|logo = [[File:AWB Banner2.png|AutoWikiBrowser's slogan: The semi-automated Wikipedia editor]]
|logo = [[File:AWB Banner2.png|AutoWikiBrowser's slogan: The semi-automated Wikipedia editor]]
|screenshot = [[File:Awbscreenshot.jpg|250px]]
|screenshot = [[File:Awbscreenshot.jpg|250px]]
|caption = AWB sample screen shot
|caption = AWB sample screen shot
|developer = AutoWikiBrowser team<br />
|developer = AutoWikiBrowser team<br />
<!--
<!--
* [[User:MaxSem|MaxSem]]
* [[User:MaxSem|MaxSem]]
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* [[User:Jogers|Jogers]]
* [[User:Jogers|Jogers]]
-->
-->
|operating system = [[Microsoft Windows]]
|operating system = [[Microsoft Windows]]
|programming language = [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]]
|programming language = [[C Sharp (programming language)|C#]]
|frequently updated = yes
|frequently updated = yes
|language = English
|language = English
|genre = [[Wikipedia]] editor
|genre = [[Wikipedia]] editor
|license = [[GNU General Public License|GPL v2]]
|license = [[GNU General Public License|GPL v2]]
|website = [[SourceForge:projects/autowikibrowser/|sourceforge]] (if that release is broken, try here [http://toolserver.org/~awb/snapshots/])
|website = [[SourceForge:projects/autowikibrowser/|sourceforge]] (if that release is broken, try here [http://toolserver.org/~awb/snapshots/])
|author = [[User:Bluemoose|Bluemoose]] (retired)
|author = [[User:Bluemoose|Bluemoose]] (retired)
}}
}}
'''AutoWikiBrowser''' (often abbreviated '''AWB''') is a semi-automated [[MediaWiki]] editor for [[Microsoft]] [[Windows 2000]]/[[Windows XP|XP]]/[[Windows Vista|Vista]]/[[Windows 7|7]] designed to make tedious repetitive tasks quicker and easier. (AWB also functions reasonably well under [[Wine (software)|Wine]] on [[GNU/Linux]] but this is not officially supported.) It is essentially a browser that automatically opens up a new page when the last is saved. When set to do so, it suggests some changes (typically formatting) that are generally meant to be incidental to the main change.
'''AutoWikiBrowser''' (often abbreviated '''AWB''') is a semi-automated [[MediaWiki]] editor for [[Microsoft]] [[Windows 2000]]/[[Windows XP|XP]]/[[Windows Vista|Vista]]/[[Windows 7|7]] designed to make tedious repetitive tasks quicker and easier. (AWB also functions reasonably well under [[Wine (software)|Wine]] on [[GNU/Linux]] but this is not officially supported.) It is essentially a browser that automatically opens up a new page when the last is saved. When set to do so, it suggests some changes (typically formatting) that are generally meant to be incidental to the main change.
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If you want to run the latest SVN version, see [[#Getting the sources|here]].
If you want to run the latest SVN version, see [[#Getting the sources|here]].
AutoWikiBrowser requires [[Microsoft Windows]] [[Windows 2000|2000]]/[[Windows XP|XP]] or newer ([[Unicode]] does not work properly on [[Windows 98]]/[[Windows Me|Me]]). It also requires Version 2 of the [[.NET Framework]] (users of Windows 2000 and Windows XP must <span class="plainlinks">[http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&DisplayLang=en download .NET Framework]</span>; it is included in [[Windows Vista]] and [[Windows 7]]).
AutoWikiBrowser requires [[Microsoft Windows]] [[Windows 2000|2000]]/[[Windows XP|XP]] or newer ([[Unicode]] does not work properly on [[Windows 98]]/[[Windows Me|Me]]). It also requires Version 2 of the [[.NET Framework]] (users of Windows 2000 and Windows XP must <span class="plainlinks">[http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&DisplayLang=en download .NET Framework]</span>; it is included in [[Windows Vista]] and [[Windows 7]]).
If the software does not work, it probably means that you are not registered or that you do not have the correct .NET Framework installed.
If the software does not work, it probably means that you are not registered or that you do not have the correct .NET Framework installed.
AutoWikiBrowser is not an automatic bot—edits made using this software are the responsibility of the editor using it. Although AWB does have an automatic mode enabled for some bot accounts, it normally just assists a human.
AutoWikiBrowser (often abbreviated AWB) is a semi-automated MediaWiki editor for MicrosoftWindows 2000/XP/Vista/7 designed to make tedious repetitive tasks quicker and easier. (AWB also functions reasonably well under Wine on GNU/Linux but this is not officially supported.) It is essentially a browser that automatically opens up a new page when the last is saved. When set to do so, it suggests some changes (typically formatting) that are generally meant to be incidental to the main change.
At present, AWB can create a list of pages from single or multiple categories, "what links here", the wiki links on a page, a text file, a Google search, a user's watchlist, or a user's contributions. AWB also comes with an integrated program to scan Wikipedia database dumps. The edit box of AWB supports the Microsoft Text Services Framework for use with speech recognition/handwriting applications.
Examples of AWB-assisted work are noted on the projects page, which also lists projects that currently need AWB help.
Usergroup
No. approved
Admins
All (854)
Bots
80
Users
1,683
Rules of use
You are responsible for every edit made. Do not sacrifice quality for speed and make sure you understand the changes.
Abide by all Wikipedia guidelines, policies and common practices.
Do not make controversial edits with it. Seek consensus for changes that could be controversial at the appropriate venue; village pump, WikiProject, etc. "Being bold" is not a justification for mass editing lacking demonstrable consensus.
Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit. If in doubt, or if other editors object to edits on the basis of this rule, seek consensus at an appropriate venue before making further edits.
The Wikipedia tenet "be bold" is not a justification for mass editing lacking demonstrable consensus. If challenged, the onus is on the AWB operator to demonstrate or achieve consensus for changes they wish to make on a large scale.
Repeated abuse of these rules could result, without warning, in your software being disabled. If you wish to run a bot, see Wikipedia:Bots: bots must be approved by the bot approvals group.
