Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual

AutoWikiBrowser 6.3.1.1

• Home
  Introduction and rules
• User manual
  How to use AWB
• Discussion
  Discuss AWB, report errors, and request features
• User tasks
  Request or help with AWB-able tasks
• Technical
  Technical documentation

• Changelog
• Developer discussion
• Modules
• Regular expression
• Sandbox
• Template redirects
• Typos
• Usage stats
• Userbox

Basic procedure

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The basic procedure for using AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) is as follows:

1. Make AWB log in as a user
2. Make a list of pages to modify
3. Set the options (specify what to do to each page)
4. Start the process (AWB takes you through each page, previewing the planned changes, and letting you make further changes, such as adding a template)

Startup parameters

AWB can handle startup parameters. It can load a specified settings file and/or login to a certain profile.

Parameters

• /s "file.xml" - /s loads a specified settings file if it exists in the AWB folder. Must include the file name in the quotes
• /u int - /u loads a specified user profile, and logs into it. Profile must exist, and user is prompted for password if it is not stored.

You can then append these parameters to the end of the target on a shortcut, to make AWB load the required things.

eg.

C:\pathtoAWB\AutoWikiBrowser.exe /s "test.xml"
C:\pathtoAWB\AutoWikiBrowser.exe /u 1
C:\pathtoAWB\AutoWikiBrowser.exe /s "test.xml" /u 1
C:\pathtoAWB\AutoWikiBrowser.exe /u 1 /s "test.xml"

AutoWikiBrowser User Manual

Login

• AWB uses the Internet Explorer engine, and uses the IE login. If you have different accounts, you'll have to log out of Wikipedia in IE and log back in as your other account. If you want to run AWB and do manual edits at the same time using 2 different accounts, use IE for your bot and do your manual edits in another browser like Firefox or Opera.

Main Menus

File

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• Reset to default settings - Reloads the original AWB settings.
• Open settings... — Loads settings from specified path.
• Recent settings — Allows you to reset AWB settings to a previous saved setting.
• Save settings — Saves the current settings to the file they were loaded from.
• Save settings as... — Saves the current settings to a specified file.
• Save settings as default — Saves the settings to the default.xml, these will then be loaded automatically when AWB is restarted.
• Log in — Takes you to the login page for the Wikipedia.
• Log out — Forces logout of the current user.
• Profiles — Allows easy switching between user accounts (with the ability to save passwords)

• Can also associate a settings file with a profile, then when the profile is logged into, the settings file is loaded

• Refresh Status/Typos — Allows you to refresh the typo list. If you have had AWB open for a long time and want an updated typo list (only if RegexTypoFix is enabled). Also reloads the check page to check enabled users and versions. The User talk templates page is also reloaded
• Exit — Quits the program.

Options

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• User and project preferences

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  • Project

  • Project — Allows you to choose which wikimedia project (or even custom) you would like to work on.
  • Language — Allows you to select which language of Wikipedia you would like to work on.

  • Other

  • Set edit box font — Allows you to change the font and font size of the edit box.
  • Low thread priority (AWB will work in the background) — Sets CPU thread priority to low, this means it will only use the CPU if other processes do not need it.
  • Minimize to system tray — When AWB is minimized, having this option selected will close AWB into the notification area of Windows.
  • Save article list when saving settings — Allows you to choose whether you want to save the current article list in with the current settings.
  • When ready to save:

  • Flash — The AWB tray icon will flash when AWB is out of focus, and user input is needed.
  • Beep — AWB will cause a beep when AWB is out of focus, and user input is needed.

