Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser

AutoWikiBrowser 6.3.0.0

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  Request or help with AWB-able tasks
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Feel free to download an SVN snapshot

Before you post

Do you want to ...	Please use
Report a bug in AWB?	Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs
Report an incorrectly fixed typo?	Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos
Request a feature for a future version of AWB?	Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests
Request approval to use AWB?	Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage
Ask a question about AWB or ask for help?	This page

Frequently asked questions

• When I start it up I get one of the following errors:

  "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.", or

  "To run this application, you must first install one of the following versions of the .NET Framework..."

  This error means your computer does not have the .NET framework version 2 installed properly. You can choose from various versions for download here, or you can run Microsoft Update and select version 2 of the .Net framework from the "Optional Updates" section, if you want the choice made for you.

• Does AWB run on Linux or Mac?

  Linux, a qualified yes. Mac, not natively but via virtualisation.

  AWB runs reasonably under Wine. See details here

  AWB might also run under Mono. See here for a status report of AWB vs Mono v2.6.

A native version, PyAutoWikiBrowser (screenshots here), based on Python, is being developed separately for Unix-like systems.

On the Mac, AWB is not natively available, but an option is to use virtualisation with Parallels Desktop for Mac (subject to meeting supported operating systems requirements) and then run Microsoft Windows virtually with AWB as the Windows instructions above. Note this option is not free, as a license is required for both Parallels Desktop for Mac and Microsoft Windows. An alternative visualization method is to use the free VirtualBox, see also Comparison of platform virtual machines.

• Does AWB work on other projects/languages?

  Many Wikimedia projects and languages are supported, see the "User and project preferences" option in the general menu. Other languages will be added on request, though at the moment the interface is always in English. You are also able to use AWB with third-party wikis: Options > Preferences > Site, you can change the wiki there. The wiki must support the Bot API required by AWB. This means that it should have latest HEAD version of MediaWiki or something close to that. The wmf-deployment branch is also recommended, as this is what is currently live on WMF sites.

• What interwiki link order does AWB use?

  The software reads the interwiki sort order from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/IW, which is generally mirrored to reflect the order at m:Interwiki sorting order.

• AWB puts stubs after categories, though categories are always rendered the last by MediaWiki?

  According to WP:STUB#Categorizing stubs, By convention they are placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last. If your wiki uses another order, please let us know here.

• I don't like or use Internet Explorer; please use Firefox instead.

  AWB does not use Internet Explorer per se. It does, however, use the same web browser control (MSHTML) as Internet Explorer; the equivalent Firefox component does not provide the needed functionality.

• How do I open the page in another browser if I can't use the one in AWB?

  Right click on the edit box in the bottom right side of your screen. Select "Open page in browser".

• How do I edit a page that doesn't exist?

  Uncheck "Ignore non existing pages" in the "Skip articles" box.

• How do I skip certain articles?

  Use the "Skip if contains" and "Skip if doesn't contain" on the "Skip" tab

• Can't you leave up a "stable" version, so I don't have to download new versions?

  It is important to keep people up to date with the latest versions, because their use of the software doesn't just affect them, but the whole of Wikipedia. As any bugs that remain will be trivial; hopefully releases won't be too frequent.

• How can I stop AWB clicking when it changes pages?

  This is a Windows sound theme setting. This page explains how to turn off the clicking sound.

  Alternatively, delete the following key from the Windows registry:

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.Current

• AWB randomly crashes upon page load on my system, and I always use a browser other than Internet Explorer when using Wikipedia.'

  You may have installed custom scripts incompatible with IE. Wrap the contents of your monobook.js into conditional:

               //Detect IE5.5+
               if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE")==-1)
               {
                   // Previous contents go here
                   ....
               }

• I get Just In Time Debugger Messages when loading AWB/loading pages.

  In Internet Explorer, go to Tools --> Options --> Advanced. Make sure 'Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer)' and 'Disable Script Debugging (Other)' Are both checked. Press apply and close.

• Why does AWB run very, very slowly if I try to make changes in the edit window on larger pages, especially pages with long lists or tables?