T117870 EnsureHtmlHeadersLoaded: HTML headers (CSS) generation for API preview: .NET WebBrowser shows cite templates in italics as it doesn't seem to render <cite id="CITEREF..." class="citation journal"> etc. correctly (mediawiki stylsheets should override <cite> default to not be italics) so override citation class here to set normal font style as workaround
T151945 Allow longer wikilinks when looking for links with double spaces
T147291 make API search with insource / intitle etc. work
T151987 Move ISBN out of end of external link, provided link has some other description text, clean up any trailing comma, colon, semicolon
T144133 uk-wiki sort order to be stubs above categories
T152256{{orphan}} exists on ru-wiki in addition to localized-name versions
T154089 Don't apply ReorderReferences within genfixes for en-wp
T141346 FixHeadings: if a sub-heading directly after a heading don't add blank line before sub-heading
T116586 handle exceptional case that be-x-old uses different site name to language code
T101028 Tagger: don't add Uncategorised, Orphan or Deadend at Wikia
T109757: ListMaker stop: no need to sort or refresh buttons if no articles added
BoldTitle: don't do anything if article contains section>tags as section is used to transclude text in other articles so self link may be a valid use case
T127534: remove ISBN from start of |isbn= in infoboxes
T124846: FixCitationTemplates to convert |id=ISSN 12345678 to |issn=1234-5678
T124846: FixCitationTemplates to format ISSN parameter
Fixed list of typos loading on change of project/language
Fix for duplicated references with page needed templates
Minor improvements to List Comparer
Handles coexistence of BLP sources and refimprove
FixSyntax expanded to handle more of incorrect http prefix cases
New checkpage option: <!--All users enabled user mode--> will enable all users for user mode, and enable bots only when in <!--enabledbots--> section.
Run AWB main processing and reparse edit box on background thread so that AWB does not hang while processing. Pressing Stop will cause AWB to stop after completing background thread.
Don't bold first use of title if zeroth section of page uses <dfn> tag (for fr-wiki)
Only enable listmaker add button (label "+") when there's text to add
Call TemplateToMagic word in TemplateRedirects if there were templates changed
Support C# custom modules using C# 3.5 if system has .NET 3.5, otherwise fall back to existing C# 2.0
Customised edit summary for Turkish
More Reflist conversions
More DoublePipeLink alerts
Tagger won't tag as underlinked pages with 1 wikilink and length less than 400 bytes
Enabled page deletion for eliminator user group (used in ptwiki)
Save/load Skip "if only cosmetic changes" settings
Action tokens are stored separately to avoid problem of them changing during editing sessions
General fixes
More specials characters and symbols fixed in DEFAULTSORT
Extended Duplicated category with same sortkey removal to lowercase sortkeys
Extended RefsAfterPunctuation to cover more footnotes and punctuation marks
Implement part of WP:CURRENCY (Currency abbreviations that come before the numeric value are unspaced if they consist of a nonalphabetic symbol only, or end in a symbol)
Extended FixNonBreakingSpace to cover more of WP:PERCENT by covering numbers with signs
Improved DEFAULTSORT addition to pages about persons
When genfixes running on non-mainspace page, add birth/death/living categories only as wikilinks with colon at start (e.g. [[:Category:Living people]] which displays as Category:Living people)
Only change Japanese/Chinese full width bracket characters if unbalanced count of these
Fix uppercase bold <B> tag replacement
Converts "John Doe (b.1978)" to "John Doe (born 1978)"
Tagger
Excluded Main Page from tagging
Enable Auto-tagger for pages in namespace 104 on arwiki
Other
Detect unclosed tags within gallery tags for unclosed tags alert
If there are find matches, colour the Find button yellow
Tweak ListMaker sizing to show additional row
Tweak Main window display to remove spare space at bottom
Removed all logging to XHTML/Wikipage and uploading. Removed file tab
Removed .php5 code
Handle fileexists-sharedrepo-perm error from API during page move
Removed About button from Database scanner and added a help tab
Support domain name when logging in
Cancel button for F&R box
Properly skip page when edit filter yields hookaborted errors
Edit summary box placed at the top of the Edit box instead of having its own tab
Feature: show user notification count in bottom right of AWB: grey background when none unread, red & bold if 1 or more unread. Update after each page loaded. On click launch Special:Notifications in browser
Feature: Selectively activate alerts. Options are available via Options menu → Preferences → Alert tab
Non English Wikipedia changes
Localized edit summary when removing stub template in arwiki and arzwiki
Edit summary in correct order for arwiki and arzwiki
Localisation of stub name on sv-wiki
KingbotK plugin 2.3.3.0
Dropped code for setting class for Template|Category|File|Portal. Now it's autoset by wikiproject banners
Fix link counting for {{dead end}} tagging: handle links with colon in name correctly
Other
Fix handling of newline before populated parameter in UpdateTemplateParameterValue
"Open text selection in browser" to detect URLs, open as URLs
Make wikilinks from page preview open correctly
Fix to tab fixing window: make editable portion only the wikilink, so that user cannot create conflicting changes and nearby dablinks can be updated correctly
OpenURLInBrowser: For Wine use attempt to dynamically determine available browser, caching result
Only attempt 'click & drag on diff window for Control+C copy support' if Microsoft.mshtml.dll is available. Ensures that single click on diff to focus edit box still works when Microsoft.mshtml.dll not available.
Ensure ArticleText is updated correctly on ReparseEditBox
Page skip check for salted pages, AWB will skip pages that you cannot create due to page protection.
Cleanup of interwiki links: remove duplicate colons, convert to first letter uppercase for first letter upper wikis (e.g. Wikipedia)
Improved display of hide/hidemore options in Find & replace screen: check and disable hide if hidemore ticked, since using hidemore implicitly uses hide
Improved Percent regex to cover numbers in parentheses
Improved SyntaxRegexListRowBrTag and SyntaxRegexListRowBrTagStart
Improved FixSyntax performance
Improved italics/bold HTML tags fixing
Fix template substitution logic for templates using Template: namespace in call
Fix check for "skip if only genfixes" in case where article text starts with whitespace
Remove "Show edit page" as an option, if this option is chosen in the settings file convert to default (show changes), no longer supported as using API editing
Unicode characters are valid in Image file names
Wikimedia Voyage in the list of supported projects
Add TimedText and EducationProgram to namespaces
Switch list filtering to ListComparer type hash sets
Add converttitles parameter to API queries, means AWB correctly finds name variation pages on wikis using this functionality
Do not skip for "minor change" if advanced find & replace made changes
If user "not registered" and on wikia it means there is a local checkpage, so don't direct user to central checkpage
Fixed keyboard shortcuts and clicking on alerts box problems
Article Alerts
"Starts with heading" alert for mainspace only
Alert for "links with no target"
Alert for "links with double pipes"
AWB genefixes performance
Fewer compiled regexes to improve speed of processing genfixes on first page in AWB session
Performance improvement to TemplateRedirects genfix when there are no matching redirects in article e.g. on Barack Obama where no redirect match, reduces TemplateRedirects time by ~90%
Rework TagUpdater: performance improvement to TagUpdater, reduces time by ~90%
NoLimits 1.3.3.0
Addition of all pages in all namespace provider for highlimits, bots, sysops etc.