  • Timeout limit (seconds) — Allows you to specify the timeout limit of the web browser. Minimum 30 seconds, maximum 120 seconds

  • Auto save edit box

  • Automatically save edit box to prevent lost work — If checked will automatically save the edit box for the specified time and file.
  • Save every x seconds — Period between saves of the edit box
  • Set file — Allows you to specify the file name and location of the automatically saved edit box. Currently this is in the AWB Directory. Default is 'Edit Box.txt'

• Enable the toolbar — Enables a simple tool bar at the top of AWB. Functions are: Show or hide the panel, Make the edit box span the bottom window (same as Ctl+Shift+H), Start, Stop, Save, Ignore, Show preview, Show changes, Delete (for administrators only), Add false positive.
• Bypass redirects — Instead of editing pages that redirect to another page, AWB edits the page to which it redirects.
• Do not automatically apply changes — No changes are made, instead you can use the "re-parse" option selectively.
• On Load: show changes

• On Load: show changes — Shows the changes between the current revision, and your intended changes.
• On Load: show preview — Shows in the browser window what the updated page would look like — like manual edit 'show preview' button.
• On Load: show edit page — Shows the edit page in the browser window.

• Ignore {{bots}} and {{nobots}} — If selected will ignore pages marked bots or nobots.
• Mark all as minor — Marks all edits as minor.
• Add all to watchlist — Adds all edited pages to user watchlist (This will override any preference options set).
• Show timer — Shows timer in the lower right corner of the window so user can monitor interval between edits.
• Sort interwiki link order — Sorts the interwiki links in same order as pywiki bots (if "Apply general fixes" is selected).
• Replace Reference Tags — Replaces certain cases of the old reference tag to a template (if "Apply general fixes" is selected).
• Enable button to log false positives
• Edit Summaries — Allows the user to edit the saved edit summaries for AWB.
• Hide Bottom Panel — Shows and hides the main part of the AWB window at the bottom (Shortcut key of Ctrl+H — this works when the toolbar is enabled or disabled).
• Show Edit Toolbar — Displays a simple tool bar above the Edit box. Functions are: Bold text, Italic text, Internal link, External link, Mathematical formula, Ignore wiki formating, Horizontal line, Redirect, Strike, Superscript, and Subscript.
• Enlarge Edit Area — Enlarges the edit box area along the bottom of the AWB window. You can toggle this function with the shortcut key Ctrl+Shift+H.

List

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• Filter out non main space — Removes all non-main space articles.
• Remove duplicates — Removes from the list.
• Filter... — Brings up the Special filter dialog box.