  If running on Windows, exit the Speech Recognition software that is built into some versions of Windows; don't just turn it 'Off', you must 'Exit' the software if you have started up Speech Recognition.

• When I do a clean install of AutoWikiBrowser the application seems to find old setting data somewhere. I'd like to do a really clean install. Any ideas?

  Clean up your registry and remove the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Local Settings\Application Data\AutoWikiBrowser" (Windows XP) or "C:\Users\user name\AppData\Local\AutoWikiBrowser\" (Windows 7). Note that the application data folder may be hidden.

• AWB prompts that there is a newer version but won't update

  Check the version number of your AWBUpdater.exe. The current version is 2.0.0.9. If you have an older version, you have to download the latest AWB version and make a clean install.

• Which .NET Framework version do I have?

  You can find your .NET Framework version in Help --> About box.

• Where are the default settings stored?

  • Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\AutoWikiBrowser
  • Windows Vista and Windows 7: C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\AutoWikiBrowser\Default.xml

Discussion

This talk page is automatically archived by MiszaBot I. Any sections older than 7 days are automatically archived to Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 24. Sections without timestamps are not archived.

cy-Wiki link to Wkitionary (Wiciadur)

Hi all. I'd like to created a link on all articles on the Welsh Wicipedia which have a corresponding page on our Wikitionary (called Wiciadur). I can do this by placing a {{Wiciadur|{{PAGENAME}}}} template on the Wicipedia articles e.g. this one. However the pagename has an uppercase letter where as all Wiciadur entries are lower case. I could then create redirects from upper to lower pagenames, or is there a better suggestion please? Llywelyn2000 (talk) 11:02, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

My question was answered (below). Many thanks. BOT-Twm Crys (talk) 12:33, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Verbatim/Exact/Case-senstive search

Is there any way to do case sensitive search in AWB (using AWB's search option)? For example "india", "hindi", "See Also" (and not "India", "Hindi", "See also")? --Tito Dutta (talk) 01:37, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

I've asked this question a few days ago, with no response: see Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser#cy-Wiki link to Wkitionary (Wiciadur). Best of luck! - Llywelyn2000 (talk) 08:53, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

What I've done is to convert the document in OpenOffice Calc from one case to the other, but this might not work fod you. You then have two columns: upper and lower case. And then crfeate a redirect page from "india" to "India". Llywelyn2000 (talk) 09:20, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I've just imported a list of lower case words; AWB then turns them into upper case, even though I had ticked the Start > case sensitive button. Can someone help, please? BOT-Twm Crys (talk) 13:13, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

I can import an ansi text list with lower case names and they remain lower case initial letters. If that is not your issue, it may need some more detail. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:49, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

When I import a simple text file, all with lower case names, it appears in the list window and all names are upper case. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 00:52, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Not my experience, I created a dummy file with 5 entries, all mixed upper and lower case, and imported the list through the source: "text file (Windows/ANSI)" option, no capitalisation changes. — billinghurst sDrewth 04:40, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm importing a Unicode Text file (UTF-8). I'm also using the CSV Loader. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 07:40, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I think what Titodutta was originally asking is how to search for lowercase words so he can convert them to uppercase. For example, searching for the word "india" in articles, so he can convert it to "India". Bgwhite (talk) 07:55, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

That can be done by downloading a (huge) database dump and using the database scanner. I don't know any easy way to do it. -- John of Reading (talk) 08:19, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

If that is the issue, it would possibly be just better to have them added as typos to Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:47, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

On the original question, Wikipedia does not seem to support a case sensitive search, Help:Searching seems to say as much. You could do it via scanning a database dump. On first letter casing in the AWB list box, it depends on whether the project and language code you have logged in to is first letter upper (like en-wiki) or first letter lower (like English Wiktionary). By default, or before logging in, AWB will assume you're using en-wiki so convert to first letter upper. Rjwilmsi 09:43, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Many thanks RJW! In the meantime however, I found {{Wiciadur|{{lc:{{PAGENAME}}}}}}; the "lc" being "lower case!" I'll also bear in mind your comments and thank you for your time. Diolch. BOT-Twm Crys (talk) 12:33, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Working with subpages, can the level be readily identified

