Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Dev/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

AWB Accounts/Profiles

Another idea

Was discussing this with Steve first.

It would be good to have some form of a profile manager in AWB.

Quite a few people have bot accounts and normal accounts, would be useful if you could easily switch between them, without having to re-login.

Save account names and possibly a default settings.xml in a generic settings file for AWB, and then save the password, encrypted into say the registry.

Reedy Boy 20:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

This is a good idea, but I have security concerns. I absolutely veto storing account info in settings files; storing them encrypted in the registry would usually be OK but since the application is open source I'm a little concerned about even that. I won't say any more of course because of WP:BEANS. --kingboyk 13:55, 5 April 2007 (UTC)
OK, been thinking about this some more:
  • We can give the user a security warning and the option of password-protecting their profile, and using that password in the encryption process. If they decline, we'll use the details compiled into AWB. Encryption should be enough to deter any casual hacker who has somehow got access to the registry; any attack specifically against AWB users, well, the onus is on them to password-protect their details. I personally wouldn't bother with using a password, as I think the risk is small and I'm not going to run any malicious code.
  • The account info should be an object, but the password shouldn't be passed outside AWB. Instead, plugins should be notified when the user switches accounts, and also there should be an addition/overload to WikiFunctions.Editor: void Login(Profile profile). My plugin already stores account info and uses that class to upload logs; I need a simple transition.
If we can do this, I think this is a go-er and another nice addition v4. Thoughts? --kingboyk 11:44, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I do like this idea, and it would certainly make things easier for many. The concern about security is always present, and the storage of passwords is an issue. However, it's worth noting that it is up to the user to protect their details, but it would be nice to keep the option open to them to store them encrypted somewhere, on the condition that the security concerns with this are made abundantly clear. The wider idea of profiles for using AWB is great though :) Martinp23 11:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
And we can give them the option if they do actually want to save the password for certain accounts. If they didnt want to save, when the selected login, it could give an inputbox asking for the password and login anyway =). Commiting a base mock form to SVN now. Reedy Boy 12:31, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Yep, but I personally would just trust AWB, because I use the same password for both accounts. Anyrode, if you can check that we can actually do the login code programatically, get the encryption code from that URL I gave you, and port the registry code from wikifunctions2, and do the form... i.e. plenty to be going on with until we decide on the details. Certainly the password field will be private, so that only the Profile object knows it, we might even store it encrypted in memory and decrypt it on the fly... --kingboyk 12:36, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
Basic viewing form done, and also a basic add (could be used for edit too) form done.
RijndaelSimple module moved into WF.DLL under Encryption.cs
Reedy Boy 12:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
As you know my desktop PC has stopped working :( Not fixed it yet, might be terminal. --kingboyk 14:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
I'm back, having lost a working day and sans audio. Best guess is that the audio chip on my motherboard is f*cked. (cries) --kingboyk 17:09, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I had all these improvements and fixes planned for today and got none of it done, sigh. What a day! --kingboyk 21:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Nudge timer revisited

The new nudge timer seems to be working well, but I think from the logs that 2 minutes as a default is a bit aggressive.

I'd propose either making the default longer, or perhaps increasing the gap between the event firing by, say, 1 minute increments each time, until it maxes out at 10 minutes.

Thoughts? --kingboyk 17:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm missing something, what's wrong with having it at 2 minutes? It's just restarting AWB if it stalls. Is it doing anything else? --TeckWiz ParlateContribs@(Lets go Yankees!) 17:41, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
It's adding a line to the log which gets uploaded by my plugin. It's also querying a possibly overloaded server. --kingboyk 18:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
Oh...okay. Then it probably would be a good idea. --TeckWiz ParlateContribs@(Lets go Yankees!) 18:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I've implemented this in rev 1006 (it compiles but I haven't tested it yet). I've replaced the nudge time option with an auto-incrementing timer object. Now fingers crossed that it works! --kingboyk 20:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... somebody please check the logic. It needs to be incrementing if the last nudge didn't work, doesn't it, rather than incrementing every time it fires. Now I'm not sure if that will happen or if the timer gets reset after each fire. --kingboyk 21:21, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Concept: nudge timer wants to fire because AWB is stuck. Consults plugins. If a plugin says Cancel, it exits. Otherwise, it fires...

The broken bit: When nudge timer fires, it should increment it's interval. If successfully save, the timer should restart at default interval of 2 minutes. --kingboyk 14:29, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

"first approach to handling nested templates"

If we could keep this fairly "generic" it would be great, as I'd like at some point to see wikifunctions be able to handle nested WikiProject templates. --kingboyk 20:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, you can use Parsers.GetTemplate already, as long as you know the template name. MaxSem 03:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
And GetTemplates will be useful in ReplaceSpecial. MaxSem 06:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
Something to look at at some vague time in the future, then! :) Thanks. --kingboyk 11:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Increment version *after* release?

I wonder if the svn version should get a version increment immediately after a release, so that, right now, we would have 3.9.0.0 release and 3.9.0.1 svn. Release and svn can be quite different... Besides bug reporting and so on, my plugin adds the AWB version number to logs it uploads, and right now it will say 3.9.0.0 although I am in fact running something newer than that. --kingboyk 21:55, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

I did wonder that before, as it would make sense to do that IMHO, even if like you said, its only a minor no increase. Reedy Boy 08:35, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
The only issue I can think of is that enabling an extra version might cause users to get an "optional upgrade" prompt (I haven't checked the code but I think that's what might happen). If that's the case, we could have something like:
  • 4.0.0.0 enabled
  • 4.0.0.1 enabled svn
While we're talking about releases, might we get some release instructions for devs? (perhaps at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dev. --kingboyk 15:07, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
if (!WeAskedAboutUpdate && strText.Contains(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetName().Version.ToString() + " enabled (old)"))

The user would only be bugged if it is marked as old. As for a guide, yeah, i can do that, wont take long Reedy Boy 16:24, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Memory usage

Martin (bluemoose) told me that the horrible RAM usage of AWB after a few hours of tagging was due to memory leaks in IE.

I was wondering, then, if the issue might be "fixed" (or at least hacked around) by setting the webcontrol object to null, disposing of it (so it really goes), and recreating it. This could be done every 500 saves, perhaps, or if physical RAM is running low.

Thoughts? --kingboyk 18:48, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

We can try it, but... leaks are leaks, most of them will be fixed only when AWB process is terminated. MaxSem 18:52, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
There's also the issue of whether event handlers attached to the webcontrol (AWB, plugin) would barf. I think Sam's gonna give it a go as it wouldn't be a lot of code. Worth a try at least. --kingboyk 18:57, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
Its currently enabled in the debug version. It does kill the control and re-initialise it, assigning all relevant properties. I just cant seem to get it to start working again. And i havent checked if it does actually reduce the memory usage! Reedy Boy 11:59, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Maxlag

The devs have added a new Mediawiki feature which may be better for automated bots than having a user-defined edit interval. Please see Wikipedia:Bot_owners'_noticeboard#Maxlag_parameter. I will also file this as a feature request.

