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Unwikilinking

Why does AWB unwikilink section headers? --(trying to get 1,000 edits in 1 month!) TeckWizTalkContribs@ 15:08, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)#Linking. —Mets501 (talk) 15:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
As I've argued before, this is very poor behaviour by AWB. The solution is rarely just to unlink the header: the following text should be rewritten to include the header term, then link *that*. Just removing the link is harmful. Stevage 02:32, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem with save settings

Save settings feature does not save (or does not recall) the settings of sub-rules for Find and replace: Advanced. I think this problem has been mentioned before, I have the 15 December release. Gaius Cornelius 13:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

This was fixed in r562 in the codebase. Release 3.0.6.1 (15 December 2006) was built from r552. So you will have to wait for the next release or compile yourself.
BTW (to the developers): why not change the numbering scheme for releases to use x.y.z where z is the subversion revision number? 3.0.6.1 would then have been 3.0.552. --Ligulem 14:56, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that for a regular user keeping track of small numbers is a lot easier than big numbers, and most will not even know what SVN is. But it's not up to me, it's up to MaxSem what he calls the versions, so the final call is his. —Mets501 (talk) 06:40, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

ISBN 10 versus ISBN 13

AWB may need an update to recognize ISBN 13 with the prefix of either 978 or 979. At least one example exists of AWB marking this as an error. Williamborg (Bill) 17:57, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

The only automatic ISBN-related conversion AWB currently performs is to remove colon from constructs like ISBN: XXXXX. Everything else is achieved through custom regexes and user who made such edits must be contacted regarding this. MaxSem 20:51, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Linux

I know this page says it is unlikely that AWB will be ported to linux, but is anyone working on this? It's under GPL, so maybe it would be possible for a group of us to make it if enough people were keen. I've never really worked on a software project like this (I mainly work on physics simulations with command line UI in C++!), but I'd be willing to learn whatever language/API necessary and help out with the development if anyone needs me. Alternatively, is there a decent wikipedia editing tool available for linux? I like AWB a lot but it's a pain for me to switch to Windows every time I want to use it! Alex valavanis 01:20, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Well it is coded in C# so it shouldn't be to hard to port it to Mono at some point, but it depends on IE which as you most likely know isn't available for Linux (unless your using Wine). Really unless the core of the program rewritten it is pointless to port it and I think it would make more sense to just start a project from scratch that uses a truly cross platform language and API. BJTalk 01:31, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Strange error...

I keep getting an Application Error when I try to run AWB... "The application failed to initialize properly (0x0000005). Click on OK to terminate the application" Any ideas? ---J.S (T/C) 14:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Have you got .Net Framework 2 installed? It's a necessity for AWB to work. See the main page for more info. Harryboyles 15:07, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Then again, a quick google search suggests that it may not be that you don't have it installed. I owuldn't really know what it is that is causing the problem. I quickly jumped in as the error codes are similar. Harryboyles 15:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
I've been running across some other problems with the computer. Networking functions are goofed up and IE isn't working properly. I think IE's problems have more to do with it then anything else. I've never seen these problems before... I suspect it's going to end in a reformat. ---J.S (T/C) 07:55, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Too slow or unstable

AutoWikiBrowser hungs up when I start filtering for a main space only. TaskManager shows near 100% CPU load and application looks like if it runs filtering. Is it ok? Are there any issues I have to take into account? Mashiah Davidson 01:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

It finished after 20 minutes for 200 000 articles list. It is too slow. Isn't it? Mashiah Davidson 01:47, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
AWB is not a bot and isn't designed to work like this the best i've ever managed is 10 -15 edits a min so your 200000 would take 20000 min or over 800 days to edit ! (Gnevin 01:50, 4 January 2007 (UTC))
I am not yet editing but I am looking for a tool for my task. Do you have an idea on how to improve Lonelypages list? I mean
  1. not to take into account any links from any namespaces except for Articles (main namespace)
  2. to take into account links for not linked from main namespace disambiguation and redirection pages only
I just tried to create a list using AutoWikiBrowser but unfortunately I do not see any ways to proceed =( Mashiah Davidson 02:17, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Umm Query.php might be able to do it. Or better yet, you can convince someone on the toolserver to run a direct database search. ---J.S (T/C) 07:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Both, Query and API interfaces look interesting. Thank you for the link. Anyway, I analyzed the possibilities and found that interfaces are very similar in abilities to things AutoWikiBrowser does. I see that it is necessary to obtain a lot of queries in order to get the result I need.
You also mentioned I can communicate to someone from toolserver. Can you point me to the right person who can help me running a direct database search for ruwiki? I have to try to argue my needs to them. Mashiah Davidson 16:25, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Here you go: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Toolserver ---J.S (T/C) 20:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot! Mashiah 23:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Optimized this code, it should work waaay faster. MaxSem 21:18, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, nice to meet you here =) Mashiah 23:36, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Skip when no bytes are changed

It would be nice if there was an option to skip a page when things are just moved around not changed, as this is a "bad" practice. BJTalk 02:54, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Exactly! If something is to be avoided, it shouldn't be possible at all. Scepia 03:00, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Spelling Sargent → Sergeant

Sargent is a person's name and should not be replaced with Sergeant. Please update the typos section to reflect this. WilliamKF 02:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. —Mets501 (talk) 03:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
A similar problem exists with maneuver -> manoeuver (or however its spelled in British English). RegexTypoFix isn't supposed to change between American and British spellings, so it should be removed. At the moment I'm having to exclude any page that contains "maneuver" from my searches.— Dark Shikari talk/contribs 14:28, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
<Typo word="Maneuver" find="\b(M|m)anuever(s?|e[dr]|ing|abl[ey]|ability)\b" replace="$1aneuver$2" />
<Typo word="(Out)Manoeuver" find="\b([Oo]utm|M|m)an(?:[oeu]{1,2})ver(s?|ing|e[dr]|abl[ey]|ability)\b" replace="$1anoeuver$2" />

To me, that looks like they are keeping each other seperate... Just fixing spellings of that individual version... Reedy Boy 16:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, although the first is correcting spellings of the american spelling, the british looks to add the o if it isnt there.. Reedy Boy 16:35, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Arctic capitalized

The AWB wants to capitalize all occurrences of arctic, but I don't think that is correct when arctic is used as an adjective:

arctic

Please update the spelling regexps for this one too. WilliamKF 22:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Done —Mets501 (talk) 02:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

French

According to wiktionary:

In US English, "french" is generally not capitalized. In UK English, it is always capitalized.french fry

So the AWB needs to be updated accordingly. WilliamKF 01:34, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Done —Mets501 (talk) 02:19, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Database dump priority

I frequently execute a database search with long and complex regexes, and the database itself is getting longer and longer; currently a database search essentially locks up my computer. I would like to be able to perform these searches in the background while I do otherthings on the computer. I am sure I am not alone.

I know that the priority of the database dump can be adjusted, but putting the priority up is not going to help anybody and the reduction in priority is not enough to make any significant difference. When the database dump search was a separate entity, I could use the task manager to drop its priority significantly.