It could be my blindness or my ignorance, however, I am finding that when working on subpages that it is difficult to readily identify the level of the subpages, and then trying to get it to undertake an action based on the level. Most of what I am doing is trying to create relative links to the root page, so it would be useful to have a test that identified the level, and then enabled me to set an action based on that level. — billinghurst sDrewth 13:35, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

It usually helps to provide an example of what you're trying to do via a diff. --Izno (talk) 20:50, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Complex little issue. At English Wikisource we build works with subpages as relative links, eg. Desperate Remedies (Hardy)/Part 11/Chapter 1 and the diff that I did to put in relative links. The links may need to be

• to root level, eg. can need to be [[../]] or [[../../]] or [[../../../]], and these may have piped text with which to contend. So needs to be able determine the level of subpages
• to an equivalent subpage, eg. [[../Chapter 2/]] and may have piped text
• to subsidiary page, eg. [[/Chapter 2/]] diff]

As you will see from the, there can be combinations of these on the same page to apply depending on how the work has been structured. So as an example I need to be able to know that if it is in /Part 11/ so I can test up down and sideways, eg. sideways for /Part 10 as [[../Part 10/Chapter 7]], up to root, and down to [[/Chapter 1/]]. — billinghurst sDrewth 22:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Making inconsequential edits

The page says: "Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit."

I'm seeing AWB users do this regularly. Typical changes are adding a space under headers, changing {{see}} to {{further}}, and changing the order in which other-language wikis are listed at the end of the article. These are often the only changes that are made, or they are accompanied by adding a non-breaking space. The edits affect the watchlists by obscuring more important changes, and are sometimes annoying in themselves. What is the best way to approach this? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 19:11, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Loaded question with all sorts of answers.

1. The edits you are describing come under Wikipedia:GENFIXES. These are usually done when an AWB person arrives on a page for another reason.
2. Is there a reason for being there in the first place, but was corrected earlier? For example, I work with alot of database dumps. Between when I scan the dump for a particular problem and fix it, it may have already been corrected. Nothing can be done in this case.
3. Is there a valid reason for being there that looks insignificant to you?
4. Is the editor relatively new to AWB? They probably don't know what they are doing is wrong.

In the end, if you see an editor that your think is making insignificant edits, leave a message on their talk page. They edits may turn out to be valid or they may stop making the insignificant edits. If you still think the problem continues, then leave a message here. Bgwhite (talk) 00:25, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, BG. I'm seeing editors who are making only those edits, so they're not on the page for another reason, and they are not new to AWB. I've already left a message for one of the editors who is doing this, but it continues. The problem is that I don't want to start reverting or making a big deal out of it, because it's so trivial. On the other hand, it's been happening a lot and it can be irritating. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:03, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

BG - Depending on what you're doing with the database dumps, you may be able to set up your bot to skip the article if the problem is no longer there, or to skip the article if the only fixes it is making are genfixes. With manual edits, anyone can skip the article manually.