Show example screen shot |} Convert to talk pages — Changes list of article/template/userpage to their relevant Talk pages. Convert from talk pages — Changes list of talk pages into their relevant article/template/userpage. Sort alphabetically — Sorts list alphabetically. Save list to text file... — Saves list to text file (which can be used later on to create new list, as described above). Plugins Show example screen shot Manage Plugins — View a list of all plugins currently loaded into AWB Load Plugin(s) — Allows the user to open/load new plugins into AWB whilst AWB is running Tools Show example screen shot Make Module Allows the user to make a simple 'module' using C# or VB .NET code to enhance the functionality of AWB — See Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Custom Modules for more information. Show example screen shot External processing — Send article text to an external program or script. Show example screen shot |} Regex tester — Displays interface for testing searching and/or replacing text with regular expressions. Show example screen shot |} Database scanner — Launches the Database Scanner, see here. Show example screen shot |} List comparer — Allows you to make or open 2 lists, and AWB will tell you the entries that appear in both lists, the entries only in list 1 and the entries only in list 2. Show example screen shot |} List splitter — Allows the user to make or open a list, and then split the list down into sections between 10 and 50,000. The current List Maker list (ie article list) can be transported to the listsplitter. When the lists have been split, they can then have these saved into individual text files. Or, it can also save to full AWB XML settings files based on the currently loaded settings. Note: For saving the required settings set any AWB or Plugin configuration options before running the ListSplitter, as it will pass the current configuration to the list splitter. Show example screen shot |} Help Show example screen shot Help — Shows an integrated web browser to display this page. Includes a contents page on the left hand side. About... — Shows creators, maintainers, version of AWB, IE Version, Windows Version, .NET version, and a disclaimer. Check for updates — Will check for software updates to AWB. Make list Show example screen shot Make from: See also: Context menus, List context menu Note: Make lists from multiple pages by separating them with a pipe symbol, e.g. from a category, entering "Cats|Dogs|Fish" will get all the entries in Category:Cats, Category:Dogs and Category:Fish. Category — Gets a list of sub categories and articles from the category. Category (recursive) - Gets a list of articles from the category and any and all sub categories What links here — Gets a list from the "what links here" of an article. To get the "what links here" of the articles "Cat" and "Dog" in one go, type "Cat|Dog". Option: Inclusion only — same as What links here, but only gets pages that link by inclusion (i.e., {{PAGENAME}}) What transcludes page — Gets all the articles which transclude this page Links on page — Gets all the wiki-links from the given page, all namespaces. Images on page — Gets a list of all the images on a page Transclusions on page — Gets a list of all the transcluded templates/pages on the given page Text file — Gets a list from a text file (the articles in the text should be [[wiki linked]]). Google search — Gets a list from a google search of the wiki. User contribs — Gets articles edited by a specific user Special page — Enter "Lonelypages" to get a list from Special:Lonelypages, you can also enter "Lonelypages&limit=500&offset=500" to get more or from an offset. If no limit specified, the limit will be 1000. Image file links — Gets a list of articles that use the given image. Database dump — Opens the Dump Scannner program to scan the database dump (which needs to be downloaded, ~3.2 GB). The best/most useful dump is the pages-articles.xml.bz2, which is compressed and can be decompressed with many decompression programs. An example would be 7-Zip which is a free open source file archiver. It should be noted that the compressed file will expand to about 5 times (plus or minus) the size of the compressed file. See Wikipedia:Database download My Watchlist — Imports your watchlist (using the account you are logged into Internet Explorer with). Wiki search — that gets list of pages from wiki's internal search engine. Typically, Google search results are better but Google rescans Wikipedia only around once per month, and cannot search for specific wikisyntax. Redirects — Gets a list of what redirects to the given page Make list — Makes list based upon given options — This button appears next to the when a list is being made. Clicking on it stops any current list making. Remove selected — Removes selected item from list. Save List — Save the current list to a text file. Three formats are supported: wikitext (default), useful for publishing lists on wikis); and plain text, useful for exporting lists to other tools, and also the very standard CSV. Remove duplicates — Allows you to filter duplicates from the list without having to open the filter box Filter — Allows you to filter the list by a selected list of namespaces, inclusion of selected words. Can also exclude items that exist in another list and remove duplicates. Clear — Clears entire list. Add — Adds item in the text box to list. Options Show example screen shot General Auto tag — Appends {{wikify}}, {{uncategorised}}, {{stub}} and {{orphan}} tags when appropriate. Removes stub tags from long articles. Adds the date parameter to the by-date