Is it possible to offer more substantive drop in priority, or to offer the dump search as a separate application? Gaius Cornelius 18:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

You can choose lowest possible priority. So the problem is probably in slow disk subsystem. Windows has some problems with differentiating priority of kernel requests. MaxSem 19:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Why would you need separate applications for this? You can start multiple AWB processes if you want. --Ligulem 19:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Redirects?

Seems it can't handle editing redirect pages as it appears to follow the redirect instead of editing the page itself although it does seem to display the page edited before going on. WilliamKF 04:08, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

You need to uncheck the bypass redirects options in the options menu. —Mets501 (talk) 05:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Wish list

  1. A facility to remove duplicate links; the rule I'd like to see is
    • If a term is linked in the openng paragraph, unlink all subsequent uses
    • If a term is linked in any level 2 section (under a == .. == heading) the unlink any other uses in that section.
  2. A prompt when exiting AWB to remind me to save changes to my settings. I keep forgetting to do this and then having to retype them
  3. An option to unlink common words - this would be a long list of basic English words such as numbers; days of the week; month names; parts of the body; basic colours; simple concepts such as age, height, length; family relationships (mother, father, son, daughter, child etc)
  4. Replacing text within images and links - obviously it has to leave the link address unchanged, but it should operate on the descriptive text
  5. Standard replacement in external links of phrases such as 'Official Web Site' , 'Official Site', Official Homepage' etc by 'Official website'
  6. Standard replacement of headings 'Current Members' and 'Past Members' by 'Current members' and 'Past members' (often needed in articles about bands) Colonies Chris 01:36, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Numbers 2 and 6 fixed for now, others not yet. —Mets501 (talk) 03:34, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
I understand the desire around eliminating duplicate links. I just got finished doing a lot of them by hand at the Rent (musical) article, where someone had linked every instance of the year in the list of awards. Since the musical received multiple awards in the same year, there were quite a few links that were totally unnecessary (um, particularly when the link appeared on the line above). So, I get it.
However, there are a few problems with removing all duplicate links of anything linked in the first paragraph. First of all, in long articles, it should be re-linked for convenience sake, which is acknowledged by Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Overlinking and underlinking: what's the best ratio?. "Good places for link duplication are often the first time the term occurs in each article subsection. Thus, if an important technical term appears many times in a long article, but is only linked once at the very beginning of the article, it may actually be underlinked."
A related issue is the situation where a link to another article is to a subsection of the article, not to the top of the page. Again, the Manual of Style, in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)#Context uses a specific example, Wikipedia:Redirect#Don't fix links to redirects that aren't broken. When you click this link, you are directed to the bottom of the article, some distance from the first paragraph. Interestingly, the word "target" appears both in the opening of the article and the referenced section; it is only linked at the top of the article. The link is useless, however, as it points to a disambiguation page and the closest listing for the intended meaning is in the "See also" section where Bullseye (target) is listed. Were that not the case, it would be a good thing for the link to be repeated in the lower section; the beginning of the article is far, far away.
If it would be possible to eliminate duplicate links within a section, leaving only the first instance in the section, that would be more desirable, to my mind.—DomBot talk ; Chidom talk, owner/operator. 04:26, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
My feelng is that if a term is so important to the subject in hand that it's mentioned and linked in the opening paragraph, it's probably vital for understanding throughout, so the original link serves for all. But if at least we can agree on unlinking dups within a section, that would eliminate a lot of manual work.
As a refinement, where the first link to the term within the section isn't on the first occurrence of the term, the link could be moved to the first occurrence (unless that's inside a quoted string).
And, of course, date links for formatting have to be excluded from all of this. Colonies Chris 10:43, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
I am not convinced about this semi-automated deletion of duplicate links. I feel that this is more complex than it seems at first impression. Sometimes a link is on a line matched with a counterpart or opposite, and so without such a link (in the right place) the page will become more difficult to read. Some pages are complex (with many difficult or technical words) in a long page, and duplicated links can help to guide a reader and save the reader from looking over all the page for a link. As a minimum, I feel that automated deletion of duplicate links should have many more constraints written into the automation - ie only for duplicates in a paragraph or sentence, and not in a section (which can be quite long). In addition I think that semi-automated duplicate link deletion should only be active on short articles or stubs. I feel that it would be too easy to mass delete carefully crafted duplicated links to a former featured article or a good article. May I ask that you put this out to more discussion, if you are planning to implement this; you might like to discus this with some wiki projects that tend to make technical pages, ie project medicine, project biochemistry, project astrophysics, and so on. In any case, may I suggest that this should be piloted on stubs shorter that 100 words prior to any expanded implementation, so that the software can be tested and become much more selective in what it does. Snowman 11:53, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. Excessive removing of duplicate links is far more harmful than the duplicate links themselves. Stevage 02:34, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
I would also hesitate to move the link of a word to the first occurrence in the section. Often times, I will deliberately leave it unlinked there and move it to a close subsequent occurrence (the next sentence or two) to avoid having a long line of links in a row that makes it hard to read the text and easy to miss a link. Remember that links aren't always about readers not knowing anything about the subject of the link, but are also about "oh! I'd like to know more about that". In a long line of links, it's easy to just skip them all if the reader understands the article itself. The only way to codify removal of duplicate links that I can think of is if the link occurs within a set number of words since its last occurrence and no headers have occurred between occurrences. That would ensure that even if the link is the last word in the previous section and the first word in the next, someone arriving at the latter would still have access to the link from the former. I can't imagine a situation where you would need the same term linked within about 1,000 words of its previous occurrence (excluding the signatures, this section as of this edit is, according to my offline editor, 1,190 words). Is this a way to go?—Chidom talk  23:37, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

My wish list for AWB: more than PC. Or for someone to build .NET for Mac and others *nix-likes faster (and more up to date). But, it'll never happen. Too bad. :( -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 22:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

From what I can tell AWB is tied into IE, thus making it impossible to run on mono. BJTalk 23:01, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
Should work when/if the mono team get Windows.Forms 2.0 supported (even then it'll be difficult to make compatible). Martinp23 20:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Or someone could just port it into another language more comparable with other systems (like Obj-C for Mac). -Royalguard11(Talk·Desk·Review Me!) 04:53, 7 January 2007 (UTC)
Language is not a problem, it's Internet Explorer core. See Wikipedia talk:IRCMonitor. MaxSem 09:19, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Detecting Red links and adding text within included templates randomly

Hello, I have a quick question. I need to use AWB to filter through all pages in Category:Celebrity birthdays. These pages are used for the Birthdays section on Portal:Music. The problem is, the list of birthdays on each page is very long and some links are red, which we don't want on a portal's main page. At the moment, I'm having to go through each page manually and add hidemain=true to entries which either have a red link in, or just randomly (to reduce the length of the list). For example:

{{Portal:Music/DateOfBirth/Template|Mike Ness|singer and guitarist for [[Social Distortion]]|1962|hidemain=true}}