SlimVirgin - Reverting the edits don't improve the article, so I agree with BG that the best course of action is to contact the editor directly. Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 18:16, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Several people have already approached Magioladitis, who is the editor I see doing this most often. Recent discussion here on his talk page. Some previous discussions Nov 2012, Dec 2012, and again Dec 2012. I've asked him if he could comment here. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 00:04, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Full disclosure, I consider Magioladitis a mentor, so I may not be impartial. Magioladitis is an AWB developer and does alot of edits with AWB. Note, you've listed examples that were also done by his bot. The discussion from today was a valid complaint and editing was stopped. The Nov discussions is a valid use of AWB. Unicode characters can cause problems and thus are not allowed per MOS. The first Dec edit was iffy and arguments could go either way if it was valid or not. In the second Dec edit, Magioladitis was testing AWB. Also, you started this discussion, which was the right thing to do. Bgwhite (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I was planning to have this discussion in general terms without names, and hoping Magioladitis would comment and offer assurances. But he commented here in another thread without addressing this one, then I saw that a similar discussion was taking place again on his talk page. The difficulty with these edits is they really do fill up the watchlists, so that each diff has to be checked in case the edit before it is one that needs to be dealt with. When you find that it's someone simply adding spaces under headers, it's a tad annoying. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Some of the really annoying "fixes" made by AWB really should just be removed from the AWB fix list entirely. If AWB didn't needlessly screw with the capitalization of templates and do other dumb things a lot of these noise edits would go away. I'm not opposed to trying to clean up articles and have some uniformity, but experience has shown that AWB users can't be trusted to make these updates responsibly so I think they should just be removed from the things that AWB does automatically. Aren't AWB users supposed to review the changes they are making to the page before saving it? What's going on here? Quale (talk) 00:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree that it would make sense to remove these things from the list. Changing file to File, see to further, and adding spaces under headers makes no difference to the appearance of the article, so I can't see the benefit. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:12, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Quale for labeling all AWB users irresponsible, please leave the vitrol out of any discussion. AWB doesn't add spaces under headers, only above. This is done according to MOS (See WP:MOSHEAD). AWB also doesn't change file to File, this was added manually via AWB's find/replace function. Template names are changed to the main name and not a redirected name. This is done via consensus from the template editors. Bgwhite (talk) 01:35, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Some of the apparently inconsequential edits happen for a reason, as Bgwhite says above. For instance, line spacing doesn't affect the display, but can have a drastic effect on screen readers for the blind, and that's why AWB is set to standardize it. User:RexxS is the guy to talk to about this, as now Jack Merridew has gone RexxS and MZMcBride are the ones who best understand why some of the apparently random stuff in Wikicode exists, and IMO RexxS is better at explaining it to everyone else. – iridescent 01:38, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

If there's a reason for the edits, I have no problem with them. Could someone say how adding a space under a header would affect screen readers? The other edits I see a lot are reflist to Reflist (haven't seen that one for a few weeks), file to File, see to further, and changing the order of the other-language wikis. [1] Not an issue in themselves, of course, but multiplied by thousands, then yes. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 01:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• So my reading of the above is that although some AWB changes may appear inconsequential to them, they are not inconsequential to others. However, due to the nature of AWB, and the multiplier effect of edits, it can be irritating. I personally refrain from hitting the 'save' button if there are only general fixes, including insertion of 'persondata' template, but I do confess to sometimes inserting a {{use dmy dates}} or {{use British English}} template into articles along with minor fixes only because I consider the templates important to article maintenance although they do not affect the rendered output. -- Ohconfucius ^{ping / poke} 02:11, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• Only adding the persondata template with data is a perfectly valid edit. However, adding an empty template is not... I've been after some editors to stop that. Not only is it a worthless edit, but it also adds the article to multiple tracking categories. Bgwhite (talk) 07:27, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• I don't want to interfere with edits that are beneficial in some way, or with someone else's enjoyment on Wikipedia. Perhaps a compromise position could be worked out. As Magioladitis is an AWB developer, perhaps he could remove some of the GENFIXES from the list, if we could agree on the ones that seem to be cropping up the most? SlimVirgin ^(talk) 02:45, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) In the case of placing a blank line after a heading, I'm not aware of any problem that it causes for screen readers - they get told that either there's one or there's two newlines, so it's not a big annoyance. I would, of course, recommend trying to standardise one way or the other, because standardisation of layout in the edit box helps screen reader users find their way around the wiki-text - it's a help in 'visualising' where you are if you are editing. Nevertheless, in this case, the benefit is very likely to be much smaller than the annoyance to our most prolific editors when their watchlists get clogged up by edits such as these. It is worth mentioning that Graham87 - a very experienced JAWS user - is always very helpful to anyone who asks how a particular edit affects him, so he's an excellent touchstone for what will cause problems and what won't. Hope that helps --RexxS (talk) 02:48, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

We have a wonderful "Skip if only cosmetic changes are made" which checks the html output and skips if it's the same before and after the fixes but (there is a always a but) it turns that many things we all agree are not that important as standalone edits modify the html output. I hope in the future MediaWiki software would override all redirects automatically so all redirects of a template would give the same html output. This is not the case yet. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:00, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