Clicking on the username label will now open the profile/login window
Speed optimisations to ListComparer
SelectionMode of list comparer lists now consistent at MultiExtended (same as main listmaker)
List Filter: fixed symmetric difference operation to return correct result set, moved alpha sort on apply to be after filter operations so list maker finishes with correctly sorted list, switched method for intersection operation, removed BinarySearch
More special characters fixed by RemoveDiacritics
Editable edit summary
RemoveCats to return empty string rather than throw exception when multiple defaultsorts
Load templates to date from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dated templates, keep existing first letter case of templates, correct Date= to date, and add 'date=' even if there are other arguments
First word to first character uppercase in date field
Removes day in International date in |date=
Converts ISO dates
Removes comma between month and year
Corrects upper case month name
Corrects mixed case month name
Tagger
Adds tags more often (now that category count is via API in Tagger any categories from templates on the page are included (when not hidden categories) so explicit template check is not needed).
FixCitationTemplates: stricter logic for Google books {{cite web}} renaming.
FixSyntax: remove empty gallery tags.
FixSyntax: implement workaround for bugzilla mediawiki bug 2700
RemoveImage: remove/comment out description of image from <gallery> tags when removing/commenting out image.
Tools.RenameTemplate to have overloads to allow keeping of current template first letter case.
MakeHumanCatKey to handle articles named "Person of Place" to generate sort key of "Person Of Place"; also handle "Person II of Place" → "Person 02 Of Place"
Refactored HideUnformatted to use Replace and AddBack methods for big performance improvement on long articles
Faster ListSplitter
CanDoGeneralFixes: Expanded to allow genfixes on namespace 102 in pt-wiki
Text is pasted into edit box in font format of text and end is trimmed
Talk page genfixes
Move WPBiography above any WikiProject templates per WP:TPL when |living=yes (en-wiki only)
Move any other WikiProjects into WikiProjectBannerShell
Genfixes now done in category talk and book talk too
WPBiography: remove diacritics from |listas= parameter in {{WPBiography}}
If ListProvider.StripUrl, strip url's from input before passing to the ListProvider
Minor updates
More accurate IsArticleAboutPerson
Multipleissues works correctly with new tags and tag removal
Removes unneeded colon before dablink
FixSyntax: More unbalanced bracket fixes (ListExternalLinkEndsCurlyBrace, handles FTP like HTTP, and more)
FixDateOrdinalsAndOf: ensure comma in international date with ordinal removed
IFD plugin 1.0.0.7:
Added clear backlog button
CFD plugin 1.0.0.7:
Added clear backlog button
Kingbotk AWB Plugin 2.3.1.1:
Disactivated set placement fixes (now done by general fixes)
Implement the multiple article selection functionality in main listmaker in database scanner one: selection of multiple articles, opening of multiple articles in browser
Custom modules: in Article.SendPageToCustomModule take updated article text even if skip true, so that in re-parse mode updates are taken
In FixSyntax() treat <em> like <i> for HTML cleanup
WikiRegexes.AmericanDates and InternationalDates to allow for non-breaking space between day and month
{{Category:foo}} will change to [[Category:foo]]
Prevent unnecessary interwiki order changes when there are two interwiki links to the same language (different links)
Support loading database dump file from read only network share (by opening file read only)
Soft redirects to Wictionary won't be tagged as orphan
Support use of "lifetime" on sl-wiki: place it as though it's a defaultsort
No diacritic removal in category sort keys on sl-wiki
Better DEFAULTSORT setting: article is not about a person if contains "Infobox musical group" template (or redirect) with "Background" field value of "group_or_band".
Better handling of DEFAULTSORT generation for names with Jr/Sr suffix
'skip if only general fixes' to apply to Talk page general fixes too.
Reinstate call to Parsers.SimplifyLinks (regression since 5.0.1).
New feature for bots: option to specify number of edits to complete and for AWB to stop editing when that number reached. Default off.
Bypass redirects overhauled (should be much quicker)
"References to reorder" added to Database scanner
Alerts if references found in dab pages
Alerts for unclosed Math, Source, Code, Nowiki, Pre tags
New right click menu option "sort reverse alphabetically" on list box
Ignore maintenance templates when guessing birth & death categories
Added procedure to merge/clean DABlinks
New list provider: RedirectsAllNSListProvider
Exposed Preparse mode status to Plugin interface
Fix issue with minor f&r: 'no change' and 'minor change' skip options can be set independently
when removing sortkeys from categories that match the DEFAULTSORT key, also remove the cat's key if the DEFAULTSORT key starts with it
clean diacritics from any {{lifetime}} template in the same way as {{DEFAULTSORT}}
display alert "unformatted references found" if references section of article contains bare URLs.
automatically add 'XXXX births/deaths', 'living people' category etc. to articles about a person where the date is available in the article (either following name in bold at top, or within {{birth date}} template or similar.
delink bolded self links
option "Do not apply WP:MOS fixes"
when replacing categories provide option to remove sortkey
only move dablinks in the zeroth section of the article
provide warning if <ref> or {{GR}} with single decimal as argument found after {{Reflist}} or similar
provide warning if {{GR}} with single decimal as argument found and no {{Reflist}} or similar
if only one level 2 section is changed, use the section edit syntax /*...*/
Move the {{portal}} template to within the 'see also' section, if present.
Multiple wikilinks alert shows count of how many duplicate links.
Some correction of whitespace around references.
Move the external links section below the references section (limited to when the references section is not the last section) [en wiki only]
after user has made 10 edits, stop showing the help text at the top of the diff (applies to diff mode only)
replace two dashes mid-sentence with an emdash per WP:EMDASH
regex tester reports execution time of find or replace query
{{nofootnotes}} and {{more footnotes}} moved from the zeroth section to the top of the first of the 'References', 'Notes' or 'Footnotes' sections if found (en only).
when adding non-breaking spaces to measurements, mm without a space is not corrected due to the convention for firearms articles to use '9mm' gun etc.