sorted templates. Apply general fixes — If checked will apply general fixes (see List of general fixes below) List of general fixes *General fixes (Including, but not limited to the following) Fixes common mistakes in "see also" and "external links" sections, removes excess white space. Sorts interwiki links alphabetically (individually selectable in menu), and puts them at the bottom of the page with stubs. Unicodifies interwiki links. Removes duplicate interwikis and categories. Puts categories after article body, followed by interwiki links and stub templates. Recognizes some comments as cat and interwiki headers. Adds bullet points to external links after the ==External links==. Replaces italic and bold html markup with wiki markup. Repairs bad links. Simplifies links like [[Dog|Dog]] to [[Dog]]. Simplifies links like [[Dog|Dogs]] to [[Dog]]s. Adds bold text to the first occurrence of the title of the article (if there is no other bold text). De-links self referencing wiki-links. Change Main Article: xxx to use {{main|xxx}} Remove empty [[]] and {{}}, and for the wikilinks, caters for categories and images too Correct numerous incorrect degrees symbols Repair <ref> tags before and after punctuation. Removes accents in {{DEFAULTSORT}} tags so that sorting is alphabetical not ASCIIbetical Unicodify whole Article — Replaces wiki like &deg; with its unicode equivalent, °. Note that for symbols which could be easily confused with others, the conversion is not applied (for example: &prime; &Prime; and &times; which map to ′, ″, and × and could be confused with symbols like ', ", and x.) General fixes skip options Show sub menu and example screen shot Skip if no... None — Titled boldened — If selected will skip if no title was bolded. External link bulleted — If selected will skip. Bad link fixed — If selected will skip if no bad links fixed. Unicodification — If selected will skip if no unicodification was made. Tag changed — If selected will skip if no tag changes were made. Header error fixed — If selected will skip if no header errors were fixed. {{defaultsort added}} — If selected will skip if no default sort was added. Find and replace Enabled — If checked will enable Normal, Advanced, and subst: find and replace. Normal settings — Opens the AWB Normal Find and replace. See Normal - Find and replace for more detailed information on using this feature. Show example screen shot |} Advanced settings — Opens the AWB Advanced Find and replace. See Advanced - Find and replace for more detailed information on using this feature. Show example screen shot |} Template substitution — Opens AWB substitute templates. Allows you to Substitute templates you chose. This is a more convenient and reliable way than simply entering regexes in Find and replace — AWB will automatically generate regexes. See subst: - Find and replace for more detailed information on using this feature. Show example screen shot |} Skip article when no replacements made — If Find and replace is enabled and this box is checked, the article will be skipped if no changes were made by any of the find and replace features (Normal, Advanced and, subst:). Regex Typo Fixing Enable RegexTypoFix — If checked will turn on AWB typographical error check feature. Which automatically fixes 2000+ common typographical errors. Please read and understand the RegExTypoFix before using. The typos can be modified on Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos. Skip if no typo fixed — If checked will skip articles that have no typo errors found. More... Show example screen shot Append/Prepend text — Appends/Prepend the given text to the bottom of the page. Images — Replace/Remove/Comment out Images Categories — Add/Remove/Replace categories (replace only available when making a list from a category), enter the new category name minus the Category: prefix. When entering a category for "Add new category" use the keyword %%key%% to insert the reversed human name key, e.g. entering "Economists|%%key%%" might insert "[[Category:Economists|Smith, Adam]]". Disambig Show example screen shot This feature is intended for quick user-supervised fixing of links to disambiguation pages. Enable Disambiguation Link to Disambiguate — title of disambiguation page to be delinked. You can use several names delimited by pipe characters, e.g. Matrix|Matricies|Matrices. Load Links — loads all links to the aforementioned page(s) into "Variants" edit box (see below). Variants — all possible variants to disambiguate to (the list can be edited to add or remove links). Don't forget to decapitalize links when needed (e.g. matrix (mathematics) should be lowercase, but not Matrix (TV series)). Skip article when no disambiguation made — ignores the article when it doesn't require disambiguation or user pressed "Cancel" in disambiguation dialog. Disambiguation dialog Once the disambiguation feature has been enabled using the above process and an article list loaded using "What links here" in the "Make list" section, the dialog box shown in the image will appear when an article has been loaded and a link to disambiguate found. In the image shown, two links in the page have been found to disambiguate. For each link: Left box — contains the link in bold and some of the surrounding text. Selection box — select the change wanting to be made from the following options: [no change] — default. [unlink] — remove the link. {{dn}} — adds next to the link. Should be used when the correct disambiguation cannot be determined. Variants — as specified in the "Variants" box in the "Disambiguation" tab. Right box — editable box that displays what has