See also for example Portal:Music/DateOfBirth/January 1. I was wondering if there was a way to get AWB to do this automatically? Madder 18:45, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

No, AWB doesn't have a feature to detect if link is red, you should look at m:Pywikipedia. MaxSem 19:11, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm looking at m:Pywikipedia but I can't see how this can help? Madder 19:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
You can just run the regex
Find {{Portal:Music/DateOfBirth/Template\|(.*?)\|(.*?)\|(.*?)}}
Replace {{Portal:Music/DateOfBirth/Template|$1|$2|$3{{subst:#ifexist:$1|{{subst:!}}hidemain=true|}}}}
on all of the pages. This should work, but it's untested, so you better try it out before running it on all the pages. —Mets501 (talk) 21:56, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I tried AWB's preview mode on one of the pages to see if it would work, but it doesn't seem to work - it misses some red links, and adds {{subst:!}}hidemain=true|}} to others that don't have red links, and it seems to put {{subst:!}}hidemain=true|}} in plain text in the article. The other problem is sometimes there are also red links in what would be the value of $2. Madder 22:17, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

AWB bug?

See this diff. Notice the mistake it made removing the category--is this a bug? — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 02:51, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. Can you specify? —Mets501 (talk) 20:04, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
|} was moved to the previous line, resulting in broken table. That's why I always edit templates by hand and use preview button, you can never be sure that esoteric constructs will be intact. MaxSem 20:14, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, yes, I noticed it was moved to the previous line, but didn't notice that it broke the table. —Mets501 (talk) 20:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
This definitely needs to be fixed because removing user categories in substed userboxes is extremely aggravating if it has to be done manually. — Dark Shikari talk/contribs 21:13, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
Fixed. MaxSem 22:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

reminder

  • just to remind, one of the AWB's purposes is to move stubs on plwiki from before categories to other place, it was previously moving this on the bottom but this has been changed in the 3.0.6.0 after pl.suggestions, i need to use the older version because 3.0.6.1 works bad again
  • subrules disappeared into options-advanced after loading saved settings, it in the 3.0.6.0 so it might be fixed already
  • in the config .xml file there are lot of broken lines containing regexes, i think it puts "enter" when \r\n appears, advanced options are stored properly --gregul —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.234.42.68 (talk) 19:54, 6 January 2007 (UTC).

Make Module

Do you need/want someone to do the code for the module in VB .NET?

Reedy Boy 15:55, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

AWB request

Could someone who knows what they are doing with AWB (ie, not me) go through Wikipedia and do the following changes - I was going to fix it but there's over ten pages of them:

  • Privelege, privilige --> Privilege
  • Priveleged, priviliged --> Privileged
  • Priveleges, priviliges --> Privileges

Thanks. Proto::► 13:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I've changed all of these that I found through Google search - if anyone wants to look through a database dump for more, feel free, but you'll find many/most are gone. —Krellis 18:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
There are more. After recent updates to MediaWiki, wikisearch tends to give better results than Google. MaxSem 18:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, somehow I had totally missed that Wiki Search was even an option. I'll make another pass through in a bit. Thanks. —Krellis 18:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I only found one or two that Google had missed, using wikisearch, and changed those too. There are still quite a few listed, but they're all out of the mainspace, or they're articles that the search engine just hasn't caught up with after the changes I made earlier. So it's as done as I can accomplish now. :) —Krellis 19:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

suggestion

can option "ignore externatinterwiki links..." (from find and replace) be broken into several options as I need to check errors into external links too? ABW didn't catch 2 mistakes into description to this link:

*[http://isip.sejm.gov.pl/servlet/Search?todo=open&id=WDU19970880553 Ustawa z dnia 6 czerwca 1997 - Kodeks karny] --gregul —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.234.42.68 (talk) 14:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

AWB request

Could someone who knows what they are doing with AWB (ie, not me) go through Wikipedia and do the following changes - I was going to fix it but there's over ten pages of them:

  • Privelege, privilige --> Privilege
  • Priveleged, priviliged --> Privileged
  • Priveleges, priviliges --> Privileges

Thanks. Proto::► 13:38, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I've changed all of these that I found through Google search - if anyone wants to look through a database dump for more, feel free, but you'll find many/most are gone. —Krellis 18:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
There are more. After recent updates to MediaWiki, wikisearch tends to give better results than Google. MaxSem 18:48, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, somehow I had totally missed that Wiki Search was even an option. I'll make another pass through in a bit. Thanks. —Krellis 18:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I only found one or two that Google had missed, using wikisearch, and changed those too. There are still quite a few listed, but they're all out of the mainspace, or they're articles that the search engine just hasn't caught up with after the changes I made earlier. So it's as done as I can accomplish now. :) —Krellis 19:08, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

suggestion

can option "ignore externatinterwiki links..." (from find and replace) be broken into several options as I need to check errors into external links too? ABW didn't catch 2 mistakes into description to this link:

*[http://isip.sejm.gov.pl/servlet/Search?todo=open&id=WDU19970880553 Ustawa z dnia 6 czerwca 1997 - Kodeks karny] --gregul —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.234.42.68 (talk) 14:17, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

IE or Fire Fox

Hi,

Would AutoWikiBrower work on Fire Fox if it does not work on Internet Explorer? If it doesn't work on either Internet Explorer or Fire Fox, what would it work on and where would I download that broswer to use this specific tool?

Wiki Raja 06:29, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

It should work only on Internet Explorer. Firefox is a Gecko-based browser, and therefore does not work with AWB. It should work with Internet Explorer, however. Are you sure you have the .NET 2.0 framework (download here)? —Mets501 (talk) 12:08, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Please see the above section. AWB does not use Internet Explorer, it does however happen to use the same web browser control that Internet Explorer does, the equivalent FireFox component does not provide the needed functionality. Sumanth | Talk | Click here to join Andhra Pradesh project 12:07, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Please note also there is subtle cookie sharing going on. Rich Farmbrough, 17:25 13 January 2007 (GMT).