General fixes expanded to include correction of extra square brackets around categories
New general fix to insert non-breaking spaces when using common SI units
New general fix to fix common formatting errors in <ref> reference tags
General fixes split into 'minor' and 'significant': options to skip are for 'only general fixes' and 'only minor general fixes' so that significant fixes (errors in external URLs, {{reflist}} missing etc.) can be identified as a valid edit in themselves
New ('significant') general fixes to remove ordinals from American/International dates, and to remove 'of' between a month and a year per WP:MOS standards
New minor fix to move Disambiguation links to the top of articles (en wiki only)
Code cleanup, hopefully prevent a few strange exceptions and some more info in some cases
Interface updated to Reflect Image → File change
AWB will now only list the languages available for that project
AWB will now stop if no edit summary entered
Remove explicitly defined (case insensitive) Category keys when the page has {{DEFAULTSORT}}
New List Providers:
What Links Here (All Namespaces)
What Links Here (All Namespaces) (Including Redirects)
Link Search
More unit tests to help identify code regressions and semi-automate testing
Keyboard shortcuts for 'open page in browser' and 'open page history in browser' and 'refresh status/typos'
Improved correction of formatting errors in external links
Bot tab is hidden for non-bot users
Don't fix a typo if the word is in the article title (prevents some false positives)
Option to automatically save the settings file every 10 edits (designed to be used when 'save page list with settings' is enabled)
Optional 'Pre-parse' / 'skipability' / 'dry run mode': AWB will automatically run through a list of articles and skip them based on the skip conditions, leaving those remaining in the list for the user to work through later, and periodically saving the settings file (designed to be used when 'save page list with settings' is enabled)
Uses API for retrieving article text for increased speed
Image descriptions and the target of wikilinks can now be typo fixed
Ensure the whole of links using the link trick (e.g. [[link]]age) are hidden when performing typo fixes
Background thread option to PostData
Hide text between quotation marks when performing typo fixes
When performing typo fixing warn user if {{sic}} or {{typo}} or similar is found (editing then continues as normal)
Remove diacritics from category sortkeys (within general fixes) even when not changing the {{DEFAULTSORT}}
Rewrite general fix for emboldening of first use of article title in text
PHP5 extensions can now be used on custom wiki's which require it
HasInfobox article property available (for plugins)
Tagger - Tags removed as a general fix. Tags added if auto tag enabled
Project URL included in Error Handler Reports
Database Scanner:
Typo scanning fixed
More user-friendly namespace scanning
TypoScan Plugin 1.0.1.0:
Stats now reported to server on background thread
ListMaker option to return 500 articles (useful as per Pre-parse addition)
List Maker backend code overhauled and modulised, limit for number of returned pages increased to 5000 for most queries
Now "IListMakerPlugin"'s can be created to provide extra search functionality
YahooSearchPlugin included as a working example
New List Maker "Get List" functions:
Get lists from "What Links Here (inc. Redirects)"
Get lists from "Category (recursive user defined level)"
Get lists from "Category (recursive 1 level)"
Get list of 100 random article namespace pages
Wiki search changed from HTML scrape to API
Kingbotk plugin now included in AWB svn; is now released under GPL V2
SVN Version now shown in Help → About of AutoWikiBrowser
New skip options:
Skip if only general fix changes
Skip if only casing changed (can work in conjunction with skip if only whitespace changed)
Page contains no links
Added a "Typos" tab, visible when "Enable RegexTypoFix" is checked. It accumulates statistics of typos fixed on the current page and during whole editing session.
Save states of list filter namespace checkboxes
Comment field added to Find and Replace
General fix skip options changed to check boxes (so multiple skips can be selected)
Special filter namespace checkboxes now saved
Mentions of "page"/"article" in interface changed to common "page"
Cascading protection now supported
Move to top/Move to bottom now added in normal Find and Replace
WMF Error page is now not counted as a successful save (AWB will try to save page again)
More meaningful automatic heading for error reports
Nested exceptions are now properly reported
Forced en-US locale for array sorting to fix interwiki sorting error
"General fixes skip options" are now multi-select (check box rather than radio button)
Implementation of Wikidiff2 - All diffs are now made internally, thus reducing load times, server load and saving bandwidth.
Major internal changes to the process page routines, to improve encapsulation and code readability, and to remove redundant/sloppy coding.
Full Merge of User:Kingbotk's WikiFunctions 2 into WikiFunctions (logging is now built into AWB).
Changes to match MediaWiki Changes.
Make list from user contributions now works correctly
Make list from user watchlist now also works correctly
Editor class now returns a valid token to the Mediawiki site
Implementation of a ListSplitter.
"Open in browser" was broken for pages with some special characters in the title. Fixed; and added various new members to WikiFunctions for creating wiki URLs and opening pages.
New "Make List" option - Transclusions on Page - Gets a list of all templates and pages transcluded onto
History of an page can now be viewed internally.
All admins are automatically approved to use the software
The nearly-version4 release. Many bugs fixes (list mostly cleared), and some features implemented:
Ref breaking bugs fixed. Changes to match change in HTML. Bug fixed where AWB would be kept alive if closed very early. Removal of '''foo''' from headings. Option to automatically save text in edit box added. Context menu item to save also added. Setting saving bug fixed. Internal tweaks and improvements to DEFAULTSORT/HumanCatKey code. User substitution warning (and Expandtemplate) bug fixed (see below). FAR Improvements. Implementation of 'key words' into FAR. Work towards improving nested templates.
New logging tab, displays reason for skipping page edit. Edit box able to resize to take up whole of lower part of screen.
Kingbotk plugin upgraded to version 1.2.0.0.
AWBUpdater 1.2.0.0: Unhandled Exception Handled, minor code tweaks
Bug Fixes + New Features. Change of copy and paste of pages to allow multiple page cut, copy and paste. Special:ExpandTemplates support added for template substitution. Notification of Empty/Non existent categories changed to one single messagebox after all categories loaded. User changeable browser timeout (min/default 30seconds, max 120 seconds).
Kingbotk plugin updated to v1.1. Added WPAssessmentsCatCreator plugin. Changed list filtering and sorting system to make it stick across subsequent list updates. New bot tab, nudge timer, and plugin interface support for nudge timer.
AWBUpdater 1.1.0.0: Code Simplification (some duplication removed) and improvements, added support for WPAssessmentsCatCreator.dll. Changed from single mirror, to central download page. Saves having to wait to propagate to that mirror. Fixed AWBUpdater self version checking so it only updates if 'online' version is newer. Added checking for version of AutoWikiBrowser.exe, so that it will only be updated if needed. Minor interface change to display all status text. Added try catch around all code.
Bug Fixes, new features implemented. Support for {{bots}}/{{nobots}}. Auto Update Feature Implemented, with ability to update itself. Kingbotk plugin updated to v1.0.1.0. WikiFunctions2 updated to v1.0.1.0. ListComparer redesigned. Other interface changes.
Bug Fixes, new features implemented. Implemented option for user to choose whether page list is saved. Changed File menu orderings, sorted save options to remember files loaded, and allow a 'save' and a 'save as'. Change of GUI on ListMaker. Code consolidation and simplification. Fixed logout Function. Kingbotk plugin updated to v1.0.0 rc5.