I think we're able to support it, as it's a parameter on index.php. --kingboyk 14:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Admins on checkpage

We don't need this section anymore, because now MediaWiki sets JS variable with user groups, for example:

var wgUserGroups = ["*", "user", "autoconfirmed", "emailconfirmed"];

If there is no objections, I'll make AWB automatically approve all admins. MaxSem 18:19, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Cool. May aswell. I suppose admins just need to be in the user section...? Or are you just going to get AWB to look if they are an admin, and then they just have AWB access Reedy Boy 18:22, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
I'd rather prefer the second, but would like to see more input on this. MaxSem 18:41, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Don't get rid of the support for an admins section though, as many non-Wikimedia wikis aren't running the latest build and therefore don't have that variable in the source code. —METS501 (talk) 19:39, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Good Point Reedy Boy 19:43, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
These vars exist on 1.9 (see on Wikia), and I don't think that AWB will work on even earlier versions. MaxSem 20:00, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
Hmm.. I did notice on some aroudn v1.5 it couldnt get login hooks... Mets had to mod a file for me for it to work... Reedy Boy 20:46, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

And should we do the same to bot accounts? MaxSem 05:46, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

But that would mean all bots are approved to use AWB.. Should this be allowed? Or are they going to have to match to the userlist aswell to prove they have the rights to use it...? Reedy Boy 08:32, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
Ok, let's wait for more discusion on this matter, but I've just committed automatic approval for admins. MaxSem 09:11, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Version 4.0 worklist

I've started a Version 4.0 worklist on the attached page. Please add jobs which need to be done before version 4.0 is released, and strike out jobs as they are done.

Martinp23 proposed on MSN that we release an alpha version asap for testing purposes; it would of course be an optional update and we ought to recommend that experienced users only take part. Caveat aside, I think it's a good idea. --kingboyk 12:08, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I suggested it didnt i....? Reedy Boy 08:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I certainly didn't - wake up Steve! Martinp23 20:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Added Suggested Alpha Group Below. Feel free to suggest beneath. Sign against the nomination. If you disagree with someone else, comment on it. Did it based on knowledgable users on en.Wiki - Reporting bugs and such Reedy Boy 09:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Is that necessary? Anybody can grab it from svn already. By all means pick a few people to canvass, and, yes, have a "caution" notice on the download, but I'm not sure such a formal undertaking is required. --kingboyk 21:03, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Although the SVN is public, most people don't want to download a breed of visual studio just for one project. The only way this would work would be to upload a binary to SVN regularly. Martinp23 21:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't meaning that we ask people to download from SVN, merely that we can't stop them doing that. Therefore, I wondered why we should seek to restrict access to a binary alpha version... --kingboyk 21:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I think its a good idea, as we get some of the big reporters/users who dont necesserily use the SVN version testing it... Only a thought.. Of course, its up to them! We know it seems fine for tagging... Its a bit slow doing typo fixes imho.... Reedy Boy 21:22, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
It works though? That's good. I'll do a category run some time, if a certain AWB dev/BAG member ever approves my request :P ;) --kingboyk 21:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Isn't that category request currently waiting on a CfD initiated by yourself to determine if "by composer" or "by songwriter" is the correct form? On the issue of the BAG member - I hope you're talking about Mets... :P Martinp23 21:36, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
No, the parent category name has no bearing on the name of the children. That's already established as "Songs by...". I have to decide on whether to go with "Songs by Lennon/McCartney" or "Songs by Lennon and McCartney" but I'm quite capable of sorting that out on wiki myself! (Unless I can't be trusted to run a bot task without presenting the exact details, signed and in triplicate! shih). You could have asked me on MSN, by the way, and then my emoticon would have worked! :P --kingboyk 21:48, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
*sigh* - I think we'll need the details singing in sextuplicate, after your demonstration above that you can't remember a name :P. I'll go and take a look at the request now. Martinp23 21:51, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Singing? I don't have much of a voice, I'm afraid. --kingboyk 23:25, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
sigh (again) :~) Martinp23 22:07, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I'd be happy to try it out with my bot, Reedy Boy. Maybe it'll even solve my unhandled exception problem. Also, whoever said it above, you're right. I'm happy to try out AWB, but I don't want to bother with all the downloading for SVN. --TeckWiz is now R ParlateContribs@ (Let's go Yankees!) 23:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
Thats what im meaning - We can get some decent users who know what they are doing, and dont like R, who dont want to mess about with SVN and downloading c# express/whatever. Reedy Boy 10:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I think we'd be looking at manual usage initially rather than a bot wouldn't we? Or are we confident that I didn't break anything in my recent changes?
BTW, devs, I plan to get the Article object and plugin interfaces, and hopefully most of the public-wikifacing wikifunctions code, documented soon; but I have a bit of an on-wiki backlog to clear first. --kingboyk 23:21, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
I could probably run my bot at a reduced rate, since AWB is still in testing mode. About 5 edits a minutes maybe? --TeckWiz is now R ParlateContribs@ (Let's go Yankees!) 11:28, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I've tagged nearly 10k articles with the updated version (AWB changes and the plugin changes). I think generally that seems to work, and work well, its doing other mainly AWB tasks... Reedy Boy 14:47, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
I see. Maybe I should have more confidence in my own work then :P Wikidiff seems to be working a treat now too. I think we have a few features to be working on, bugs to fix, etc, and several devs are busy (Mets in particular) so do you fancy compiling an alpha prerelease and getting it out to selected/interested parties? --kingboyk 15:12, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
download. 3902 = current version number, r1151 = SVN version that the build is from. Will leave the users below a message so that they can get it if they want, and let us know if they are going to use the new versions. =) Reedy Boy 16:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Alpha Versions

Versions that are struck out are old and unavailable version. If you want to try the alpha version, please try the version at the bottom not struck out. Please report any bugs via the usual method, and enter the correct version number!