Problem with AWB

I am using version 3.0.6.1 of AWB. It suddenly stopped working from yesterday. It shows a message "Software disabled" at the bottom. Please help. Sumanth | Talk | Click here to join Andhra Pradesh project 11:54, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, that shouldn't happen. Try again and see if it works :-) —Mets501 (talk) 12:05, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
No use :(. I've tried everything from restarting AWB to restarting my PC. I've even tried version 3.0.6.0. Is there anything else i could try? Sumanth | Talk | Click here to join Andhra Pradesh project 12:16, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
And your definately on the Check List... Reedy Boy 13:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Yup, my name is on the checklist. Just dunno what to do.  :( Sumanth | Talk | Join Andhra Pradesh project 03:59, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Have you tried clearing your cache? Load http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage&action=purge in Internet Explorer and then try. —Mets501 (talk) 04:00, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
No change. It is still "disabled" !!. It displays the messsage "Software disabled" for a moment and then displays "Loading page to check if we are logged in". Sumanth | Talk | Join Andhra Pradesh project 05:11, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
AWB status

There is user information box at the bottom right corner of AWB window, see screenshot. What it displays after you login? Have you edited Wikipedia manually using Internet Explorer? Do you have any IE addons installed? Have you checked your system for spyware? MaxSem 13:54, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Deep category content

When dealing with stub sorting, looking at the deep content of the categories is frequently important, e.g looking at Category:Bears when searching for stubs belonging to its parent Category:Carnivores. Can you add that feature to the program? Eli Falk 22:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Just select the categories in the list and right click-add selected to list-from category. —Mets501 (talk) 12:06, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Except that if I want to look deeper than that (i.e find all stubs about mammals, then this is a lot more work than it sounds like. Eli Falk 20:32, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
It's not TOO terrible - if you sort the list alphabetically after each adding of new categories, all of the "Category:" items will be together, so they're easy to select and repeat the process. Eventually you should get to the point where there are no more categories - as long as the categories aren't nested too deeply, this shouldn't be all that much extra work.
That said, I do think it would be a neat feature to have at some point, to add pages by "Recursive Category", but as Mets501 pointed out, it is possible, currently. —Krellis 17:08, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Martin was concerned that this might be a dangerous feature. I don't know if I agree. Rich Farmbrough, 17:26 13 January 2007 (GMT).

Problem with loading of templates from category

Example:

"Make from Category"
Category: Категория:Википедия:Шаблоны:Лицензии изображений
Press Make list

and... list is empty. :-( --Alex Spade 16:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Try dropping the Wikilink brackets and the category bit at teh front (i think thats waht it says...)
ie

Just type in

Википедия:Шаблоны:Лицензии изображений

Reedy Boy 20:34, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry for "[[]]", I know about them, this is my unfortunate misprint. There is no difference between

Категория:Википедия:Шаблоны:Лицензии изображений
or
Википедия:Шаблоны:Лицензии изображений

In first case, AWB deletes Категория: itself.

May be AWB doesn't understand prefix Шаблон: instead (of) English variant Template:? --Alex Spade 13:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

AWB for uk:

How to enable AWB for other wikipedia project? I can not find uk: in language list --OlegMarchuk 09:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

По запросу Movses'а я уже всё сделал, будет в следующем релизе. MaxSem 10:04, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Где оно вообще правится? И когда будет следующий релиз? :) --OlegMarchuk 10:49, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
You are also able to use other 3rd party wiki's, by entering the URL where index.php of this wiki resides - не похоже на правду: куда урл вводить? --OlegMarchuk 10:56, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
File → User and project preferences → Project → Custom. Следующий релиз будет через несколько дней, когда я закончу отладку новых фич. MaxSem 11:00, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
О, нашел. Ввожу uk.wikipedia.org/w/ - получаю ошибку. Так задумано? --OlegMarchuk 11:06, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
Quick question... does a custom wiki need to have an "approved" list? Also, is any of that Russian (?) relevant to setting up AWB for third-party wikis? ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:15, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
It seems that this error does not depends on CheckPage. As I see in source code error in parsing namespace list. And when I use en.wikipedia.org (or en.wikipedia.org/w/) as custom wiki I have error too--OlegMarchuk 09:26, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
Damnit. I'd realy like to use it on a few wikis I'm working on... ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:25, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
I have used it on de: with no problem. Rich Farmbrough, 17:24 13 January 2007 (GMT).

Ignore all

I was recently making a list from a sub categories of a parent with 10+ articles in the category .I clicked added selected to list from category and AWB then proceeded to tell me the 10 articles weren't correct categories it would be nice to be able to ignore the warning after you get it the first time (Gnevin 23:51, 11 January 2007 (UTC))

Would this be possible? (Gnevin 20:54, 15 January 2007 (UTC))

Debugger

I keep getting a debugger notice every time I go to load and save pages. What's the problem? → JARED (t)  21:21, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

Which version? MaxSem 21:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
The newest, and it's been happening for a while on other versions, too. It's kind of annoying. → JARED (t)  21:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
It happened to me last week a couple of times, but I was able to get it to ignore and continue. As of tonight it always loads the debugger and will not work. I downloaded and installed the latest copy, and also did a repair on .NET framework, still fails.
   recent2.addToolboxLink=function(url, name, id){
   >>var tb = document.getElementById('p-tb').getElementsByTagName('ul')[0];<<
   recent2.addlilink(tb, url, name, id);

--ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 06:08, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

same here, just got it and it loads the debugger, saying there's an unhandled exception... System.BadImageFormatException ??? -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 15:25, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

proxy

I can not use AWB thru proxy that require auth. --OlegMarchuk 10:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC) Symptoms:

  • open IE, enter proxy login and password, set auto save password
  • open uk.wikipedia.org, login into wiki
  • open AWB
  • click 'file => login in'
  • alert('Problem, You are not logged in...'), click 'ok'
  • I see my wiki username into right-bottom corner on green background
    • select 'My Watchlist' in step 1, click 'make list', waiting some time :)
    • I see my watchlist in list of loaded pages
    • select 'from Category' in step 1, click 'make list'
    • type 'Головна' (whatever)
    • I see alert('Unexpected error. Remote server return an error: 407 Proxy Authentication Required')
  • close AWB
  • close IE

So, why AWB can loggin into wikipedia, check my status (It show me as logged in and 'admin' in status bar, but I don't remenber what I can do to see it), can load my watchlist, but can not load articles in category --OlegMarchuk 15:24, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Reloading AWB/Typos

Firstly, on the Set options >> More... tab is a typo "Categores". Now, is it possible to reload Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos without restarting AutoWikiBrowser? --Hautala 19:33, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

The typo is fixed. May I ask why you need to reload the typo list without restarting AWB? —Mets501 (talk) 22:23, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
I've come across a desire to do this, as well - if I'm in the middle of a typo-hunting session, and I come across a new misspelling that I then add to WP:AWB/T, or if I notice that someone else has added one, or a broken entry is fixed (etc etc), I would like to be able to reload the list of typos without having to save my list to a file, make sure my settings are saved, close AWB, re-start, re-load list, etc. It would be convenient - certainly not an "end of the world" kind of issue, though. —Krellis 23:06, 15 January 2007 (UTC)
That would be useful whilst crawling large lists of pages... Cant see it being difficult to implement, just needs a button/similar to call the reload of the typo's like it does on the formload... Reedy Boy 18:27, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

(stub sorting using AWB)

When an article is rendered, the categories are automatically shown at the bottom of the page, and any stub-templates above. It seems logic to me to have the same order in the source code, too. Is there a Wiki Policy or style manual that requires or suggests that stubs be moved to the end of the source code?

SlaveToTheWage (talk · contribs), who uses AWB for stub sorting and thus causes many entries in my watch list, responded [1] that "It is the standard format in which AWB sorts out the cats, templates and inter wiki links. Stub templates are put at the very end of the article, as they are not a permanent part of the article and could be easily removed later.". When content is expanded and the stub template can be removed, I expect to find it easily in the same order as is shown in the article, not hidden below categories and interwikilinks in a confusing reverse order.

