[[Category:Baseball players who have hit for the cycle]]
 

before the parser hits. In the current version using "add category" when it's already there doubles it up. Did AWB to do that in previous versions? SeventyThree^(Talk) 02:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about the previous version. I agree that the behaviour makes sense on the second pass, what I can't understand is why it doesn't (didn't) work on the first pass, and does on the second. No longer a problem for me, because that's in the past, but still intriguing. Rich Farmbrough 12:41 6 July 2006 (GMT).

Requested option - order by size

Is it possible to order pages by size? Right now, the only ordering schemes possible are the default age-of-page, and alphabetical. bd2412 T 05:48, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The size of the page is not known until it is edited, so it is not really possible. Martin 08:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Plus once you load an article, you might as well edit it. --mboverload@ 09:18, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Make list of subpages?

Is it possible to make a list of subpages, even if they aren't linked to the main page? Rfrisbie^talk 13:11, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Should be: see {{subpages}} for example which gives you all subpages of this page. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 13:28, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. So, my next "duh" question is, how can AWB get access to that list? Rfrisbie^talk 16:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

IN theory put Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/ in the list making box and select all links on page and click "Make list". When I did it I got a SystemNullReferenceException.

Rich Farmbrough 10:12 13 June 2006 (GMT).

SO cut and paste into your favourite browse and use some replacement magic to put [][] round them. Then save and use text lsit or paste into a temp wiki page and use all links on page. Rich Farmbrough 10:14 13 June 2006 (GMT).

Okay, thanks. I tried a subpage transclusion and checked "What links here", but it still came up empty. I even tried to "subst:", but that wouldn't even display. I guess I'll break down and make a text file. :-) Rfrisbie^talk 21:17, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Gosh, I finally figured it out! "Make from Special page"..."Special:Prefixindex/<page name>" did work for me! There, that wasn't so hard, was it?! ;-) Rfrisbie^talk 21:36, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I just updated to V3.0.0.4. Now Special:Prefixindex/<page name>" says, "List complete!" but it's empty. :-( Rfrisbie^talk 02:48, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Can someone please tell me if this feature is working or not? Rfrisbie^talk 03:05, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Doesn't work for me. I get an error message. But I committed a quick and dirty hack for MWB for a new make list "From links on page (URL)" [3] [4]. This accepts an url in the source field. Copy that url from the address line of your browser. Example url: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Prefixindex/Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/. You could then save the list to a file and load that into AWB. --Ligulem 07:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't work for all special pages, as for some annoying reason they do not share the same formatting, I'm sure it won't be too difficult to work around though. Martin 08:39, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

It works for "simple"(?) ones, like "Special:Deadendpages". Rfrisbie^talk 10:56, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Using AWB on other wiki sites

Are we able to use AWB on alternative wiki sites?

I know with it being on the GPL and the sources are avaliable, im presuming we can if alter it ourselves, we can?

Cheers

Reedy Boy 14:25, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

It mostly works on a number of wikimedia sites, I imagine you could adapt it to work on other sites as well, particularly ones that use the mediawiki software. Martin 16:17, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Ah, im just presuming its just a case of being registered on the particular wikimedia site. Luckily, the site does use teh media wiki software. Just going to pull the source from the CVS and have a look. Cheers Reedy Boy 16:36, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Is there a zipped version of the source avaliable to download from anywhere? As it is a bit of pain getting each file manually! Thanks Reedy Boy 16:42, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Not at present, when it stops being rapidly developed I will probably do that. Martin 16:51, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough. Cheers, Reedy Boy 19:03, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

<!-- -->

Why does AWB remove the <!-- --> code when using the apply general fixes function? And when moving the text, e.g. stub tags, it should recognize that they're being inside <!-- -->. Thanks. -Eleassar ^{my talk} 10:35, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean in your first question, AWB does not remove <!-- --> code, as for commented out stubs, there is a slight complication, but I'll try and avoid commented out text in the same way as it ignores text in <nowiki> tags. Martin 11:40, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, here is the diff from Slovenian WP. See on the left where AWB removed both stub and categories (kategorija) out of <!-- --> code. It also removes categories (and possibly other stuff) out of <noinclude></noinclude> and <includeonly></includeonly> code. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 12:57, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