Updated Version to match SVN Changes. AutoWikiBrowser3902r1196.zip Reedy Boy 09:19, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Updated to rev 1205 - AutoWikiBrowser3920r1205.zip Reedy Boy 20:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
rev 1209 - AutoWikiBrowser3920r1209.zip Reedy Boy 08:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
rev 1364 - AutoWikiBrowser3930r1364.zip Reedy Boy 20:34, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
rev 1390 - AutoWikiBrowser3931r1390.zip Reedy Boy 19:20, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
rev 1395 - AutoWikiBrowser3932r1395.zip Reedy Boy 20:38, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggest Alpha Group

Will download and test using bot tomorrow or tonight. --TeckWiz is now R ParlateContribs@ (Let's go Yankees!) 20:38, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  1. I will have a play with V4. Rich Farmbrough, 18:15 10 May 2007 (GMT).
  • User:Mets501 - I'll test it out, I just need some one to email me a compiled wikidiff, because I can't compile it. It would be great if we split the project up into two separate solutions too, like I suggested earlier, one for the c# code and one for the c++ code, and that should be fine as Wikidiff should rarely, if ever, need updating. .NET Express can't handle both c++ and c# in the same project. —METS501 (talk) 21:27, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
The devs were included mets by default ;). [1] is a full set of compiles - like the release Reedy Boy 22:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Whoops, should have realized that. It all looks great!!! —METS501 (talk) 23:04, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
That doesn't really require any svn changes I think mets? Can't you just use the project files? (I presume each .sln is made up of several project files, that was how it worked in old versions anyway). --kingboyk 22:12, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
Not neccessarily, but it is only a seperate .sln file required to exlude Wikidiff2 from the solution (the file in question can be made by messing around with the .sln file in a text editor). I've prepared an alterante solution file for Mets, and it has been committed. Now all we need are binaries, wihch can probably be put in SVN for Wikidiff. Martinp23 22:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I will do it! I'd love to. :) ~EdBoy[c] 03:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
You get copies from SVN dont you? As if so, thats fine, feel free. The intention of this was for people who didnt want/couldnt to download from SVN and build them themselves. Therefore we made extra version/releases avaliable to them! Reedy Boy 08:36, 23 May 2007 (UTC)
  • I love testing stuff out :-) ~ Wikihermit 01:20, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I tried to test, but i can't set to "On load:show changes", always the edit page is opening? what's going on, i tried even to manipulate in config file but no result (rev 1364) --84.234.42.68 12:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
    Weird, everything works fine for me:| MaxSem 13:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
    no difference after I changed On load: show dfference to show edit page or show changes, still "Edytujesz <article_name>" [Editing <article_name>] appears, it's on .pl, i even loaded empty config and no improvement --84.234.42.68 15:36, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
    Fixed in rev 1388. MaxSem 18:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Kingbotk plugin

To the devs who also have plugin svn access (Sam & Martin).

I was thinking that perhaps the plugin ought to be notched up to version 2 to go with AWB version 4?

  • Improve the logging feature and make it more robust; this is mostly work within wikifunctions.dll now and it's already on the v4.0 todo list
  • Finish off the code to get an article and determine if it's a stub, has an infobox, etc. That would allow the plugin to act more like a spider: get a flat list of talk pages, retrieve the article in the background, and then tag based on the article. That's a requested feature and probably enough to justify v2. Some code exists, I've been working on more, and roped Martin in to do the rest (no I haven't forgotten! :P)
  • Bug fixes and feature requests

The big planned change for v2, rewriting most of the templating plugins as a "everything but the kitchen sink" generic template would probably have to wait until v3.

Thoughts? --kingboyk 14:38, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Splash screen

Let me start off by saying that I'm in no way a talented graphic designer, but I wanted to take a shot at making a splash screen. What do you think? Any suggestions?

METS501 (talk) 14:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I keep looking at it and I can't make my mind up. Not sure if it's minimalist and cool, or plain and crap :P --kingboyk 15:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Agreed... Reedy Boy 18:36, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
LOL. I won't be insulted either way :-) —METS501 (talk) 16:40, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
The merits of the art aside, do we need a splash screen? Would it be pleasant eye candy, or a nuisance? (not rhetorical questions). --kingboyk 16:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, i mean, some just have it, and it means the program takes longer to start up - which isnt really needed... Reedy Boy 18:36, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Well, AWB does take a long time to start up already :). A splash screen would be something nice to detract from the several seconds of "Initialising", and should reduce the percieved wait for our users. Martinp23 18:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Dont know if any of you have actually used a splashscreen... But in VB/C#, it shows it before the program actually starts to load.... Therefore making it overally longer :/ Reedy Boy 18:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
How about where the web browser is before the first page loads? Like while the user is doing the settings. (Just looking to "prettify" the white space where the web browser will be and the diffs will show) :-) —METS501 (talk) 19:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Sounds a better idea to me! Reedy Boy 19:28, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Better yes. I think splash screens are a bit passe, we'd be better off spending time making it load quicker. Something on the background when loading would be OK tho. --kingboyk 19:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC) (e/c)
Actually, it may be possible to display while loading. See [2] for example. —METS501 (talk) 19:29, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah maybe, but i was saying with the inbuilt method :P Reedy Boy 20:00, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Another attempt

How about this for a more professional-looking splash screen?

METS501 (talk) 02:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

That better. Maybe take off "the". --TeckWiz is now R ParlateContribs@ (Let's go Yankees!) 02:40, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I like the "the" :-) Otherwise it sounds awkward, to me at least. —METS501 (talk) 03:45, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I was bold and implemented this in rev 1195 and rev 1196. It displays on startup, and hides once the form is initialized. What do you think? —METS501 (talk) 06:02, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Works for me :) Reedy Boy 09:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Looks nice. I think I'd prefer it if it were part of the background, where the web control goes, rather than a seperate window. As above, I think splash screens are a bit passe. What do others think? Can we at least try it and see how it looks? --kingboyk 15:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I like it in front. Because then it's obvious that it's loading. I don't know of a many common applications at all that doesn't have a splash screen. It makes it look professional :-) —METS501 (talk) 16:07, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Makes it look like we can't get out an application that loads as quick as it should, imho :) It's a browser, and browsers don't have splash screens. OK, I'm not too fussed just so long as it doesn't obscure any buttons or controls which the user could be manipulating whilst waiting for the initialisation to finish. --kingboyk 16:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, how long does it take you to load AWB on your computer? Because maybe I'm not seeing this the same way, because I only see the splash screen for about half a second. —METS501 (talk) 16:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm on an aging laptop, and it's well over 10 seconds. In that time (as I type now, in fact) the splash form is obscuring my screen. --kingboyk 17:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Circumvented by adding a close-on-click event handler. That's cool. :) --kingboyk 17:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

How about adding the version number? --kingboyk 17:27, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Done, and a progress bar added too. It looks great! Tell me if the progress bar seems to approximate the progress; I can't really tell on mine because it moves so fast (not to brag (lol)) —METS501 (talk) 20:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Looks like its properly tied in. Reedy Boy 20:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, looks good. I've added click handlers to all the controls, so if it's slow loading and I want to use the UI the splash screen can be got rid of. So, great, that's the important issue of the cosmetics taken care of :) --kingboyk 21:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
How about an option in the preferences that can permanently turn it off? ~EdBoy[c] 21:25, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Diffs

OK, just to make sure I'm not missing something. Now that we're using wikidiff2 to load the diffs, it seems as if we can remove quite a bit from the code. Tell me if we can't remove any of the following:

  • "Enhance diff?" checkbox in preference form and its corresponding settings value
    • It seems the only code relating to it is its checkbox, the propertys for passing between forms, its thing in the preferences, and the xml load/save of it. Reedy Boy 09:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
  • "Scroll down on diff view?" checkbox in preference form and its corresponding settings value
  • The complete else if (ProcessStage == enumProcessStage.diff) portion of Webcontrol.cs
  • The diff font size selector in the preferences form and its corresponding settings value
  • The EnhanceDiff(), ScrollToContent(), and ShowDiff() functions of Webcontrol.cs, as well as the variable CanDiff
    • Yup, as its not used for that, i suppose it can go... Reedy Boy 09:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

METS501 (talk) 03:52, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

WebControl.GetLogInStatus()

I've observed that login details are stored in WebControl.Document.Cookie. Wouldn't it be easier and more rubust to grab the login name from there? --kingboyk 14:54, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Session ID could expire prematurely, so parsing HTML is a more reliable way, IMHO. MaxSem 17:34, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
It could be very useful, however, to have the document.cookie as a backup. I remember clearly that some custom wikis don't have the login name in the HTML, even when a user is logged in. See for example http://www.wikihow.com/, which at present I cannot use AWB to edit without disabling the login script. —METS501 (talk) 01:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
I think Max's concern is that the cookie might still indicate we're logged in, when in fact the server has logged us out. Since the cookie parsing code would be very simple to implement, and the logged out issue probably quite simple to test, perhaps you'd give it a go on that wiki? If you don't have the time I'll try to look into it but it'll be at the end of a long todo list :( --kingboyk 12:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Setup Binary

Well, I made a setup binary. Some of you devs know this already. You can find it here. ~EdBoy[c] 21:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Cool! —METS501 (talk) 01:18, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[Obsolete] private void loadSettings(Stream stream) - Still needed

Does anyone else think we still need this?

Surely the settings will have been migrated...?

Im not sure when the settings change over was, but it was a while ago.

What does anyone else think?

I know it causes no problems, im just asking, Do we still need it...?

Reedy Boy 20:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, we could really get rid of this now. MaxSem 14:07, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
Removed. MaxSem 14:52, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

How about a new logo and icon? MaxSem 20:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

    • Ooh, yes - nice idea. There's gotta be an artist amongst AWB's userbase I'd have thought. Some new eyecandy would be really nice to mark the new major release wouldn't it :) --kingboyk 21:03, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Aint we got a user message thingy...? Ie message displayed to users on load...? Im sure there was.. Reedy Boy 21:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
        • Here is my final product of the logo (Image:AWB Logo.gif). Tell us what you think. Extranet talk 06:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
          • I have created a new possible desktop icon/logo for AWB;I attemped to use the wikipedia logo but wasnt able to so I made a new one. It could possibly be enlarged for a logo if needed at . Djmckee1 15:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
            • Unfortunately we cannot accept (for copyright reasons) submissions containing the Wikipedia logo, or the logos of any Wikimedia projects. The copyright to these logos is reserved by the WMF, and in practice (until they start enforcing it), we allow the use of WMF logos throught Wikipedia (user space, etc). However, this is just an administrative choice here, and so we cannot use the logos off-wiki. Martinp23 16:15, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
    • Logos also have to be 32 x 32, I believe. So while your logo, Extranet, looks nice, at 32 x 32 it looks like File:AWB Logo.gif, which clearly doesn't work. —METS501 (talk) 17:12, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
      • Here's my second revision, 32x32 icons: File:AWBicon.gif and File:AWBicon2.gif. Have you say on these ;) Extranet talk 08:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
        • I havr to say that I feel that a "real" globe (ie - unsimplified) is throuougly unimpressive at low resolutions... Martinp23 18:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
  • Here's my sketch. MaxSem 16:59, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
    • I like it! —METS501 (talk) 18:17, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
      • I like that too. Great job there, maybe you can also make an icon at 32x32 with the same graphics? Extranet talk 20:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
        • I hate Max! He's good at everything and it's not fair! :P Looks grand to me. Oh, btw, I was thinking, perhaps every AWB form ought to have a small visual adornment; this could be easily achieved by creating an abstract base form and having all AWB popup forms inherit from it. --kingboyk 16:19, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
  • (reduced indent) Here's a simple flat design I thought might be nice. I can modify it per any requests for slight changes. (Ironically, I can't use AWB in general - I run Mac OS, which is unsupported.)
    Here's Nihiltres' simple flat idea. If it displays blank, that's because the SVG hasn't been rendered to PNG yet.
    Nihiltres(t.c.s) 16:03, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Logging and category

Two things. First, can we move the new category text box to the logging tab, since that what it appears it's most used for? And also, what exactly is the logging tab? I still can't quite figure it out... —METS501 (talk) 03:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Grr... shows how many times you've bothered trying my plugin. Honestly I'm starting to wonder why I bother, giving the hostile reaction I've been getting.
The logging tab is for logging what the f*ck do you think?! Surely you've seen the discussion? Not noticed the fact that my plugin uploads logs?
The category box won't fit onto the logging tab, but is used by logging and by my plugin for edit summaries. --kingboyk 10:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, no problems :-) Really, we're not being hostile about anything; it's just that we're only reporting the bugs. If we were to say "Great job!" every time we thought so after you commit and update, we'd have filled 6 archives just with that already :-) Even if we're not saying it, know that your work is certainly greatly appreciated. Anyway, back to the category text box, I think it should either be moved or renamed, since it uses the same word as Wikipedia categories (naturally), and some people might get confused. —METS501 (talk) 14:00, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
I'm just getting a bit sick of Wikipedia full stop. I can understand why Bluemoose left. I mostly do a good job but only ever hear about it when folks have something to grumble about. Anyway:
With regards to the logging: This is one of several features that have been at work in my plugin, and which now Sam and I have access to AWB code have ported over (the plugin is actually 100k lighter). It logs a complete session to wiki or xhtml, and Sam is also gonna add logging to SQL. The wiki format logs can be uploaded (see User:Kingbotk/Logs).
In the plugin, I had a MyTrace object which implemented the IMyTraceListener interface, and which all parts of the article processing code, and various stop/start/error events, knew how to write to. MyTrace was built around a generic collection of IMyTraceListener objects: a wiki trace listener, an xml listener, and a "bad tags" listener (which we've just removed, to give the screen real estate to SQL). Recently, I created the AWBLogListener object, which also implements IMyTraceListener. AWB's article object and AWB itself was adapted to write to an AWBLogListener (but not, alas, specifically to an IMyTraceListener), the plugin received the AWBLogListener for each article in the ProcessArticleEventArgs agument of ProcessArticle(). The neat thing that happened then was that the plugin popped the new AWBLogListener into the MyTrace collection during the lifetime of that call to ProcessArticle(), and removed it again before returning to AWB. That's how I was able to have the plugin write all sorts of neat logging info to your logging tab so quickly :)
AWB doesn't know much about IMyTraceListener, and I didn't want to add to much extra weight to WikiFunctions.Article, so the plumbing in has been a bit ugly. Looks like Max might have fixed it overnight; otherwise I would have tried a new solution I was thinking about in bed, which was to move ArticleWithLogging back to Article and have a static listeners collection inside that class instead of in GlobalObjects. Anyrode, the key point is that this is to an extent proven technology; it worked well 99% of the time, sometimes a bit flaky, but basically worked. People were moaning before I'd even finished plumbing it in :)
Hopefully it is now plumbed in, but of course it's likely to be buggy until it's tested. It will probably need to be optimised for AWB too, as general AWB usage is different to plugin usage (e.g. default should probably be "logging off"). I can't really test it cos AWB doesn't work for me, so I'll be relying on Sam/Martin/whoever to do it, and I'll help fix any bugs which come up. Also, if you can find a better way of plumbing this in, without ruining the "works for applications other than AWB" rule of the logging stuff in WikiFunctions, and without adding too many extra objects to Article which is used widely throughout the app, please do.
Now it's plumbed in we also have the code from the French devs to look at. Their log output was prettier than mine. --kingboyk 14:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
OK, much clearer now :-) I'll do what I can. Thanks for the explanation. —METS501 (talk) 14:37, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