been changed. Default change creates (or alters) a piped link. In the image, [[matrix|matrices]] is changed to [[matrix (mathematics)|matrices]]. Unpipe — unpipes the link. This would change [[matrix (mathematics)|matrices]] to [[matrix (mathematics)]]. Reset — clears the changes made for that link. Undo — reverts all manual changes to the right box, including unpiping. This is equivalent to reselecting the current item in the selection box. Skip Show example screen shot General article skip options Skip if contains: — Skips articles that contains the given string or regex. Skip if doesn't contain: — Skips articles that do not contain the given string or regex. Case Sensitive — If checked, indicates whether the above strings are case sensitive. Are regexes — If checked, indicates whether the above strings are handled as regular expressions. Skip if blocked by Spam Filter — Skip page if not allowed to save article due to being blocked by the spam filter Skip if Inuse — Skips the page if it contains the {{inuse}} tag Skip when no changes made — Skips article that it doesn't automatically change (i.e. make a "general fix", find and replace etc.). Skip non-existing pages — Causes AWB to automatically skip pages that don't exist. Cannot be selected at same time as Skip existing pages. Skip existing pages — Causes AWB to automatically skip pages that exist. Cannot be selected at same time as Skip non-existing pages. Bots Show example screen shot AutoSave Auto-mode — Will make saves automatically at given interval, only for accounts registered in the Bots section of the checkpage. Delay — The delay in seconds before saving the page after loading, (normally loading takes about an extra 8 seconds or 3 seconds with quick save enabled). Quick save — When using auto-mode, avoids loading diff to save time/bandwidth/server load. Suppress "using AWB" — Stops addition of "using AWB" to the edit summary, as registered bots do not need this. Nudging Resave (nudge) after x minutes if stuck — Allows you to re-attempt saving after a set number of minutes if AWB sticks Reset Counter — Reset AWB Nudge Counter Skip article if first nudge doesn't help — If the first nudge hasn't allowed AWB to continue/save, AWB will skip the article Auto Shutdown Auto Shutdown? - When the bot job is finished, automatically shutdown/standby/hibernate/restart the computer Start Show example screen shot Summary — The edit summary, either select one from the drop down, or enter your own text. Lock Summary — Allows the user to select to 'lock' the edit summary, so that it cannot be accidentally changed Minor — Sets the edit as a 'minor edit' Article statistics — Various statistics, such as number of characters and images. Alerts — Displays alerts when, for example, the article is uncategorized, is long but tagged as a stub, etc. Start — Starts the process when you have a list of articles. (Shortcut key — Ctrl+S) Stop — Stops the editing process. (Shortcut key — Esc) False — Adds article to a list of false positives, in a file called "False positives.txt" Preview — Changes the view to preview (and updates any extra changes you made). Diff — Changes the view to the difference view (and updates any extra changes you made). Move — Allows you to move a page to another location. Upon pressing this button, a windows appears asking for the new location, and a summary of the change, which is then confirmed by pressing move again. Protect — For administrators use only. Allows protecting/un-protecting articles. Delete — For administrators use only. Allows you to delete a page. Upon pressing this button, a windows appears asking for a summary of the change, which is then confirmed by pressing delete again. Ignore — Moves on to the next page without saving anything. (Shortcut key — Ctrl+D) Save — Saves the page, including any extra changes you made, then moves on to next article. Find Enter your search criteria in the find box. This will allow you to search the edit box for the criteria you enter in this box. Regex — If checked indicates that the criteria entered in the find box is a regular expression and to search as a regex. Case sensitive — If checked the find will be searched as the case entered in the find box. Find — When this button is clicked it will search the Edit box for the inputed string. Edit box Show example screen shot A text box used for manual editing of the current article text. See also: Context menus, Edit box context menu History Show example screen shot Allows the user to view the current page's history without having to open a separate web browser. See also: Context menus, History context menu Diffs between articles can also be viewed in the history area. Logs Show example screen shot Common to both Successfully saved and Skipped See also: Context menus, Logs context menu Save Log — Saves a copy of the relevant list view to a specified file Clear — Removes all the items from the relevant list view Skipped only Add to article list — Adds the selected article(s) to the list maker Note that the log entries have tooltip text containing details of how the article was processed and why. Logging to file Show example screen shot Log to XHTML — Output a log in XHTML format Log to wiki code — Output a log in Mediawiki syntax Log to MySQL — Not yet implement Verbose logging — Detailed log, mainly for debugging Upload — Upload the logs to the wiki Folder — Where on the filesystem to store the logs Apply — Apply changes Upload to WPs — Upload the logs to the automation department of a WikiProject Add to Watchlist — Add uploaded logs to the watchlist Open in Browser — Open uploaded logs in the web