That is because many of the general fixes functions were not designed to work outside of the english wp, as it says when you change the language. Hopefully in the future this will change. Martin 14:16, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

That said, it will be fixed in the next version. Martin 15:07, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Another thing that would be very useful is to be able to save a list of searches (not only items found) made by Make list. For example, there are about 20 templates that I regularly translate in the articles (or other pages where they are included) from their English to Slovenian names. Now I have to enter each one of them separately in the field 'what links to' to make a complete list of pages to be modified instead of just uploading a file with all their names and pressing the button. I hope you understand what I want to say. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 15:23, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Html entities? Me or AWB

G. I. Gurdjieff this diff I unintentionally removed &#150; &#151; and replaced them with entities which seem to render as squares on IE and not at all on Firefox. "Unicodify whole article" is on. Is it AWB doing this, and if so is it a bug? Rich Farmbrough 16:17 13 June 2006 (GMT).

Ok, will be fixed, thanks. Martin 16:58, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Odd unicode + --> box

Try to unicodify Ammonia and see what happens, AWB tries to replace a superscript "+" with a box. Onco_p53 12:04, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

It is actually working, its just that internet explorer doesnt display that character properly, I'll stop it changing that one. thanks Martin 12:25, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I have found another one too (&#7944), is it as simple as all above a certain range do not display correctly? Onco_p53 12:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Please DO NOT change html subscript and superscript to the unicode ones (with the exception of isolated uses of 1 2 and 3), the unicode ones are rendered either poorly or not at all on every system i have seen. Plugwash 20:49, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Quite right, but it is important to identify the offending unicode so that AWB can be told to ignore these. Perhaps if we add them to the list here User:Mboverload/AWB#Codes_found_that_do_not_translate_for_viewing_in_IE (if User:Mboverload is agreeable), or elsewhere. Onco_p53 21:56, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Please get the just released version (3.0.0.4) this has lots of improvements. thanks Martin 22:16, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

However ^∞ doesn't work for me. Just a blob. Rich Farmbrough 16:47 16 June 2006 (GMT).

wiki:pt

The translate these variables for wiki:pt:

         strlangcode = "pt";
         strcategoryns = "Categoria:";
         strtemplatens = "Predefinição:";
         struserns = "Usuário:";
         strimagens = "Imagem:";
         strtalkns = " discussão:";
         strarticletalkns = "Discussão:";
         strspecialns = "Especial:";
         strportalns = "Portal:";
         strmediawikins = "MediaWiki:";
         strnext200 = "próximos 200";
         strsummarytag = " utilizando AWB";

thanks. Rei-artur 23:39, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Category Ordering

Hi, Would it be possible to have AWB organise categories into alphabetical order? As it would look better on articles.

I have put it on SF, but there has been no comment

Reedy Boy 15:22, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

There is a comment, it says It previously had this feature, but it became apparent that many editors like to sort categories by importance rather than the alphabet.. Martin 15:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

That was quick. Ah, right, ok. No point changing them for them to be changed back. Fair enough. Cheers Reedy Boy 15:26, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Section edit?

Is it possible for the AWB to edit only the section with the change to be made, rather than the whole document (presuming only one section will require an edit)? bd2412 T 03:01, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Well I suppose nothing is impossible, but it would be quite complicated, and make the software quite a bit slower. Martin 12:55, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I ask because I occasionally use the software to leave notices on talk pages, but the edit will not save if a banned spam link appears anywhere on the page (such as a link to the webpage on which a banned editor keeps a watchlist of Wikipedians). As an alternative, how about automatically breaking banned links? bd2412 T 13:11, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Days of the year

AWB becomes harder to fool! The days of the year articles (May 1 etc. and to a lesser extent the year articles) need to use the link syntax to render their own names according to date preference. Of course AWB spots this, and delinks. I have replaced all the relevant bits with {{PAGENAME}} as a solution. Like the Borg AWB has adapted to this and now substs PAGENAME. My only remaining trick is to deliberately reverse the name (1 May) but this seems obtuse if someone has no date preferences set. Any other ideas? Rich Farmbrough 16:58 16 June 2006 (GMT).