BROKEEEEEEN

IT'S BROKEEEEEEN! How much more rewriting is needed? I can't do bugfixes when it does not compile. MaxSem 17:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

It compiles now, but you'd be better off using the last revision before we started (marked as last known good) if you need a guaranteed working copy, sorry. Changes can be merged back in later if you go that route. The logging code worked fine in the plugin, but AWB doesn't such have a good object model to slot it into; Sam's also working on AWBProfiles, so there's a lot of changes still afoot. It'll be worth it in the end I'm sure :) --kingboyk 23:32, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I can't do anything with it now, since every time I click start, it says "Restarting in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0, 15, 14, 13..." —METS501 (talk) 03:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Then use an older version until this is finished and tested, or fix it! In fact, I haven't been able to use AWB in anger for some time because of a "File not found" error with IE but do you hear me whinging?

I'm tempted to to rip my code out and go do something else, it's all moan moan moan on this site! --kingboyk 10:06, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't worry Kingboyk, we're just having fun. You're code rewrites and stuff are working great, and we're just anxious to get to work on them :-) No rush, though. —METS501 (talk) 13:57, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Unicodify bug fix

I was look at the bug I filed and realized that the better fix would probably be to not Unicodify the lower 128 "pure ASCII" character. The reasoning behind this would be that no sane person would type out a 4 digit code unless they need to work around a parsing problem. This in my eyes is the more elegant solution. —Dispenser 04:07, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Urgent Bug!

I'm guessing this is a pretty urgent bug. Look at my conrtibutions from today. Some of them include "substing user messages." This should've been done by my bot, as I use it to do with with that edit summary. However, it says at bottom right corner "RBot", and I was running in bot mode. This is strange because the edit was made under my name. --R ParlateContribs@ (Red Sux!) 21:25, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Did it show RBot or R at the top right hand corner of the web browser - ie how you know which account you are running on when just normally browsing wikipedia? Did you use some other account changing method? Reedy Boy 07:06, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
I didn't look at the top right. I was however, trying to log on with VandalProof as R, which also uses components of IE. Could VandalProof have hijacked AWB to make it think RBot is still logged in, but it's really me. That would explain how I was using auto-save, but it was being logged on a non bot account. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 11:23, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Whatever account is currently logged in on Internet Explorer will be the same for what account is editing on AWB, so that may be the exact reason. It's no error, it's just conflicting with your use of VandalProof. Extranet is now E talk 11:51, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Yup, sounds like the exact problem to me! Reedy Boy 13:48, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
E, it is an error, because AWB was allowing my main account to run in automatic mode. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 23:52, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps clean out your internet cache and cookies on IE? Extranet is now E talk 06:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Maybe, but to get it to do that, you'd have to have a bot account to get to that anyway. And the only other way would be to say check login status every time it starts to process a page, which IMHO, is stupid as it would increase the processing time a long way. Use IE for your bot, use FF for your normal account. Reedy Boy 09:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
That's what I do. However, I was trying to log into vandalproof, which uses IE. --R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 20:28, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
Couldn't AWB look for the username in the HTML source when the page is loaded and throw up a message if it changed from the authenticated one? Similar to what you do with new messages? —Dispenser 00:04, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Has been deleted

What are we going to do instead?

Reedy Boy 17:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Variables.cs

        public static void LoadUnderscores(string category)
        {
            BackgroundRequest r = new BackgroundRequest(new BackgroundRequestComplete(UnderscoresLoaded));
            r.HasUI = false;
            DelayedRequests.Add(r);
            r.GetList(WikiFunctions.Lists.GetLists.From.Category, category);
        }

Suppose it needs working round?

Reedy Boy 17:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

We can fetch the transclusions to {{underscore}}METS501 (talk) 19:57, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
Soo... [3] Reedy Boy 20:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
All done - rev 1339 Reedy Boy 15:29, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

AutoWikiBrowser.dll

I was wondering if there's documentation somewhere for this dll. I run a pywikipedia bot (User:WatchlistBot) which seems to load categories and perform other tasks much more slowly than AWB. I'd like to convert it to use the AWB.dll, but don't know how to begin. Is this the right place to ask? Ingrid 02:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Probably the main talk page would be the best place to ask, or IRC. You mean wikifunctions.dll? There's plenty of reusable stuff there. The easiest way to proceed if you know C# is to download the source, I think, as it's not well documented at the moment. --kingboyk 17:47, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll be back soon

Apologies for leaving you all in the lurch; the good news is that my new PC is now built and mostly configured. Once I've sorted out a backlog of personal tasks, I'll be back to help fix up the code and test for version 4. I daresay our younger contributors - which is most of them! - will be back soon too, now that exams are over or almost over, and we can get the show back on the road :) --kingboyk 17:43, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Google Summer of Code

Too late for this year, but perhaps we ought to be looking for some Google funding next year from the Google Summer of Code? If the Mediawiki folks aren't currently involved, we might want to involve them too. If they are, it might make our application easier since presumably we can nominate the Wikimedia Foundation as the sponsoring organisation.