Due to AWB, stubs are now placed between a succession box and the categories in many Teutonic Order Hochmeister bios like Friedrich Wettin von Sachsen, which looks plain ugly to me, please compare my version with AWB.

Thus, I suggest making the order consistent by changing the AWB settings. Thanks in advance! -- Matthead discuß!     O       20:10, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Duh, I'm really bedazzled with those stubs. Each time something changes, people ask for another change. Relevant part of WP:STUB says:

By convention, these stub templates should be placed near the bottom of the article. Because the stub identification is rendered on an article page prior to hardcoded items like categories and inter-Wiki language links, the template is usually placed at the end of the article proper, after the External links section if it exists, and also after any navigation templates, but before categories or inter-Wiki links. However, since the stub category is the least important of the article's categories, some Wikipedians prefer to place the template after the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last.

So, where should AWB move stub tags on the English Wikipedia? Please opine. MaxSem 15:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The very end. In my opionion:
  • Lead/inofoboxen
  • TOC
  • Content
  • Standard appendices
  • Nav boxen
  • Cats
  • Interwikis
  • Cleanup templates
  • Stub templates.
Rich Farmbrough, 17:21 13 January 2007 (GMT).

How about just not touch the stubs?

Keeping the stubs where a human has put them would be a good idea, should spare one headache. Also, I wonder why stubs are called "least important" - its important that the article is expanded and the stub tag removed. As written above, I prefer the order as rendered, thus stub tags above the categories were it meets the eye rather than at the very bottom, maybe hidden if the screen is not scrolled enough. -- Matthead discuß!     O       12:17, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
So far as I know, this got in there during one of SPUI's anti-stub kicks, and no-one has bothered taking out. I've reworded it. One could argue this either way (stub tags being on the one hand temporary, and on the other (at least supposedly) relating to primary notability and as Matt says, having cleanup significance). It's also not saying anything actionable, so it's really a bit pointless. Short of "don't put the stub tags in the middle of the article body, nor in the middle of the categories", I don't think there's any systematic or agreed preference. Alai 16:09, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

different bug

"Make list from category" (from the list) says "Category:<blah> does not exist>. I've had to revert to 3.0.6.1. Rich Farmbrough, 19:41 17 January 2007 (GMT).

Agreed (3.1.0.0) built from latest SVN Sources Reedy Boy 12:33, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Not functioning for other projects

There's a notice saying that it doesn't seem to work for other projects: well I suggested allowing download of the previous version then, since that seemed to work fine on my other computer, but this one doesn't work. It think it's kinda discrimination and would really appreciate it if we could still download properly functioning versions.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 11:34, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

It works for other projects. Please check everything yourself before using aggressive and uncivil wording such as 'discrimination'. As of previous releases, all of them is available here. MaxSem 12:06, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
Sorry I didn't mean to be uncivil, I apologize. It was not ment in that way. There was a notice when I tried to use it saying that "It might not be working for other projects than the English Wikipedia", and it didn't work when I tried it for the English Wikinews. I thought it was unfair.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 00:24, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
It still doesn't work, btw.--Steven Fruitsmaak (Reply) 00:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

moving stubs, again

please stop doing this ([2]) on .pl, 3.0.6.0 worked good (opposing this) --gregul —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.234.42.68 (talk) 22:32, 15 January 2007 (UTC).

Stubs should go after cats, because then the content categories come before the stub categories. Rich Farmbrough, 19:43 17 January 2007 (GMT).
don't tell us what we should do on .pl, .pl admin bots do it as I said, and as i previously said, 3.0.6.0 worked good gregul —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.234.42.68 (talk) 22:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC).

AWB request

I can't figure out where to put this. Can someone with AWB please fix all the mentions of Éric Cantona so they're Eric Cantona, eliminating the redirect? (note no diacritic). Somebody changed every link to Éric a few months back despite it being wrong to do so (see Talk:Eric Cantona if you wish to know more). I know little about AWB so would appreciate this. Thanks. If there's a better place to put such a request, please do let me know (I couldn't find one). Proto::► 19:28, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I'll handle this one with my bot, but for the future the correct place for a request such as this would be Wikipedia:Bot requests. :-) —Mets501 (talk) 19:37, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
Got it, thanks for the help; I'll go there in future. Or actually learn how to use AWB. Proto::► 12:33, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

bug in new version

I've just installed the latest version and found that if large list is created and then you try to remove selected entries, the list freezes and does not show the remaining items. Even if you try to clear the list or create a new one the remains of the previous lists still shows in the window.--JAXHERE | Talk 14:32, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Does the behavior replicate itself after you restart the application? A lot of AWB's memory issues can be resolved by closing and reopening it. alphachimp 06:21, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

United Kingdom

There seems to be an automatic fix /united kingdom/United Kingdom/. I can imagine lots of circumstances where the two words appear together and shouldn't be capitalised. Like this, for example, and this. For some reason Monte Argentario hasn't yet been changed, and shouldn't be. Presumably there are more, but it's not especially easy to find them. Angus McLellan (Talk) 23:29, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

 Done Removed. —Mets501 (talk) 15:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Replacements in the edit summary

Sometimes they are not added correctly like here. Jogers (talk) 14:28, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Weird. Did you do anything out of the ordinary with that page, like make edits to the text box before submitting, stopping the process and restarting it at that page, or anything similar? Was "With The Lights Out → With the Lights Out" in your find/replace queue at the time? —Mets501 (talk) 15:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
"With The Lights Out → With the Lights Out" was present in my replacement settings at the time but in this case I manually changed it back to "With The Lights Out". Jogers (talk) 15:30, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
That must be the problem then. It probably made the change, added it to the edit summary, but then you edited away the change before saving. As far as fixing it...I'd say it's a rare enough occurrence that it's not worth the trouble of fixing. —Mets501 (talk) 15:58, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Right. But didn't it use to list all the replacements anyway? Jogers (talk) 16:13, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I thought it still does. Was the other change it that edit manual or automatic? —Mets501 (talk) 16:32, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Automatic. Here it also listed only the last replacement. Jogers (talk) 16:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
It's an option. Rich Farmbrough, 23:06 20 January 2007 (GMT). 23:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Problem with settings

First. Could you please increase the space between funstion Save settings and Save as default? Sometimes I confuse with them and press Save as default instead of Save settings. :-(

Second. I'd made the suit of rules for find and replace section:

1. Name: Check <!--. Type: entyre text. If contain: <!--
1.1. Name: Check <nowiki>. Type: entyre text. If contain: <!nowiki>
1.1.1. Name: Rule1. Type: inside template. Find: ^p|. Replace: |. If contain: Описание изображения.
1.1.2. Name: Rule2. Type: inside template. Find: |-. Replace: |. If contain: Описание изображения.
1.1.3. Name: Rule3. Type: entyre text. Find: Описание изображения. Replace: subst:TTC.