(Martin isn't exactly so happy about this, but...) Depending on what you want to do, you could try out MWB. MWB only does the linkfixing link simplifyer. But you need to compile it yourself (no exe provided). Otherwise, you could switch off the "Apply General Fixes" of AWB. --Ligulem 21:47, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Alternatively, I will make it check the article to make sure it is not a date article when it does the offending operation. thanks. Martin 22:09, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Fix will be in next release. Martin 22:16, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Many thanks as ever. Rich Farmbrough 23:20 23 June 2006 (GMT).

Password

I just tried to download the newest update, but when I tried to extract the files, it said it was password protected. How do I avoid this? --D-Day ^{What up? Am I cool, or what?} 19:49, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I just downloaded AutoWikiBrowser3004.zip from sourceforge and could extract and run that. No request for a password appeared. So: works for me. Did you try to repeat the download? Maybe trying a different sourceforge files mirror? (the list of mirrors is displayed right before the download begins).--Ligulem 21:33, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

emdash, endash

Can we get AWB to stop converting emdash and endash to – and —? They look so similar in the edit box, and most people are used to seeing &emdash and &endash anyway, it doesn't really make a difference if they stay. —Mets501 (talk) 03:30, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

AWB specifically does not convert these, unless they are in links (because then they get found by wikipedia:Bad links). Martin 10:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm...OK. Maybe when I saw it, it was for a link. Thanks. —Mets501 (talk) 14:58, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Strange AWB Remove

Any ideas why AWB removed [[Category:Living people|Davidson, Jaye]] from Jaye Davidson ? Can't see it should just remove catagories, unless there is a category above it, or a sub category somewhere.... Any ideas? Reedy Boy 22:19, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Just ran it again on the article, but it didnt this time... Reedy Boy 22:22, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

It was a duplicate category. Martin 08:31, 19 June 2006 (UTC)

Translation nl.wikipedia

There was made a translation for the Dutch Wikipedia (some subjects above). However there is a little error in it:

strtalkns = " overleg:";

must be:

strtalkns = "Overleg ";

We are using it as a prefix instead of a suffix. But for the rest, it is a perfect alternative for a normal bot with it's primitive user interface, go on with the good work. JePe 14:44, 20 June 2006 (UTC) (also known as nl:Gebruiker:JePeAWB since today)

By the way, for that bot-account I now use a special stylesheet to hide everything you don't use in AWB like the tabs, the logo and the sidebar. Even the editform is hided by the css, so you must use another account or another skin to edit the css. Only the links with your name and talkpage on the top are visible so you can see that you are logged on:

#siteNotice, #p-logo, #p-cactions, #p-navigation, #p-navigation2, #p-search, 
#p-tb, #p-lang, #footer, #editform { display:none !important; }
#content { margin:1.5em 0 0 0 !important; border-left:none; }
table.diff { width: 100%; }

JePe 20:55, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Checking version

Could AWB possibly be changed to check if the current version is enabled at startup? I've just got all my parameters set up for an AWB run only to discover that my version doesn't work. A bit of a pain really :) --kingboyk 10:38, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

You can save all the settings, so they don't need to be entered again. Martin 11:02, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Problems with settings

I have made a list of usual mistakes of the catalan language and I saved them in the settings file (example: <datagridFAR find="l•l" replacewith="l·l" />, but when I try to open the settings file it says: Invalid character in the given encoding. Line x, position x. However if I open the program and I write exactly the same find-and-replace and I save it with another name, there is no problem to open it (so then I have two files apparently equal but one gives problems and the other not). Moreover, if I take the file without problems, I add a line manually, it gives me problems. I remove this line and I have still problems and I can not solve them. (Remark: if the problem were only for one line I would say nothing, but I have made a some hundreds lines setting file wich now I can not use).