Anyrode, just some food for thought, there's plenty of time to think about it. --kingboyk 17:45, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Two users

Two users to watch:

  • User:TTN for concerns about overtagging and mass tagging at a high rate
  • User:Wizzard2k for concerns about the misunderstanding of lists and categories

METS501 (talk) 12:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I originally sounded the alarm about Wizzard2k, but from this it looks like they were merely expressing themself badly: I've asked them to clarify on the request page just to make sure it's on the record. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 10:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Need to release 4.0 soon

We're receiving more and more complaints about bug fixed long ago in SVN, but not yet released in binaries. That means that we need to release 4.0 soon, or things will become unmanageable. The only blocking problems we currently have are related to logging. I could attempt to fix them, but I can't test them with Kingbotk plugin. As Steve is currently busy running for the Board, I propose to release 4.0 without support for assessments (most AWB users don't need it), and fix it later with no hurry. MaxSem 10:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

No objections here but I would suggest that the 3.9.x.x branch stays on the checkpage for those who need the plugin and that bot operators be advised not to upgrade for, let's say, at least a week or two. The reason for the second suggestion is that any unexpected, major bugs are likely to be discovered and reported in the first few days which makes me think that dealing with the potential fallout of a bug should be easily manageable as long as there aren't tens of thousands of bot edits to fix as well. --S up? 11:25, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Certainly. MaxSem 11:27, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
As far as we know the only real problem is currently related to the logging. Two problems from this, are 1 it creates the random log text file for every article, and 2, the inbuilt skips are not working. Im not sure how much work would be needed to remove the logging from AWB (well, from use in AWB - complete removal from WF and AWB is un-necessary...). The major used plugin with AWB is Kinbotk plugin, as Max said. It isnt in a releasable state as it currently rests, as the logging is not there... However, people could use it with the logging 'broken'. MaxSem - If you want to attempt to fix the problems, or at least, some of them, i'll gladly test them. As stated above, those are the 2 only known problems... If they could be sorted, that would give us a somewhat releas-able version of V4... Im wondering do we release as v4... Or do we release it as another version of 3.9? I know that isnt major.. but still! We can put the old version into 'old' mode, so users will be informed that a new version has been released! Reedy Boy 13:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
It definitely needs to be 4.0, I think – AWB has undergone huge changes, internally and externally. We could call it 4.0 β or something, but I think it's ready for an official release once the logging is fixed. There'll always be bugs, and that's why new versions are constantly being released; or rather, were being released :-) —METS501 (talk) 13:57, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Calling it V4 Beta is a good idea! Reedy Boy 13:58, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
In fact, it may be worth releasing a 4.0 β now so that people can test it and find bugs before the official release (of course, they'd be warned that the logging and skip options don't work when downloading) —METS501 (talk) 14:00, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
MaxSem is working on reparse and the the lack of skipping. The skipping is something that we cant really release a version with it broken. I think, depending on how much time maxsem has avaliable and such, we should be able to get it out for the weekend. Reedy Boy 14:12, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
It seems to skip when it bot mode, but doesn't skip in manual mode (when the text "Press the "Ignore" button below to skip to the next page" is displayed). I guess whenever that change was made, which must have been quite recently as I've not seen that text before, the skipping code got broken. It looks to be more serious than that though - there seems to be breakage in the log tab. I have my bot running now and evidently I'm on a bot job which Sam has already done - every page is being properly skipped, but all pages are being logged (in the log tab) as successfully saved whereas in fact the plugin has told AWB to skip them (and AWB has duly obliged) - see logging text file entry below. Also, it might be that some pages aren't getting into the tab at all.
  1. Talk:Germanos Karavangelis (edit | article | history | links | watch | logs)
    • Biography: Skipped: No change
    • Kingbotk Plugin Manager: Skipped
This was working when I was last actively developing, so if anyone has changed the code in these areas in the last month or so could they please be review their work? Cheersz
--kingboyk 22:25, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
I think I've fixed logging (rev 1406) - it's writing to one file now instead of one per article. (It was a trivial problem). I've also made the settings code a bit better in an OOP sense and documented it, and plumbed in logging settings. I'm doing a test run now, will be interesting to see if uploading works. Certainly I expect a difficulty when it tries to work out what username and password to use, but hopefully Sam can plumb AWB Profiles in with a little guidance from me. Other than that I'm hopeful, and will report back in an hour or two...
I've also just noticed that it's not skipping at the request of a plugin, as discussed above. This is something which has broken since I've been inactive I think, and it wouldn't surprise me if it's connected to the new HTML message which says "No changes Press the "Ignore" button below to skip to the next page." I'll see if I can find out what got broke, but if the dev who made that change could tell me what revision number to look at it might speed up the debugging. Again, I wouldn't expect this to be difficult to fix as it's quite a trivial operation: if a plugin says skip, skip! :) --kingboyk 20:13, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
Logging uploading got no further than barfing at the absence of username/password. However, I've had a play with AWB Profiles and it looks good. I'll liaise with Sam to try and get the uploading feature to use a Profile entry, as we planned a long time ago :)
Kingbotk is running at the moment, no other issues to report so far. --kingboyk 22:08, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Another splash screen idea

I just happened to be on this page and noticed the two splash screen ideas above, and whipped something up on a whim - starting with the earth logo(ish) I built this around it. Tweaks or ideas can be added/fixed easily, or if it's totally out of the ballpark that's perfectly fine too :) I can make it as up to 9,000px wide, just let me know what size is best. Enjoy -- Editor at Largetalk 18:08, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Two problems: we're in process of choosing a new logo, and we cannot accept CC-licensed images, only GPL. MaxSem 18:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Aha :) I just fixed it up a tad, and I'll license GPL or even PD gladly. CC-by-sa-2.5 is just my default license, but I'm flexible. -- Editor at Largetalk 18:29, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Great job with it though :-) —METS501 (talk) 18:32, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Nice! However, I think the "Aut" and "ser" (in AutoWikiBrowser), and the "Available under the GNU General Public License" are too dark and a little hard to see. By the time you figure out what it says, the splash screen will have already disappeared. --(Review Me) R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 20:54, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Good point; fixed that and made the license notice at the bottom larger and more noticeable. This second version is also published as PD. -- Editor at Largetalk 21:45, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) That's a good point - and it may be a bit too dark in general for some people's tastes. Having said that, however, I have to admit I'm pretty impressed. I can't quite put my finger on it but it reminds me of a splash screen I've seen some CAD software use. Very professional-looking - I really like it. --S up? 21:46, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
Quite nice but I quite like the one we already have too. Perhaps we can compare them in action and then choose the one we like best. --kingboyk 20:17, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
I like the new lighter version that also has some more wiki formatting. I still think [[wiki-editor]] needs to be a little lighter. Also, can the pictures in place of the o's be made the normal size of the o. (so you don't have a small "ut" and then huge "o")

Page protect

The page protect function isn't working because when I commited it a while back I didn't set it to actually change the protection level, just to fill the summary in and press the protect button. If someone could fix that, it would be great. I'm on my pocket pc on a wifi connection, and I don't have access to VS or SVN commit software. Thanks! 88.14.227.127 (Mets501 not logged in) 22:06, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

IRCM

IRCM's version has been changed to one

Meaning when it uses the WF UpdateWikiStatus() it says its out of date

Needs changing to work for IRCM...