Kingbotk plugin updated to v1.0.0 rc4. Implementation of colour coding on Advanced Find And Replace. Bug Fixes, corrected list of invalid characters for page titles. Temp removal of faulty regex's from Parsers.FixFooter. IRCM Page Blanking Bug fix.
IAWBMainForm interface added. Kingbotk plugin updated to v1.0.0 rc2. Bug Fixes, DAB links now simplified, cancel handling fixed, link simplifier improved. Form show/hide code simplified.
Interwiki language codes will be changed to lowercase. New version checkpage format, and versions are enabled or disabled centrally on en.wiki at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage/Version. Notification for users using an out of date version. Many bug fixes. Some interface changes. Plugin settings handling improved and new PrefsKeyPair object added. Kingbotk plugin now shipping with AWB for ease of updates. New notification icon in taskbar, with option to hide AWB when minimized. page list is filtered for duplicates when new settings are loaded.
New option to add pages to list from redirects. Changed handling of edit conflict to notify user. Regex FAR Form allows replacing with an empty string. Many bug fixes.
Implementation of ar.wiki. Added context menu to web control to allow copying from it. Fixed VB .NET Module maker. Many bug fixes, several of them major. If no categories are found on a page, AWB will load the HTML of the page, and look for categories.
Once more, many bug fixes and minor improvements. Introduced CFD Plugin for easy elimination of backlog at WP:CFD/W and WP:CFD/WU. New major feature - disambiguation.
Lots of fixes, improved getting lists from special pages, support for localized stub names on pl: and sl:. RegexTypoFix now shouldn't fix typos in interwikis, cites and nowiki tags. Added new features of substituting templates and testing regexes before using them. Now AWB can load and save plaintext lists. Due to blocking problems, IRCMonitor is not included into this release.
Usual tweaks and minor fixes (especially for foreign language projects). All projects now work with all supported languages. Added experimental support for non-Wikimedia wikis (use it at your own risk!) Namespaces for projects that are not Wikipedia are downloaded on demand. New option to make lists from a wiki-search. New "Advanced" menu option to enable a "module", whereby a user can enter their own c# or VB.NET code to process page text which is then compiled, loaded and executed on-the-fly. New settings file format (can read old files as well).
3.0.4.1
04 October 2006
Lots of general tweaks and improvements, including allowing checkpage to work on all projects, using the page PROJECTNAMESPACE:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage and must be the same format as this one (if the page doesn't exist then all users are enabled). Fixed a couple of rare bugs.
3.0.4.0
23 September 2006
Lots of general tweaks and improvements to all areas. A few small bug fixes. Added some statistics to the status bar and save as default option to the file menu.
3.0.3.0
09 September 2006
Some small fixes and tweaks. Added "more" skip options. Added support for more projects and languages.
3.0.2.9
03 September 2006
A few fixes per talk page. Separate typo page for each language. Auto tag now sorts out the by-date categorising of some tags as well, such as {{Wikify}}.
3.0.2.6
29 August 2006
Fixes per talk page, moved ignore non-existing pages option to "Skip pages" section.
3.0.2.5
28 August 2006
Fixed some unusual issues. Improved the plugin feature.
3.0.2.3
25 August 2006
Fixed and tweaked a few small things. Added plugin support (instructions below). Added support for wikinews.
3.0.2.2
20 August 2006
A few bug fixes and general tweaks. Added option to remove/comment out images (be careful with this until it has been tested thoroughly!).
3.0.2.1a
11 August 2006
Fixed a few issues. Added shortcut keys for show changes and preview. Added start button to toolbar. More major internal changes. Added support for da: wiki projects. Added preferences dialog to menu, with some more options, including enhanced diff, which makes the diff page easier to check.
3.0.2.0
08 August 2006
Typos are now downloaded from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos when the typo fixing option is enabled, so they are always fully up-to-date. A couple of minor tweaks and fixes.
3.0.1.9
06 August 2006
Can select multiple list items to add to "Add selected to list". Can now enter multiple entries when making a list from any source by separating the items with the pipe | character e.g. from a category, entering "Cats|Dogs|Fish" will get all the entries in Category:Cats Category:Dogs and Category:Fish. Fixed couple of bugs.
3.0.1.8
05 August 2006
Moved typos into separate file, fixed a few bugs highlighted on talk page.
3.0.1.7
01 August 2006
Upgraded find+replace dialog, more customisable now. Integrated RegExTypoFix, option to enable it "More options" tab - use this very carefully. Fixed a couple of bugs. Added login button to "File" menu. Now works on more projects in other languages.
3.0.1.5
26 July 2006
Improved database scanner, added wordcount option. "Tagger" removes stub tags from long pages. Fixed a couple of small bugs. A few variables can now be changed in the .config file (more can/will be added).
3.0.1.4
24 July 2006
Fixed a few issues. Overhauled and renamed Database Scanner. Find-and-replace summary now says number of each change made as well. Add false positive button to toolbar.
3.0.1.3
19 July 2006
Fixed a couple of small issues, added context menu to list filter dialog, added "Insert human name disambig" option to "insert tag" contect menu, all keywords work on all options now. Works on more Wikimedia projects. Find-and-replacements can be detailed in the edit summary, find-and-replace can now skip interwiki links as well. Added more options to special filter. Many other minor tweaks.
3.0.1.2
15 July 2006
Added option so find-and-replace can skip external links, image links, <nowiki>'ed text, <math>'ed text and html comments. Multiple improvements to usage on other wikis. Find-and-replace boxes stay on top now. Fixed bug with making long lists from "what transcludes here".
3.0.1.0
13 July 2006
%%key%% it will automatically replace %%key%% with the reversed human name (e.g. Bush, George W.). Some other tweaks and improvements, including working on more other language projects. Can now make list from Watchlist (using the account you are logged into internet explorer with), "What links here" separated from "what transcludes here".
3.0.0.9
11 July 2006
Added couple more options to list menu (per talk page), and a few other minor tweaks and improvements.
3.0.0.8
08 July 2006
Fixed a couple of small issues from last release.
3.0.0.7
06 July 2006
Added context menu option to add selected sub-category contents to the list. If present, automatically loads "Default.xml" setting on startup. Other small changes, including moving a couple of items on the interface, improvements to the advanced find and replace dialog, and big internal improvements.
3.0.0.6
28 June 2006
Added option to skip page when no find-and-replacement is done, now skips pages that were not re-categorised. Now beeps as well as flashing the taskbar. Added advanced find and replace option. Added IRC recent changes monitor program, accessible from File menu - still under development. And fixed couple of small bugs.