We also try that every general fix is described in the Manual of Style. This is one of the reason we stopped adding new functions lately. We won't implement anything that is not in the manual of has no consensus. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:07, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• There is a longstanding convention against making inconsequential edits, but the GENFIXES are fine as they are and do not need trimming back. Mr Stephen (talk) 10:10, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

• This was apparently missed from above... AWB doesn't add spaces under headers, only above. This is done according to MOS (See WP:MOSHEAD). If someone is adding spaces under headers, this is being done manually by the editor. Bgwhite (talk) 07:27, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I can't remember the defaults. If it isn't already, should skip when "Only white space is changed", "Only casing is changed" and "only minor genfixes" be turned on by default. Maybe a warning pops up when one of these is unchecked? This wouldn't stop the "power" users, but hopefully would stop any newish editors from making minor edits. Bgwhite (talk) 00:18, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

• No those are not checked by default. No more pop up please. There is already one annoying pop up "You've a new message", first I want to see a "cancel" button there! Anyway, better lock these two "skip if a) only white space is added/removed b) only minor genfix". I'll remove case change from the list, since if an edit changes india to India, technically it is insignificant, but, it is not! --Tito Dutta (talk) 08:20, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

AWB developers - please do not make a change to "lock" any of these skip options. These should remain open so users can choose to check or uncheck these options depending on the task on they are doing. Responsible users will follow the AWB rules of use to only click Save if their changes are significant. GoingBatty (talk) 15:21, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

So you're saying that User:Magioladitis is not responsible? It's infinitely worse now that people tell me Magioladitis is an AWB developer. How can an AWB developer not follow the rules? Magioladitis has updated hundreds of articles with nothing but inconsequential edits. Quale (talk) 03:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I was not commenting on any user's edits. I was only responding to Titodutta's suggestion to "lock" certain options that I enjoy using. For example, I was recently doing some typo fixing of "millenium" to "millennium". AWB will automatically suggest typo fixes in certain parts of the article, but not within quotes or references. I chose to have the skip options off, so I could manually review all articles that contained "millenium", and check the sources before deciding whether to making manual changes and save the article or make no changes and skip the article. GoingBatty (talk) 03:57, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Deleting partition

How can I delete partition ("Muhtarlık") as the example?

• Example 1
• Example 2
• Example 3

Can you help with regex? Thank you. (I'm sorry for bad English) --Sadrettin (talk) 20:00, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Based on the assumption that the Muhtarlik section is always the same number of lines and that there's always another section afterwards, try this:

\=+\s*Muhtarlık\s*\=+\s*(?:.*\s*){7}(\=+\s?.*\s?\=+) → $1

Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 18:38, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

2GB profiling.txt

I've been running AWB in pre-parse mode for a while now, under Wine in Linux Mint. I noticed that profiling.txt has ballooned to 2 GB. Really? That seems pretty ridiculous. I deleted the file and AWB created it again from scratch, which is fine, but that doesn't seem like a good solution to me. Running latest snapshot. What can I do to avoid this situation? • Jesse V.^(talk) 22:02, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Compile your own version of AWB selecting "release" version instead of "debug". -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:06, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Since the SVN versions create Log.txt and profiling.txt automatically, I used Notepad to create a batch file in my AWB directory called DeleteLogs.bat, which has the following lines:

del C:\Users\GoingBatty\Documents\AWB\Log.txt

del C:\Users\GoingBatty\Documents\AWB\profiling.txt

If you create something similar, you could delete these files quickly. Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 18:19, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

SSL Connection (HTTPS)

Two weeks ago, I used this tool at home and it worked well. Then, I moved to new place and it could not update any the articles. I guess this error cause of SSL Connection? I think this tool need an option to choose HTTP or HTTPS connection. Alphama (talk) 22:41, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

It has one, or it used to have it and be part of the username profile; though the comment about "secure" at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/History shows that there has been a change, so I am not sure whether it is a default behaviour or what. It will need a hacker to describe the exact change. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:16, 7 February 2013 (UTC)