Reedy Boy 20:06, 6 July 2007 (UTC)


SubItems[3] error in Logs tab

I believe I should have nailed any error in AWBLogListener.cs relating to the SubItems collection with rev 1467. The SubItems property is hidden to disallow direct access; and values of SubItems are set and retrieved from SetSubItemText() and GetSubItemText(). The code now keeps track of which SubItems have been created , the likely cause of previous errors. GetSubItemNumber() helps with this. --kingboyk 14:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Grr... I can hardly believe it but I had the error again. Just once after processing several thousand articles, but still once too often. A second pair of eyes looking at AWBLogListener.cs would be appreciated. Unfortunately I was using a release binary at the time so wasn't able to debug; I did however take the following screenshot which is fairly illuminating (either the log entry didn't get datestamped, or we've overwritten the datestamp with skip info. Either way, we have one less SubItem than the program thought we should have. Whilst we could count the subitems, the logic ought to be in place that we know exactly what info we've added and even if we switched to Counting them there's still something amiss I feel...)

File:AWB index 3 bug.jpg

--kingboyk 21:39, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Looks like it's happening inside the catch() block in WikiFunctions.Lists.Compare() (ListViewStuff.cs) when the Skip Log listview is sorted by skip reason.
System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException occurred
  Message="InvalidArgument=Value of '3' is not valid for 'index'.\r\nParameter name: index"
  Source="System.Windows.Forms"
  ParamName="index"
  StackTrace:
       at System.Windows.Forms.ListViewItem.ListViewSubItemCollection.get_Item(Int32 index)
       at WikiFunctions.Lists.ListViewItemComparer.Compare(Object x, Object y) in F:\Work\Programming\AWB\AWB\WikiFunctions\ListViewStuff.cs:line 66
...am investigating now/will see if I can fix it. --kingboyk 22:40, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
? ((ListViewItem)y).SubItems[0].Text;
"Talk:Jonas Dubauskas"
? ((ListViewItem)y).SubItems[1].Text;
"Kingbotk Plugin Manager"
? ((ListViewItem)y).SubItems[2].Text;
"No change"
? ((ListViewItem)y).SubItems[3].Text;
'((ListViewItem)y).SubItems[3]' threw an exception of type 'System.ArgumentOutOfRangeException'
Fixed, but looking at prior revisions I'm probably fixing for a second time here and it got zapped when we restored some code a day or two ago? (rolls eyes)
Oh well, at least I learnt some more about exception handling in Visual Studio :) --kingboyk 23:01, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

SVN

When I was working on patching together log uploading and AWB Profiles, Tortoise SVN got itself into a right state. I was unable to add some new/renamed files to the repository at all (and I spent about an hour trying); in the end I had to ask Sam to commit the files for me. A .designer file somehow got totally lost. I also then had network problems so couldn't explain what had happened on irc!

It's been #2 on my job priority list today to fix, but alas job #1 has taken a lot longer than expected and caused me to lose yet more hair :( Yesterday I built a HTPC as a wedding present; today it was supposed to be the relatively easy matter of finishing off configuration and copying files over. Unfortunately the machine decided it didn't want to talk to my monitor having previously been plugged into the TV; I've also been fighting dodgy TV card drivers and what have you! These things are never simple, are they? I hate computers!

Anyrode, I'll have a bash at recreating the missing file now, and get the code back to a compilable state. Finishing off the actual task will probably have to wait until tommorow and consultation with Sam (who has been unable to test/bug fix a possible problem in his part of the code). Apologies to anyone who has been inconvenienced by this - it's been weighing on my mind all day! --kingboyk 20:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Right, recreated and tested, seem to be back pretty much where I was before svn issues :) That is to say, log writing works, I've patched Profiles into log uploading but have uncovered a bug in editing of profiles; am doing a test run now to see if the log gets uploaded or not. --kingboyk 22:15, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
Update/summary:
  • Logging to file is now working
  • Log upload isn't working yet, but I will fix it worry ye not (it's working code ported from VB plus AWB Profiles == fixable)
  • AWB skips when plugin tells it to in bot mode, but doesn't in manual mode. I suspect this got broken when the new HTML message was added (see #Need to release 4.0 soon). If nobody beats me to it I'll take a look at this when I've got my other jobs done.
  • Articles skipped by plugin get added by AWB to "saved" log tab, not "skipped". I suspect this issue is directly related to the one above; I definitely left this in a working state before my technical issues forced me to take a sabattical
  • Editing a profile corrupts the profile: Sam knows about this now and I don't imagine it will be hard to fix - Missing Encrypt on username during edit. Fixed - rev 1429 Reedy Boy 12:54, 8 July 2007 (UTC) rev 1428 was connected also. --kingboyk 14:06, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
  • Adding a new profile forces the "Use for upload" flag of existing profile to be set to No. Should be a minor bug so I'll look at that now; if I can't fix it I'll ask Sam as it's his code and I'm sure it's a trivial error. - Fixed - rev 1430 Reedy Boy 12:57, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Anything else or are these the sole remaining issues we know of? --kingboyk 22:48, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
I checked out rev 1384. Log tab (not logging to file) is broken there too. I noticed that even my tooltiptext code seems not to be working (each log entry in the saved and ignore lists should have a tooltip explaining what processes happened to the article). Presumably somebody has made some major changes and not tested them == kingboyk not amused to see his work mistreated like that! I'm sure this was all working when I last touched it; it was only logging to file which was screwed. **Working in 3.9.2.0. AWB skips when plugin tells it to, adds logs to the correct tab and with a skip reason, and the tool tips are there.
It's very late now but I'll try an even older revision tommorow. Really thoigh it would be better if it were fixed by whoever broke it because I don't have the time or the inclination to go through every revision... --kingboyk 01:59, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
Filed as a bug. Old binaries with notes and XML committed as rev 1441. --kingboyk 22:41, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

I've fixed (so far as I can tell) the log tab and skipping. AWBProfiles appear to be working for log uploading. Logs don't actually upload because, as far as I can tell, of a problem in WPEditor. My guess is that Mediawiki has changed the way it sends or receives tokens (see [4]).

Seems to be in working order for simple usage with plugin. Will need much more testing but at least this is a move forward and within the next couple of days we should be able to get some more product out to our alpha testers; with any luck a public beta release can follow by the end of the weekend... --kingboyk 00:20, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

SVN Changes

If anyones having any problems reading from/writing to the AWB SVN, it could be because SF have made some changes

You can no longer connect with https://svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/autowikibrowser, you must use https://autowikibrowser.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/autowikibrowser

I had to checkout a clean copy as i couldnt work out how to change the working link in TortoiseSVN

Then just put my files in and re-commited

Reedy Boy 08:41, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Version 4 for testing

I've fixed all the bugs I know about and upped the version to 4.0.0.0 as of rev 1470. I'd like to invite active fellow devs and alpha testers to seriously test this version to try and find bugs. I'm expecting some bugs to show up, but assuming there's nothing too serious we should aim to release v4 as a beta this weekend.