3.0.0.5
17 June 2006
Fixed bug with google search, added another language, integrated dump searcher.
3.0.0.4
14 June 2006
Lots of general improvements (listing is now faster and better), added function for replacing images, made much stuff work better in other language wikis.
3.0.0.3
05 June 2006
Improved log in process on other language wikis.
3.0.0.2
04 June 2006
Can make a list from image file links, other general tweaks, can now transform the list into talk pages, e.g. "Cat" => "Talk:Cat", added exit message. Added basic support for sl wiki.
3.0.0.1
28 May 2006
Some minor tweaks, does not apply fixes to text in <math> tags. The "remove excess whitespace" function is now in the textbox context menu. New way of generating lists from special pages, e.g. 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. Added option to menu to enable the toolbar, and the main panel can be minimised to view diffs more easily.
3.0.0.0
22 May 2006
Many minor improvements, does not apply fixes to <nowiki>'d text, re-categorising should work in other languages. Functions separated into separate dll file that can be re-used.
2.x series
Version
Release date
Notes
2.9.0.0
15 May 2006
Many minor tweaks, flashes in taskbar when ready to save, automatically replaces a few common deprecated templates.
2.8.0.0
09 May 2006
Now sorts interwikis in exactly same order as pywiki bots, removed alpha sorting of cats - it annoys some people. Improved making lists, particularly making list from category. When the diff loads, it now automatically scrolls down a bit to see more of it. Note: SourceForge is having problems again, so the source code is not up-to-date.
2.7.0.0
06 May 2006
Added menu option to record "ignored" pages in log file, to help avoid false positives in future. Some other general tweaks.
2.6.0.1
28 April 2006
Fixed case sensitivity bug in last release.
2.6.0.0
27 April 2006
Fixed small "find" bug, tweaked link simplifier, added support for multi and single line to regexes. Added keyboard shortcuts, added basic Russian support.
2.5.0.1
20 April 2006
Fixed another issue regarding previous change which stopped manual editing of large pages.
2.5.0.0
20 April 2006
Fixed a couple of problems from last release, including "go to line", added basic support for ca wiki.
2.4.0.0
17 April 2006
Upgraded textbox to richtextbox, can now "redo" and drag text about. Option to "skip pages with no changes" now skips some changes where only change was adding/removing whitespace.
2.3.0.0
09 April 2006
Added option to not skip blank pages. Other minor usability tweaks.
2.2.0.1
07 April 2006
Added back "using AWB" to summary by popular demand, and fixed minor bug.
2.1.9.0
04 April 2006
Many general tweaks to the parsing engine, added "paste more" option to context menu.
2.1.8.0
29 March 2006
added go to line function
2.1.7.0
28 March 2006
Improved unicodifyer, added "go to line" to context menu, some other minor improvements.
2.1.6.0
27 March 2006
Fixed bug with adding watchlist items.
2.1.5.0
26 March 2006
Many general improvements and changes.
2.1.4.0
19 March 2006
Minor improvements.
2.1.2.0
16 March 2006
Fixed re-categorisation problem, some general improvements.
2.1.1.0
14 March 2006
General tweaking, removes excess space around pipes, added checkbox to automatically unicodify entire page, makes exception for – — and
2.1.0.0
12 March 2006
General fixes and tweaks
2.0.8.0
08 March 2006
Fixed some small issues, added %%title%% keyword to find and replace to represent the page title.
2.0.7.0
07 March 2006
Fixed issue with listing from categories, some other small improvements.
2.0.3.0
06 March 2006
More features, faster, more reliable.
2.0.2.0
04 March 2006
Buttons now enabled/disabled as appropriate. Fixed some issues on other wikis. General tweaks and improvements.
2.0.1.0
02 March 2006
Fixed "find" button, added (some) support for other language wikis. And some other small tweaks.
2.0.0.0
27 February 2006
Lots of bug fixes and minor improvements.
1.x series
Version
Release date
Notes
1.98
20 February 2006
Some bugs fixed.
1.97
17 February 2006
Some small bug fixes, handles downed server a bit better.
1.96
16 February 2006
Can filter "inclusion" when making list, now has stop button.
1.95
15 February 2006
Many improvements to interface, logging in and other. Now has case sensitive option for skipping pages.
1.94
14 February 2006
Hopefully fixed logging in issue, also improved automatic mode, but most can't use this at the moment.
1.93
14 February 2006
Many minor improvements and tweaks, now checks user registered when "makelist" clicked, can load and save settings from/to specified path, if you appear unregistered it will offer to send an error report, this emails me some settings and variables, otherwise it is extremely difficult to work out what the problem is. Plus issue with usernames with some punctuation fixed.
1.92
14 February 2006
Minor regex improvements.
1.91
13 February 2006
Numerous general improvements, notably to the interface.
1.9
12 February 2006
More minor tweaks and fixes, plus addresses some issues involving clicking inside the browser.
1.89
12 February 2006
Tweaked bad-link fixing code
1.881
11 February 2006
Fixed bug involving bolding page title.
1.88
11 February 2006
Mathwiz2020 fixed the annoying issue with losing user focus, it now works seemlessy in the background. Plus some minor improvements (performance + stability).
1.87
10 February 2006
Fixed IE bug with fancy fonts in URLs (thanks to Ligulem's research). Now converts interwiki links to unicode and option in edit textbox context menu to convert any selected text to unicode. Some other minor improvements.
1.86
09 February 2006
Two minor bugs fixed, plus handles failure of Wikimedia servers better.
1.85
08 February 2006
Option in menu to skip pages that it hasn't made any changes to, fixed minor bug.
1.84
07 February 2006
Saves settings.xml file now as well.
1.83
06 February 2006
Fixed bug with moving category in deletion templates.
1.82
06 February 2006
Case insensitive find and replace. Can now load settings, not save yet though, the values can be changed in the XML file.
1.81
05 February 2006
Now does multiple find and replaces.
1.8
02 February 2006
Bug fix and minor improvements per talk page.
1.7.9
01 February 2006
Option to enable timer in menu. Make list from user contribs (last 5000, although it removes duplicates, so will be less). Core program is more efficient. Automatically does not perform "general fixes" on talk, user, template and Wikipedia namespaces. Plus some other minor improvements.
1.7.8
29 January 2006
Changed how AWB works in the background.
1.7.7
29 January 2006
Fixed bug in removing categories.
1.7.6
28 January 2006
Re-arranged options, hopefully more intuitive now. Can now add/remove categories. Some other minor improvements, and possibly fixed issue some have with logging in.
1.7.5
26 January 2006
Minor tweaks and fixes, including now bulleting all links in "external links" section.