I'd saved this suit (as замена.xml) for next day, but today I've loaded it and seen only first rule. :-( Where is my other rules? ;-( I've checked this "make suit/save/load" more then 5 times with same results. What is the problem?

I'm working at ru-Wiki and using IE6.0 and AWB 3.0.5.2 and 3.0.6.1. --Alex Spade 16:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Update of second remark

Again. I've created the new suit of rules, saved them, loaded and... :-( I see only first rule. I think there is the problem with saving of subrules -- If there aren't subrules in suit, it's all working.--Alex Spade 21:10, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a known bug with saving subrules. Should be fixed in r562. You need to update to 3.1.0.0 to get the fix. --Ligulem 22:53, 17 January 2007 (UTC)
There still seems to be a problem with 3.1.0.0: it gets confused by sub-subrules. Gaius Cornelius 21:52, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Why does AWB add so many blank lines above {stub}s causing a bunch of excess white space?

(included from User talk:Safemariner)

Like here? Can you please cite the page of the Manual of Style or related document that states extra blank lines are a good thing? I haven't come across it since I've been editing since early 2004. 71.231.107.188 00:49, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

It makes sure that there is space between the top of the stub and the preceding text. In some cases, difficult to define (and even more difficult to recall), insufficient space causes unsightly collisions. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:52, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Most of the baseball bio stubs would be good examples. AWB adds the perfect number of blank lines for those. Kathy A. 14:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

software glitch, won't load

whenever i try to open AWB, it says there's an exception error (i.e. "System.BadImageFormatException") and then doesn't load. I have the latest version - 3.1.0.0 ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 16:53, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Have you got V2 of the .NET framework installed? Reedy Boy 17:11, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

not sure anymore, had to swtich back and forth a couple times becuase some programs weren't liking one version as oppoed to the other. I think the answer is likely to be no. EZ way to check w/out just installing the 2.0 version? -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 18:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Goto C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework
Is there a folder that starts as v2? If that, or the framework folder doesnt exist, then it ISNT installed. Or try [3] Reedy Boy 18:56, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Or you can go to Control Panel->Add or Remove Programs and look for Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0. —Mets501 (talk) 00:43, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

ok, it doesn't seem i have it. I think i rm it because Visual Studio 2003 wasn't working with it, and i also currently only have the 1.1 SDK. Is there anything else I'll need to do (like reinstalling Visual Studio, or first uninstalling 1.1) to make the transition go smoothly? -ΖαππερΝαππερ BabelAlexandria 15:54, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

I have .NET 1.1 and .NET 2.0 on my pc with Visual Studio 2003 and Visual Studio 2005. If V1 is installed and patched up to date, just stick on V2, and it works along side it, i believe i had to reinstall both as my machine played up, but they do work fine with both installed on the same machine!! Reedy Boy 10:12, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I managed to crash AWB!

How long have I being trying now? I was wondering whether I could misuse the new Disambiguation feature to fix up redirects. So I went to the appropriate tab, enabled the Disambig feature and entered the name of the redirect in question (Primaeval (TV series) FWIW). I then clicked "Load links" and was gifted with the following error:

Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately.

Primaeval (TV series) either does not exist or has no links Make sure it is spelt correctly.

together with the following: 

See the end of this message for details on invoking 
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

************** Exception Text **************
WikiFunctions.Lists.PageDoesNotExistException: Primaeval (TV series) either does not exist or has no links. Make sure it is spelt correctly.
   at WikiFunctions.Lists.GetLists.FromLinksOnPage(Int32 Limit, String[] Articles)
   at WikiFunctions.Lists.GetLists.FromLinksOnPage(String[] Articles)
   at AutoWikiBrowser.MainForm.btnLoadLinks_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINNT/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
AutoWikiBrowser
    Assembly Version: 3.1.0.0
    Win32 Version: 3.1.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/phil/Desktop/Phil's%20Local%20Files/AutoWikiBrowser.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINNT/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINNT/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINNT/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
WikiFunctions
    Assembly Version: 3.1.0.0
    Win32 Version: 3.1.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/phil/Desktop/Phil's%20Local%20Files/WikiFunctions.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINNT/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/WINNT/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
    <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.

I'm rather assuming that the second paragraph (about the page not having any links) was the message I was supposed to get, and the rest is some kind of bonus. Happily, clicking "Continue" does indeed deposit me gently back whence I came, giving me the opportunity to repent (as if ). HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:50, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

OMG fixed :D MaxSem 14:27, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Kudos

Just wanted to say a big thanks to all the folks who have worked on making AWB what it is. Every time I use it, I find some nifty new thing it does. I know you hear all the complaints, so I just wanted to make sure you heard some thanks, too. Kathy A. 21:30, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

proxy

I can not use AWB thru proxy that require auth. --OlegMarchuk 10:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC) Symptoms:

  • open IE, enter proxy login and password, set auto save password
  • open uk.wikipedia.org, login into wiki
  • open AWB
  • click 'file => login in'
  • alert('Problem, You are not logged in...'), click 'ok'
  • I see my wiki username into right-bottom corner on green background
    • select 'My Watchlist' in step 1, click 'make list', waiting some time :)
    • I see my watchlist in list of loaded pages
    • select 'from Category' in step 1, click 'make list'
    • type 'Головна' (whatever)
    • I see alert('Unexpected error. Remote server return an error: 407 Proxy Authentication Required')
  • close AWB
  • close IE

So, why AWB can loggin into wikipedia, check my status (It show me as logged in and 'admin' in status bar, but I don't remenber what I can do to see it), can load my watchlist, but can not load articles in category? --OlegMarchuk 08:46, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Categories indexing

I've noticed User:Stemonitis has been adding {{DEFAULTSORT:}} to articles and removing the name from each category from articles such as Mick O'Dwyer, see this edit [4] would it be possible for AWB to automate this process ?(Gnevin 20:07, 17 January 2007 (UTC))

I've been doing this too, it's an excellent new feature. (As an aside, you'll notice that {{DEFAULTSORT:}} isn't actually a template, it's a magic word, so {{tl}} won't work on it…) This would be an interesting exercise, since you would need to detect what sort keys are being used and proffer the possible alternatives, then only remove the option that the user picked. It's not unusual for an article to use very different keys in different categories, and undoing that would cause more trouble than it solved. For example, in that diff to which you linked, the sort-key was changed, which might well cause some consternation. If it could be managed correctly, I think this could be very useful. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 21:37, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Of course on any page with a category with no sort key, the bot would need to either insert subst:PAGENAME into that cat or skip the page. Rich Farmbrough, 23:05 20 January 2007 (GMT).
If I have understood correctly, [[Category:Example|]] will do the job: something in the mechanism which performs the infamous "pipe-trick" takes care of it. In any case, you can always fix it after AWB has done the "automagic" bit. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 17:30, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
No, forget I ever said that: the above example actually comes out as [[Category:Example|Example]] . HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 13:49, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Names like Mick O'Dwyer could be a problem as some users are removing the ' see [5](Gnevin 17:37, 21 January 2007 (UTC))

Feature request

Honour {{Bots}} and {{Nobots}}. (Optionally.) Rich Farmbrough, 23:06 20 January 2007 (GMT).