browser Upload Location — Where to upload logs to Category — The name of the current category (optional). Also used in edit summaries (by kingbotk plugin only at the moment, maybe should be an option for AWB to use it; this text box really needs a new home but we're short of space) Current Job Name — The name of the current job (can be used by the program when uploading logs) Maximum Lines — Maximum number of Lines in a Log Status — Shows the number of log uploads, number of lines written to SQL/Wiki/XHTML log, and the number of lines since the last log upload. Context menus Web control window context menu The web control context menu is the menu that appears when you right-click on the web control window. Standard Internet Explorer right click menu List context menu Show example screen shot The list box context menu is the menu that appears when you right-click inside the list box. See also: Make list Filter out non main space — Removes all non-main space articles. Filter — Opens the advanced filter options. Convert to talk pages — Transforms the list into talk pages, e.g. "Cat" => "Talk:Cat". Convert from talk pages — Transforms the list from talk pages, e.g. "Talk:Cat" => "Cat". Sort alphabetically — Sorts list alphabetically. Save list to text file — Saves list to text file (which can be used later on to create new list, as described above.) Cut selection — Cuts the currently selected article(s) Copy selection — Copies the currently selected article(s) Paste selection — Pastes whatever is in the clipboard. Articles separated by newlines or commas will be entered as separate articles Select all — Select/Highlight all the articles in the list Invert selection - Selects any articles which aren't selected, unselects any articles which are selected Select none — Unselects all articles in the list Add selected from list... — When an item is selected, the following can be added to the list From category — Adds the contents of a category when a category is selected. From whatlinkshere — Adds the articles that link to the selected article. From links on page — Adds the articles linked in the selected article. From image links — Adds the articles linked to an image when an image is selected. Remove — Removes the selected article(s). Remove — Removes the selected article(s). Duplicates — Removes duplicates from the article list. Clear — Clears the list. Open article in browser — Opens the article in your default browser. Edit box context menu Show example screen shot The edit box context menu is the menu that appears when you right-click inside the edit box. See also: Edit box WordWrap — Wraps the text in the edit box at bottom-right. Undo — Negates the last action. Cut — Cuts the selected text. Copy — Copies the selected text to the clipboard. Paste — Pastes text from the clipboard to the selected area. Paste more — Enter text into the textboxes, then double click one to paste its contents. Select all — Selects all the text in the edit box. Go to line — Enter the line number and hit return. Insert... — can: Guess birth/death cats — Guesses the birth and death years of the article's subject and inserts the appropriate categories. (For biographical articles only.) Meta-data template — inserts the persondata template. (For biographical articles only.) Human name category key Insert tag — Inserts the tag selected from the submenu to the selected area of the article. If {{stub}} is selected, the user can optionally change the type of stub by typing into the box. Convert list to * List — (Bullet pointed list) # List — (Numbered list) Unicodify selected — Converts any HTML entities or URL encoded characters in the selected text to unicode. Bypass all redirects — replaces all links to redirects with direct links. This feature shouldn't be used in most cases, therefore it's restricted to admins only. Fix all excess whitespace Re-parse — Re-applies all the functions (general fixes, re-categorisation...). Open page in browser — Opens the article in the default browser. Open talk page in browser — Opens the talk page for the page/article in the default browser. Open page history in browser — Opens the article history in the default browser. Open text selection in browser — Allows the selected text to be opened as an article, as if it were a wikilink Replace text with last edit History context menu Show example screen shot See also: History Open history in Browser — Opens the history for the current page in the default web browser Refresh history — Refreshes the history of the current page Logs context menu Show example screen shot This context menu is common to both the Successfully saved and the skipped logs. See also: Logs Add selected to article list — Adds the article of the currently selected log to the article list Cut — Cuts the currently selected log(s) Copy — Copies the currently selected log(s) Remove — Removes the currently selected log(s) Select all — Selects all the logs in the current list view Select none — Selects none of the logs in the current list view Open in browser — Opens the article of the currently selected item in the list view Open history in browser — Opens the article history of the currently selected item in the list view Clear — Remove all displayed entries Reset — Remove all displayed and hidden entries, remove sorting See also Database scanner user manual Main page: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Database Scanner Find and replace user manual Main page: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Find and replace Regular expressions Main page: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Regular expression