1.7.4
24 January 2006
Fixed enabled-user-checker.
1.7.3
24 January 2006
Fixed enabled-user-checker.
1.7.2
24 January 2006
Fixed enabled-user-checker.
1.7.1
18 January 2006
Minor tweaks.
1.7
17 January 2006
Minor tweaks, plus now has "ignore if doesn't contain".
1.6.9
15 January 2006
Minor improvements.
1.6.8
13 January 2006
Yet more tweaks and minor improvements, what links here not limited to 5000 anymore.
1.6.7
12 January 2006
Even more tweaks and minor fixes, what links here limited to 5000 due to apparent change in mediawiki software.
1.6.5
11 January 2006
More tweaks and minor fixes, Mathwiz2020 fixed occasional problem with bypassing redirects.
1.6.4
9 January 2006
Multiple improvements to re-categorisation and general fixes. Now alerts user if page has multiple links to the same page.
1.6.3
9 January 2006
Improved regexes, fixed a couple of minor bugs. New messages cause the AWB to check that you are still an enabled user. Mathwiz2020 fixed security issues on enabled user-checking, and added internal and external bad link repair (under general fixes).
1.6.2
7 January 2006
A few small bug fixes.
1.6
2 January 2006
Fixed a couple of minor bugs, disabled date removal until it becomes uncontroversial.
1.5
1 January 2006
Put the Link FA template and Wikipedia:Persondata in correct place. Removes any duplicate categories.
1.4
30 December 2005
Checks you are logged in on every edit and a few other improvements.
1.3
29 December 2005
Can now make a list from a google search, a couple of other tweaks.
1.2
28 December 2005
Fixed a couple bugs, some other improvements.
1.1
27 December 2005
Fixed a few bugs, improved the layout.
1.0
27 December 2005
Sorts interwikis, categories and stubs so they are in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page, added context menu item that inserts birth and death categories (it works out the dates from the first dates in the page). Some other tweaks and fixes. New date regex.
Pre-1.x series
Version
Release date
Notes
0.995
23 December 2005
Added progress bar, tweaked the re-cat feature, added Bobblewik's new regexes, "ignore if contains" looks in title and text now.
0.99
22 December 2005
"What links here" now gets all pages rather than 5000 limit, new regex for removing dates, option to replace some html entities with unicode, worked around bug that IE has with some URLs containing fancy fonts in certain situations.
0.98
19 December 2005
Can get links from a text file now, improved ability to get links on a page. Can mark all edits as minor or add to watchlist via menu option. Improved menu system.
0.95
19 December 2005
Added "Preview instead of diff" option to menu, will make image tagging easy as it loads the preview instead of diff, (need to add more image tags to context menu). Made list a bit wider. Added "Preview" and "Diff" buttons that show or refresh (if already showing) the diff and preview. Added "beta" menu tab, which has option to remove excess links using Bobblewik's regex, be careful using this.
0.9
18 December 2005
Added context menu for page list, which now includes ability to filter out duplicates (which sorts alphetically for sake of efficiency). Bypasses redirects (disable in options menu).
0.85
17 December 2005
Fixed couple of bugs, added context menu to list of pages box, improved filter, can save list to txt file now.
0.8
15 December 2005
Couple of minor bugs fixed, added "filter" to get only main namespace pages, added regex to "ignore if contains". Disabled auto mode, as it can only be used when you have permission from Wikipedia:Bots.
0.72
14 December 2005
"Auto tag" feature will add wikify and stub tags when appropriate, couple of other features, "append message" only works on talk pages now.
0.71
14 December 2005
Bug fix release. Hey, I said it was a development version didn't I!
0.7
13 December 2005
Added ability to get links from a page (still need to be able to get links from a txt file), added Multiextended mode and remove for the list box, fixed a couple of bugs.
0.6
12 December 2005
A few bug fixes, made it so you have to be registered here to eliminate risk of vandalism. Added some features, still can't make a list by getting all the links on a page, that's next.
0.5
10 December 2005
Added a few things, fixed a few things. Bot mode is disabled for security reasons, but if you want it, please ask.
0.4
09 December 2005
Recategorisation enabled, "pages in category" finds sub-categories now, better context menu for the textbox, some other stuff.
0.3
09 December 2005
Added "what links here" support and some other tweaks.
0.2
08 December 2005
Surprisingly stable, many features to come.
Using this software
(1) Register
Add your name to the requests for registration if you would like to use the software. For security reasons, only registered users (see the list on the check page) are able to use AutoWikiBrowser on the English Wikipedia.
Anyone can be registered, but only if an admin approves your registration by placing your name on the check page. As a general rule, only users with more than 500 mainspace edits will be registered. You will probably not be contacted when your registration has been approved, so check the page periodically for your name or watchlist the page.
(2) Download
Download the release version here or alternatively you may download the latest development snapshot here. AWB comes in a zip file and it is recommended that it be unzipped to a new directory, rather than running, for example, straight from the desktop. AWB is not installed on the PC and runs only as a file: AutoWikiBrowser.exe.
If you want to run the latest SVN version, see here.
If the software does not work, it probably means that you are not registered or that you do not have the correct .NET Framework installed.
On Linux, AWB partially works with Wine.[1] It can also be started on Mono, albeit with some strange errors. See Mono and Wine. The installation process is the same as Wikipedia:Huggle/Wine.
Set any options, such as find and replace, edit summary, etc.
Click "Start!", it will load up the page, automatically make any changes and then go to the diff.
Change anything in the page you want in the Edit box on the lower right, not the normal website textbox in the browser, then click "Save" or "Skip / Ignore", the next page will load up automatically.
Having problems?
Occasionally, it stalls when loading. This might well be because you have navigated to a different window: AWB needs to remain in the foreground while loading up a new page. Just click "start" again to give it a nudge.
It uses the Internet Explorer core, so if you have problems, make sure your IE is working. Make sure you have logged into Wikipedia using IE. If you have altered any settings regarding scripts, first use Tools > Internet Options > 'Advanced' tab > Click on 'Restore Defaults' and then try AWB again.
If you have made changes to monobook.css (or whatever your theme is) that require CSS 2 or 3, they may not appear properly in IE and thus in AWB.
If you are having problems creating a list from "what links here" try clearing your Internet Explorer cache.
A buggy monobook.js can often cause IE to display blank pages or crash AWB. This javascript problem can be avoided by disabling Active Scripting in IE INTERNET OPTIONS – SECURITY – CUSTOM LEVEL.
"The application failed to initialize properly..." -> get .NET 2.0 (linked above).