Could be possible also not to destroy the <!-- comments --> on the settings file?: I want to explain the meaning of some changes, because some of them are quite cumbersome and they require an explanation for anyone who reads the file -as I want to hang it in my users page-, but if I open the file of settings with has some comments, I add a line with AWB and I save it, all the comments disappear... Thank you!--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 19:01, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Can you paste the contents of the file somewhere so I can see it, it sounds likely that you are entering characters that are reserved in XML, for example < > " and & must be used in their html forms &lt; &gt; &quot; and &amp; in the settings file, they will still be interpreted properly (i.e. not as html) by AWB though. Martin 21:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I have hanged the list I'm making here (to look it properly, better to click "edit"). But I really don't think it's such a kind of problem, because as I said I create a file settings from the beginning, I simply modify it slightly and it gives problems again, without having changed any special character... Thanks!--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 23:13, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I think I found the mistake. Sorry. Thanks.--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 00:16, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

No I didn't find it. I send you two very short files which I see apparently the same but one works and the other not. (I also hang them here and here--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 00:39, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

The two smaller files are identical to each other and both work, the larger file doesn't work because from line 22 onwards for about 3 lines there are unclosed quotes, which I have fixed now. Martin 09:00, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

When I thought I had found the problem was exactly because I found those mistakes. I solved them and still didn't work. Now with the corrections you made, I created a new file copying everything but also doesn't work. And the two identical files, still one works and the other not. Am I getting crazy?--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 13:07, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Check that the editor you are using can cope with special characters. Rich Farmbrough 23:16 23 June 2006 (GMT).

Splitting regex's from non-regex's

Is there a way for Find and Replace to have only some of the words be regex, and others not? —Centrx→talk • 04:12, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

User:Ligulem has made a control that does this, and will hopefully be integrated in the near future. Martin 09:45, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

StubSense support bit-rotted?

I haven't used the feature very recently, as StubSense has been down for a while, but it used to be the case that AWB processed "text file" links of the form: http://tools.wikimedia.de/~interiot/cgi-bin/queries/stub_sense?category=ice+hockey+biography+stubs&num_pages=4000&dbname=enwiki&template=Slovakia-bio-stub&AWB=.txt. This no longer seems to work in 3.0.0.5: I get an error message repeating the address, and "The above file name is invalid". Has support for this feature disappeared, or is some tweak to how it's entered required? (Still works if the output from the above is saved to a file and then loaded into AWB, btw.) Alai 03:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Hmm that was unexpected, fix will be in next release. thanks Martin 08:52, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

And thank you. Alai 15:33, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

How to use scripts?

Could somebody explain to me how I'm supposed to set up the scripts? Please respond on my talk page.--Ac1983fan (talk • contribs) 16:39, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

There are no scripts, it is an executable created around the .NET framework. Martin 17:54, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Scripts may not be the most correct terminology, but to use settings such as those found at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Scripts, copy the relevant text to a file on your computer, such as "mboverload.xml", then load up AWB, go to File->Load settings and find that file you just created. —Centrx→talk • 06:03, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Next release FEATURE PREVIEW

File:AWBnewfindandreplace.png

HOLY CRAP AWESOME NEW FIND AND REPLACE backported from MWiki-Browser by Ligulem. Thanks man, cool job!

These are screenshots from the latest dev build! Awesome.

• Opening IR_ M___TOR =D
• The main window
• Surprise 1
• Surprise 2
• Surprise 3
• Surprise 4
• Surprise 5!