You can do this manually with the "Skip if/unless" boxes, although I have to say I've usually got something in them already. Good idea though. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 13:52, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Anything like it for Mac X?

DGG 03:42, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I think there was a user who made a port of it for Mac X to run his/her bot, but I can't remember who it was. —Mets501 (talk) 04:09, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
If someone finds one, please let me know. I'd love to be able to run AWB at home instead of at work (when I really should be working... *grin*).Kathy A. 14:46, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
I second that! —MJCdetroit 02:17, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Bot access

How would I get bot access? I would like to run through many pages and auto-save them using the typo fixer. Is this allowed? If so how can I get bot access? Comperr 18:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

This is not the kind of activity which we would consider wise to allow a bot to perform unsupervised: there are way too many cases where the typo-fixer takes a guess which is simply wrong, or inappropriate (like for example in a quotation where the spelling needs to be preserved). HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:17, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
It wouldnt get Bot Approval for that full stop. Reedy Boy 16:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the answer. On a side note - what would be considered for bot access? Comperr 18:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

If you could find a specific use for AWB you could. Say if you were to undertake a large template substitution, and could show some edits that are fine, you could get bot status, to therefore enable auto mode in AWB meaning it would be done automatically... Reedy Boy 18:52, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Latest SVN Commit

Is unbuildable

Doesnt like the parameters passed for one of the items

Reedy Boy 20:05, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Unlinking section headings

Could someone please disable the code which unlinks section headings. It's true that section headings should generally not be true - however, blindly unlinking them is not the way to fix it. I fear that many useful links which are giving context to the following text are being lost. At a very minimum, could it check to see whether the target of the link is linked to anywhere else in the article, and only unlink if there's at least one other link to it? Stevage 00:41, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm removed the function completely for now, because unless we can think of a really great way to do this, then the whole function just creates more problems than it solves. —Mets501 (talk) 02:21, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Your SVN commit r578 didn't compile. You forgot to remove the call to the nonexistant function :-). I fixed it [6]. --Ligulem 10:07, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Sorry :-). I was positive I'd removed that... On my system it's saved with that call removed... Perhaps I uploaded, then realized, then forgot to reupload?... Oh well —Mets501 (talk) 15:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I've been restoring the links into {{main | link | l1 = link-title }} (taking advantage of the auxiliary parameters to {{main}}) placed just below the heading. Maybe we could offer this as an option, with a dialog to allow the user to adjust what template gets used in case things change? Obviously this doesn't work if somebody has been silly enough to put a linked date in the heading, but you can't legislate for everything… HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 09:15, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Unlinking links in headings has been discussed before. I suggested that a link in the heading should only be unlinked when it can be found in the following text or paragraph (either the bit before the pipe of after the pipe) and the AWB would move the link from the heading to the text semi-automatically. Snowman 19:22, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks for making the change. I think unlinking always requires a bit of human judgment. Possibly you could insert a comment like [!-- Section headings shouldn't be linked - see WP:MOS. Consider using the {main|..} template or linking the phrase in the following text instead. --] after the offending linked section heading. Stevage 01:16, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

"Skip if no replacement" option inhibits Re-parse option

If you have "Skip article when no replacement made" ticked, the "Re-parse" option on the edit area's context menu stops working. This took me some while to figure out what was wrong, since the connection is not obvious. "What up with that?" as the man said… HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 19:31, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Long lists of references

Would it be possible for AWB to automaticly remove the current references code and add

<div class="references-small" style="-moz-column-count:2; column-count:2;"> <references /></div>

to articles where the number of references is more than say 30 and increase with large number of references eg add column-count:3 if theirs 90 references  ? (Gnevin 20:37, 27 January 2007 (UTC))

This is not the kind of change which should ever be performed automatically, being a matter of individual taste and circumstances. Besides, these CSS-styles are limited to very few browsers, so should be avoided for the time being.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Phil Boswell (talk • contribs) 18:24, January 28, 2007

I'm currently going through and replacing all instances of "womens", "womens'" to "women's" and similarly for "men's" and "children's", and I'm encountering a lot of situations where making this correction will create a red link. I had been simply ignoring such changes when they're in internal links, but I was wondering what the general thought is on this situation. Should I go ahead and make the typo fix creating the red link or not make these changes at all? It's rather tedious to create the appropriate redirect or whatever, and I don't really feel inclined to do that. Thoughts? --Thiseye 02:20, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

One way you might speed up this process would be to have a second replacement statement which reverses the change if the word occurs at the beginning (or end) of a link. Example: Phrase looked for: "[[men's" to produce "[[mens". However, if you had a legitimate link, which you hadn't changed with a previous replacement, you'd then be corrupting it, so you'd have to be alert to that. Maybe a regex is the way to go, but I'm not familiar enought with those to give you any suggestions. JAXHERE | Talk 14:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Moving pages

Quick sanity check: if I move a page with AWB, does AWB then open the page in its new location for me to process further? Also, if I make some changes and then move the page, do those changes get applied to the page in its new location? (Because if not, then they should be…) HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:23, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, so answer came there none. A quick test suggests that no, AWB does not open the new page, it simply sits on the "result page" from the move. However, the original page does not get removed from the list, so clicking "Start" will perform the usual (bearing in mind that the page specified is now a REDIRECT) which is pretty much what I was after. Maybe we could offer some options here:
  • edit the newly-moved page
  • edit the new REDIRECT (maybe you might want to add a {{R from ...}} template to it?)
  • add those pages which link to the new REDIRECT to the list for processing (could the DISAMBIG feature be tweaked to work with REDIRECTs?)
These are all I could think of right now, there are undoubtedly more. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 11:04, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Date conversion

AWB currently converts dates like 17th April -> 17 April, but does not link them as per the manual of style. Is there a way to implement this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Robertvan1 (talk • contribs) 15:30, 27 January 2007 (UTC).

There isn't anything in AWB, but I do have a regplex that does this job (regplex meaning a sequence of regex replacements executed in a specific order). It is a bit involved, do you want me post them? Gaius Cornelius 18:57, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that would be very useful as I currently manually change all dates. Must. remember. to. sign. name. robertvan1 21:56, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

OK, here goes. You need the following regexes in the given order. These need to be applied after general fixes which removes ordinals from day numbers (an AWB option).
Unless inside a footnote, form dd Mmmmm --> [[dd Mmmmm]]

(?<!(<ref.*>|\*\s*|==))(\s|\(|')(\d{1,2}\s)(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)(\s|[\.\),;:])(?!.*(</ref>|==))

        ---> $2[[$3$4]]$5

Unless inside a footnote, form Mmmmm dd --> [[Mmmmm dd]]

(?<!(<ref.*>|\*\s*|==))(\s|\(|')(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)(\s\d{1,2})([\s\.\),;:])(?!.*(</ref>|==))

        ---> $2[[$3$4]]$5

Form dd Mmmmm yyyy --> [[dd Mmmmm]] [[yyyy]] including deletion of extraneous comma.