Refer to the FAQ for more information, including problems with other software and Wikipedia skins.
AWB includes a database scanner which can be used to create lists of pages to be checked, without causing extra unnecessary load on Wikimedia servers.
Database dumps are created from time to time (more info here) and are available for free download. As the page states, the best/most useful dump is the pages-articles.xml.bz2. Visiting the database dump progress site, allows you to view the status of the current dump, and be able to easily browse to the downloads in it.
After downloading, the archive needs to be uncompressed; this will turn it from a ~7.9 GB bz2 archive into an xml database dump around 33 GB.
A scannable .xml file can also be generated by visiting Special:Export.
API
AWB ships with WikiFunctions.dll, which can be referenced by other standalone projects. The DLL includes a wiki-ready web browser control, a simple page editor, a listmaker, and other tools and components.
AWB is able to load and use fully customised plugins. These plugins can process page text and extend the user interface, and are in the form of libraries (.dll files) which can be made in any .NET language such as C# or Visual Basic .NET. When AWB loads, it automatically checks to see if there are any plugins in the folder it was executed from. Any plugins found are loaded and initialised without further intervention by the user.
Tips and tricks
To find and replace a word of upper and lower case, do a regular expression find and replace; for example, find: "\b([Tt])hier\b" and replace with: "$1heir". The "[Tt]" matches upper or lower case "t", the "$1" references whatever "[Tt]" matches. The "\b" indicates a word boundary; this prevents words like "clothier" from matching. The "(..)" marks the section or 'clause' that the "$1" is to replace.
To speed up a task, if you are correcting the above typo, set it to "Skip if doesn't contain" the typo(s) that is being corrected.
AWB may have keywords that can be used in the textboxes/find-and-replace dialog. Currently, there is %%title%%, which represents the title of the current page (e.g. "John Smith"), and %%key%%, which will give you the human name category key for the current page (e.g. "Smith, John"). Other keywords can be implemented on request.
Getting the sources
AutoWikiBrowser is licensed under the GPL (see the license file).
.NET
AutoWikiBrowser is written in .NET. Version 3.5 or earlier is required to compile AWB. .NET 3.0 is included on Windows Vista. .Net 3.5 is included on Windows 7. .NET version 4.0 and greater will work, but will require a slight modification to AWB's code and the installation of Windows SDK for Windows 7 or Windows SDK for Windows 8.
Download source
To get the sources run the command
svn checkout https://svn.code.sf.net/p/autowikibrowser/code/AWB/ .
You'll need network access to SourceForge and its SVN server.
If that doesn't work you probably need an SVN client:
Download and install TortoiseSVN. It is the recommended SVN client program.
Create a folder AWB (or whatever name you prefer) on your computer.
Right click on the folder, and select "SVN Checkout...".
In the dialog window that appears (titled "Checkout") enter http://svn.code.sf.net/p/autowikibrowser/code/AWB/ for the field URL of Repository. (This is read only access, the read-write URLs are different)
Please note that you can contribute features to AWB and fix bugs in AWB.
Read access is anonymous, but if you register as a developer of AWB,
sourceforge sends a URL with write access.
Compile source
You will now need to compile the code yourself. You will need a copy of a third-party C# IDE such as SharpDevelop (free), Microsoft Visual Studio Community 2019 or lower version (free) or a more complete version of the Visual Studio 2019 suite, such as Professional (cost). Alternatively, you can use newer versions of Visual Studio if you are willing to allow it to make modifications to your copy of the source.
SharpDevelop
Download and install the latest version of SharpDevelop
Click on File -> Open -> Project/Solution. Open the "AutoWikiBrowser no plugins" solution file.
Press F8 to build AWB. The AWB executable will be placed in ...\AWB\AWB\bin\debug. Copy AutoWikiBrowser.exe, Newtonsoft.Json.dll, WikiFunctions.dll and Interop.mshtml.dll from the folder to where you run AWB from.
Visual Studio 2019
The AutoWikiBrowser source is designed to be built with Visual Studio's 2019 version. The free ("Community") edition is no longer available for download; if you do not already have it installed, and are unable to use the Professional or Enterprise versions, go to the Visual Studio 2022 instructions below.
With Visual Studio 2019:
Ensure you have included the ".NET Desktop Development" option.
Browse to the toplevel source folder, and run the Visual Studio AutoWikiBrowser solution file.
When the IDE has loaded, select release rather than debug (next to the green forward arrow). In the solution explorer on the right hand side, right click on the solution, and select build solution. Visual Studio will now turn the source files into the required files to run AWB.
Back in the AWB folder, browse to AWB\bin\Release, and copy AutoWikiBrowser.exe and WikiFunctions.dll from the Release folder to where you run AWB from.
Visual Studio 2022
Ensure release 3.5 of the .NET Framework is installed. If necessary, download it here (or use "Turn Windows Features on or off" in the legacy Control Panel).
Download and install the current version of Visual Studio Community. While configuring options during the installation, select at least ".NET Desktop Development".
Browse to the toplevel source folder, and run the Visual Studio AutoWikiBrowser solution file. Visual Studio will prompt you with a dialog offering to upgrade the first project. Keep the "Update the target..." button selected, check "Remember my choice for this operation", and click Continue. Visual Studio will continue to load the solution, and (as of August 2024) 23 files are modified. From this point on your source will not match the original source.
When the IDE has loaded, select release rather than debug (next to the green forward arrow). In the solution explorer on the right hand side, right click on the solution, and select build solution. Visual Studio will now turn the source files into the required files to run AWB.
Back in the AWB folder, browse to AWB\bin\Release, and copy AutoWikiBrowser.exe and WikiFunctions.dll from the Release folder to where you run AWB from.
Unfortunately future downloads of newer SVN versions cannot be guaranteed to preserve the modifications.
MonoDevelop (Linux)
Use the "AutoWikiBrowser no plugins" solution file.
perl is required for the pre-build event to replace SVN revision number and date.
.NET 4.0/4.5 error
If you get an error while compiling saying something similar to, "Error loading code-completion information for Microsoft.mshtml from Microsoft.mshtml: Could not find assembly file.", this means you do not have .NET 3.5 or earlier installed. AWB can still be compiled, but will require a slight code change. It is recommended you install .NET 3.5, but if you cannot, see the talk page for further help.
Right click on the folder that contains the source code, then go Tortoise SVN -> Show log.
Update code from SVN
When new sources become available execute "SVN Update" from the context menu of your AWB folder. Then recompile the source.
You are not automatically notified of new versions; if you use AWB on a regular basis, and want to use the source version, check this daily, and build a new release version if there are changes. That way you are up to date with all bug fixes and new features.