--mboverload@ 05:41, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm normally not bragging with what I do for Wikipedia. But just for the records: The new find and replace control is from MWB. Done by me. The newest version of this on MWB even has hierarchical rules using a tree control [5]. Sorry for the self ad. But my somewhat controversial fork at least has brought something for AWB. Feel free to merge from MWB into AWB whatever you see fit. That's the idea behind open source. And thanks to all for letting me doing that fork. I can better try out new stuff there without disturbing Martin on AWB. --Ligulem 07:51, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Oh shit, sorry I forgot to mention that. User:bookofjude told me but I forgot to include that fact. Sorry! =D --mboverload@ 08:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

No problem. I just felt that it might help to explain a bit what I do on my evil fork ;). --Ligulem 08:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The screenshots are possibly not very helpful, as I'm never sure what features will make it into the next release, the IRC monitor thing is a whole separate piece of software, its just in the menu as a preview. Hopefully it will eventually get the VandalProof type features of reverting/warning etc. I have to say though, having your watchlist monitored live is very cool! Martin 08:40, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Martin, what is your vision for this functionality? Are you planning on challenging VandalProof for the role of defacto antivandalism tool, or at least take part of its marketshare? --mboverload@ 08:44, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

lol, well I don't really gain much from market share, and to be honest I haven't used VandalProof, but from what I can see it looks like it would gain a lot from using the IRC feed. At the moment this program doesnt even do the same thing as VandalProof, as it doesnt have any of the stuff to rollback, however it will do soon hopefully. Of course anyone is welcome to help in its construction. Martin 08:55, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Nice job on this, mboverload; I didn't see this preview, so it was a nice surprise when I happened to d/l the latest version. I was actually thinking of putting in a request for "guarded search and replace" feature a while ago, but thought I should have some mercy on the poor oppressed workforce... I do, however, have a small niggle: when the "replace" field is empty, that rule seems to be skipped entirely. I can hack around this by replacing nl's with nl's, along with the text to be removed, but it's a bit of a nuisance. Alai 02:30, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Looking at this new version, all I can say is WOW! It looks really impressive. I think that the revert functionality like VP is really a great idea. So yeah, very impressed. Alphachimp ^talk 02:13, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

"Ignore non-existent pages"

The "Ignore non-existent pages" option also ignores pages which exist, but are blank. Not sure if this is intentional – Gurch 12:36, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Problem opening application

Howdy there. I just registered for this software and got approved, and I downloaded it and the application won't run at all. When I double-click on it I get a message saying "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application." My computer's a Window's XP, so it seems like it should work. I installed the Microsoft .Net framework, and still no go. Can anyone help me with this? Thanks in advance. Ben Tibbetts 00:09, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

That error occurs when the .NET framework isnt installed, make sure you have version 2. Martin 08:08, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you; it's fixed. I thought I had installed it when I ran the downloaded program, but I hadn't properly done so and so the .Net framework wasn't actually on the computer. Much obliged! Ben Tibbetts 17:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Windows Internet Explorer 7 bug

When will AWB start working on Internet Explorer 7? I've been waiting for this for quite a while, since all my operating systems run IE7. — Alex ^(T|C|E) 08:40, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

First thing is to wait until it is released officially, then I need to track down what is different about it. Martin 10:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

I think you should remove the advice for downloading IE7 on AWB's page... It's misleading. — Alex ^(T|C|E) 22:12, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Option to skip if no changes found?

Is it possible to do that? Instead of having to press ignore, as when you are only doing basic changes, and there is nothing to do, it would be better if we didnt have to click ignore if we didnt want to do it.