(?:\[\[\s?)(\d{1,2}\s?)(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)(?:\]\],?\s?)(\d\d\d\d)

        ---> [[$1$2]] [[$3]]

Form Mmmmm dd yyyy --> [[dd Mmmmm]], [[yyyy]] including insertion of required comma.

(?:\[\[\s?)(January|February|March|April|May|June|July|August|September|October|November|December)(\s?\d{1,2})(?:\]\])(,?\s?)(\d\d\d\d)

        ---> [[$1$2]], [[$4]]

Use with care! Gaius Cornelius 22:43, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

This looks great, but I have no idea how to use it! Do I make it as a module? A response from Mboverload would be appreciated as to whether this can be integrated into the program in future. robertvan1 23:53, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The templates {{Link FA}} are moved from respective iwiks to beginning of iwiks when function Apply general fixes is activated. Is it normal or bug?

Example (before) 

[[bg:Планетарна мъглявина]]
[[ca:Nebulosa planetària]]
[[cs:Planetární mlhovina]]{{Link FA|cs}}
[[de:Planetarischer Nebel]]
[[en:Planetary nebula]]{{Link FA|en}}
...

(after) 

{{Link FA|cs}}
{{Link FA|en}}

[[bg:Планетарна мъглявина]]
[[ca:Nebulosa planetària]]
[[cs:Planetární mlhovina]]
[[de:Planetarischer Nebel]]
[[en:Planetary nebula]]
...

Version of AWB: 3.0.6.1. --Alex Spade 21:39, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

This is perfectly normal: those templates are treated just like any others, and are therefore lifted out of the list of inter-wiki links. The same happens to {{DEFAULTSORT}} which is a magic word. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 18:20, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Latest version

The latest version, with all the new bells and whistles, is beautiful, and I haven't yet even tested out all the new functions. One thing I don't like, however, is that you have to click "OK" now when you're searching for a word that isn't found in the "find" field. It's really annoying to have to click "OK" any time the word isn't found. As I use AWB to eliminate apostrophe abuse (such as searching the text for each instance of "it's" used incorrectly), it was better in the old version, when the cursor would just wrap back around to the top of the text, and you could go on about your business without having to click "OK" every single time. Who do I talk to about possibly going back to the old version on this function? Firsfron of Ronchester 03:50, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about the old version of the function, because it had many bugs, but I will remove the popup box (tomorrow, given that Windows Vista will start up :-), I'm going to sleep now). —Mets501 (talk) 04:55, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Woah, cool. Happy resting. :) Firsfron of Ronchester 01:15, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Annoying delays

Why do I keep getting the message "Restarting in XX seconds" in the status bar? —LestatdeLioncourt 10:56, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Database locks? Connection errors? —Mets501 (talk) 17:15, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

More on dates

Somebody using this tool has changed a year in Australia date to year [7]. Sorry but I did mean it to be year in Australia rather than the more general year - if somebody wants to click through - I think the local information is more interesting and they can then click through to the year overall if they really want to. My gripe stems also because it was not necessary as claimed in the edit summary to allow the date preferences to work. Date preferences work without the year and it is a myth that they do not. For example [[31 January]] and [[January 31]] show up both the same for me : 31 January and January 31. Moreover it continues to work with 31 January 1964 in Australia and January 31 1964 in Australia. Can we please have a fix. --Golden Wattle talk 20:46, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid you are not right. Choose "16:12, 2001 January 15" or "2001-01-15T16:12:34" format and note the difference between January 31 1964 and January 31 1964. Jogers (talk) 21:14, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
OK have done and I can see that. I am not sure if that date preference is worth supporting against the more specific link to the year. It is not a very readable date preference for narrative - how often is it chosen? The choice between January 31 and 31 January seems more likely to be chosen and seems worth supporting. I continue to deprecate wholesale change from the specific year in to plain year merely to support an obscure date view preference. At this point I would rather delink all dates and, like spelling preferences, leave it to the reference of the article editor based on US or Commonwealth English. I think such changes and thus the use of AWB and the bot is doing harm. --Golden Wattle talk 22:34, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
The reason for linking full dates is to allow date preferences to work, not to provide context for the reader. The way the date preference work now is very unfortunate and confusing. I hope it will be changed some at some time in the future so it will no longer require linking. I am very sorry that you consider my edits harmful. Jogers (talk) 22:54, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Unhandled exception occurs when getting list when not logged in

As the title pretty much summarises , I received an unhandled exception when I attempted to create a list from my watchlist. The exception occurred because I forgot to re-log-in after changing my password. I've included the exception code below:

                            • Exception Text **************

WikiFunctions.Lists.PageDoesNotExistException: Please make sure you are logged into Wikipedia in Internet Explorer so your watch list can be obtained 

  at WikiFunctions.Lists.GetLists.FromWatchList()
  at WikiFunctions.Lists.ListMaker.MakeList(SourceType ST, String[] SourceValues)
  at WikiFunctions.Lists.ListMaker.btnMakeList_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
  at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


                            • Loaded Assemblies **************

mscorlib 

   Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
   Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
   CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll

AutoWikiBrowser 

   Assembly Version: 3.1.0.0
   Win32 Version: 3.1.0.0
   CodeBase: file:///F:/Documents/Luke/Wikipedia/AWB%203.1.0.0/AutoWikiBrowser.exe

System.Windows.Forms 

   Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
   Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
   CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll

System 

   Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
   Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
   CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll

System.Drawing 

   Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
   Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
   CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll

WikiFunctions 

   Assembly Version: 3.1.0.0
   Win32 Version: 3.1.0.0
   CodeBase: file:///F:/Documents/Luke/Wikipedia/AWB%203.1.0.0/WikiFunctions.DLL

System.Configuration 

   Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
   Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
   CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll

System.Xml 

   Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
   Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.42 (RTM.050727-4200)
   CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll

System.Web 

   Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
   Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.210 (QFE.050727-2100)
   CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_32/System.Web/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Web.dll

Microsoft.JScript 

   Assembly Version: 8.0.0.0
   Win32 Version: 8.0.50727.42
   CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC_MSIL/Microsoft.JScript/8.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.JScript.dll

Microsoft.mshtml 

   Assembly Version: 7.0.3300.0
   Win32 Version: 7.0.3300.0
   CodeBase: file:///C:/WINDOWS/assembly/GAC/Microsoft.mshtml/7.0.3300.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/Microsoft.mshtml.dll
                            • JIT Debugging **************

To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this application or computer (machine.config) must have the jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section. The application must also be compiled with debugging enabled.

For example:

<configuration> 

   <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />

</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer rather than be handled by this dialog box.


Harryboyles 10:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Comment: It's not a fatal exception, as I clicked Continue, logged in and everything was fine again. Harryboyles 10:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

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