Reedy Boy 17:27, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

In case you didn't know: In menu "General", checkmark the entry "Skip articles with no changes". Consider scanning an articledump with the DumpSearcher (built into AWB) if your hit rate is very low and or your list very long. --Ligulem 18:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Ooops. Thanks, never noticed that. With teh dumps, does it work offline, then search online if there are any changes and apply them? Which do we download? Or is it all of em? Reedy Boy 20:26, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

See User:Bluemoose/DataBaseSearchTool (Kudos to Martin for providing that). A dump is a snapshot of the top versions of articles/templates. The dump must be downloaded and can then be searched locally on your computer for articles that match some criteria. This produces a list of articlenames, which can then be fed into AWB. You can also ask someone who already has downloaded a recent dump to do a search for you. Martin has offered to do that in the past. My most recent dump I have locally is from 2006-05-18. I could do a search for you on that. Maybe Martin or somebody else has a newer dump. Drop me a note on my talk if you want me to do a search on 2006-05-18. Downloading a dump is about 40..50 minutes for me. --Ligulem 20:56, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Spacing on mdashs PLZ!

Could you add a behavior to force proper spacing for mdashes — thank you. Case in point, butter. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 02:49, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Why do you think this is proper spacing? The MOS, at WP:DASH, has both with space and without space as acceptable and common. Standard practice in English generally is to not have spaces. —Centrx→talk • 05:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks god awful in Wikipedia without spaces. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 03:50, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Using automated tools to impose a particular preference where the style guide permits both... why do I have the sense that this wouldn't be a particularly good thing to do? Kirill Lokshin 03:57, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey I don't mind British and American english coexisting on Wikipedia; but having both types of spacing for the dash ain't professional nor esthetically pleasing. "Imposing" a spacing; sounds a bit more ominous than it actually is. At the very least spacing should be consistent within an article. Or maybe we prefer our articles to look bad? Sheesh. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 00:22, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm,. then how about imposing spacing only where there is inconsistant spacing within an article? bd2412 T 04:05, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Decent start, and BTW I mentioned American/British style issue without even looking at the link provided. Also the two aren't exactly analogous in my opinion. While indeed there are different schools of thought on dash spacing, the implementation on Wikipedia makes spacing distinctly advantagous aesthetically for the font, and practically as no spaces makes dashes more difficult to see when editing. - RoyBoy ⁸⁰⁰ 06:47, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you also planning to space en-dashes, then? Having inconsistent spacing styles is worse, in my opinion, than having something that (some!) people feel is aesthetically displeasing. (For the record, I happen to think that unspaced dashes are much neater than the spaced ones, even once Wikipedia's font quirks are thrown into the mix.) Kirill Lokshin 01:48, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Given the amount of criticism generated by even the "simple and obvious" changes, I think this would probably bring on another round of restriction attempts and is unlikely to make AWB any more popular with those who already despise it and its ilk. You also need to bear in mind that AWB is being modified to work with other wikis, which might well have massively different style requirements: we need to accommodate everybody. If you want to set up your own regexes to accomplish the change, feel free to share them. HTH HAND

How do I make a spamlist?

How do I make a spamlist, like the wikipedia signpost? How do they do it? I'm going to be launching my spellchecker script and I'll do weekly mailing to remind people about updates. --mboverload@ 09:13, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

This might be my personal (bad?) taste, but I find these periodic serial additions of the same wiki-text to a whole list of user's talk pages a bit odd. Wouldn't it suffice to have your clients watch a page themselves? Or do it via template inclusion? Or have a good old email mailing list? --Ligulem 09:30, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm perfectly open to discussion, so thanks. Yes, I have been thinking about that. I would much perfer to contact them via email but that's kind of a touchy subject. And I know I can go 2 months without running CCleaner because I just forget...I don't know what to do. --mboverload@ 09:35, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

The list would be made like any other (e.g. load it up from a text file or a wiki page or even a category, though these would have to be populated first) however i agree that simply watching the page would be better (less effort, less bandwidth etc.). Out of interest, how many people actually use your settings file? Martin 12:29, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

I do. Religiously. If at all possible, MBOverload, please spam me. Alphachimp ^talk 13:14, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Martin, I can't exactly get a hitcounter, but a link to it is on about 7,000 edits in the summary =P --mboverload@ 09:27, 1 July 2006 (UTC)