Features should now be frozen. Any feature requests will have to wait until the next version. --kingboyk 18:41, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, unless someone comes up with something really good, but as it stands, theres nothing that really needs to go in for v4 now. Reedy Boy 18:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
Tweaks here and there, yes, but any major new features just puts the release date back further and further :) --kingboyk 21:32, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Help browser

The help browser is nice and all, and I've just extended it somewhat (moved base class to wf.dll and made it reusable, exposed it to plugins, various other tweaks), but is it actually any better than opening help pages in the user's default browser? Are we gonna get context sensitive help, bug report submissions, etc. etc? If not, it's arguably bloatware, and it's never gonna have the features of a standalone browser either... Thoughts? --kingboyk 17:00, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I like it (I made it :-)) but I wouldn't object to it being removed —METS501 (talk) 18:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Skipping

I tested three different types of skip, and in each case AWB skipped correctly, and added the article to the Skipped log with a correct caption. The types were: skipped by AWB ("skip on no change"), skipped by a plugin, and skipped by user hitting ignore.

--kingboyk 21:42, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

AWB v4 Alpha

Released - [5]

Reedy Boy 15:54, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Awesome, I just re-started my work on my own plugin (the one which will do thousands of minor edits by doing a lookup into the national register) and this version plus the CFD plugin SVN allowed me to hammer together my now functioning plugin. Great stuff from you guys! --Stalfur 01:27, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
Excellent. Keep us updated on that please, sounds interesting. --kingboyk 21:41, 24 July 2007 (UTC)
The list of changes made my AWB (run on a bot account due to popular demand of other users) is here, there around 3300+ entries marked as laga þjóðskrá (fixing register) are the result of doing a lookup into a mysql database for that particular name and adjusting the number of currently living people who have that name as their first or latter (second/third...) given name. It's a simple regex exercise really and a simple mysql-query but AWB gave me the platform to build it on. I am thinking of extending it to regenerate the timeline code also present in most pages (where more than 0 have the name), I will probably run this on a yearly basis from now on. --Stalfur 09:43, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

GNU General Public License

Should we be packaging the text of the GNU General Public License along with the program executables? Especially since this message is in all of the source code:

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA

METS501 (talk) 18:50, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

As per IRC. Agreed. Now added to SVN for inclusion in releases. Reedy Boy 19:45, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Bugs and other problems

IMHO, we need to try and really clear down the bug list. I know we've got a few major(ish) problems, one with the wikidiff error during most diff's, and the other being the unviewable area... Its getting quite a backlog! Wheres MaxSem when you need him. He's usually pretty good at fixing bugs :( Reedy Boy 11:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

More efficient difference and intersection

The way the special filter is currently implemented in regard to finding difference and intersection of given lists is very inefficient. Sorting the list first and using binary search is asymptotically faster. Here is the code:

private bool BinarySearch(ListBox2.ObjectCollection list, Article article, int low, int high)
{
    if (high < low)
        return false;
    int mid = (low + high) / 2;
    // using current culture
    CompareInfo ci = new CultureInfo(Thread.CurrentThread.CurrentCulture.Name).CompareInfo;
    if (ci.Compare(list[mid].ToString(), article.ToString(), CompareOptions.StringSort) > 0)
        return BinarySearch(list, article, low, mid - 1);
    else if (ci.Compare(list[mid].ToString(), article.ToString(), CompareOptions.StringSort) < 0)
        return BinarySearch(list, article, mid + 1, high);
    else
        return true;
}

private void FilterList()
{
    // has to be sorted so binary search can work
    lbRemove.Sorted = true;

    if (cbOpType.SelectedIndex == 0)
    {
        // find difference
        List<Article> list2 = new List<Article>();
        foreach (Article a in list)
            if (!BinarySearch(lbRemove.Items, a, 0, lbRemove.Items.Count - 1))
                list2.Add(a);
        list = list2;
    }
    else
    {
        // find intersection
        List<Article> list2 = new List<Article>();
        foreach (Article a in list)
            if (BinarySearch(lbRemove.Items, a, 0, lbRemove.Items.Count - 1))
                list2.Add(a);
        list = list2;
    }
}

Jogers (talk) 11:27, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Cheers - rev 1556. Must have been really old Bluemoose code. Reedy Boy 11:41, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
I tweaked it a bit - all comparisons should be culture-independent because MediaWiki does not consider titles Messner and Meßner equal, for example. MaxSem 13:09, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
But it produces different outputs for certain characters. It is important that the comparisons are made in the same fashion as in the Sort method of ListBox class. It seems to be current culture instead of invariant one. Jogers (talk) 13:22, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
For example, when I made an intersection of Category:WikiProject Albums articles and pages transcluding {{Infobox Album}} it was 55770 articles for current culture (exactly the same list as in version 4.0.0.0) but only 55730 pages for invariant culture. Jogers (talk) 14:12, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Right. I fixed it in rev 1559. MaxSem 14:24, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

rev 1559 is even worse. Change the CompareTo method in the Article class to:

public int CompareTo(Article other)
{
    CompareInfo ci = CultureInfo.InvariantCulture.CompareInfo;
    return ci.Compare(mName, other.mName, CompareOptions.StringSort);
}

Jogers (talk) 14:58, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Or alternatively, change the BinarySearch to:

private bool BinarySearch(IList<Article> list, Article article, int low, int high)
{
    if (high < low)
        return false;
    int mid = (low + high) / 2;
    if (String.Compare(list[mid].ToString(), article.ToString(), false, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) > 0)
        return BinarySearch(list, article, low, mid - 1);
    else if (String.Compare(list[mid].ToString(), article.ToString(), false, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture) < 0)
        return BinarySearch(list, article, mid + 1, high);
    else
        return true;
}

Jogers (talk) 15:11, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, to save running the same code multiple times

        private bool BinarySearch(IList<Article> list, Article article, int low, int high)
        {
            if (high < low)
                return false;
            int mid = (low + high) / 2;
            int compare = String.Compare(list[mid].ToString(), article.ToString(), false, CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

            if (compare > 0)
                return BinarySearch(list, article, low, mid - 1);
            else if (compare < 0)
                return BinarySearch(list, article, mid + 1, high);
            else
                return true;
        }

rev 1561 Reedy Boy 19:02, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't work properly again since rev 1564. The CompareTo method in the Article class has to have exactly the same comparison scheme as BinarySearch. Please fix it. Jogers (talk) 13:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Whoops, sorry - I've gotta study .NET harder. Reverted. MaxSem 14:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm glad we finally got it working. This could be improved even further but I don't want to bother you all the time. How about registering me as a developer? I could do some tweaks from time to time. Jogers (talk) 14:51, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Sure, what's your Sourceforge login? MaxSem 15:14, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
The same as here. Jogers (talk) 15:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Added. Should be fine to commit to SVN now. Welcome onboard! A lot of the code has been "simplified" between 3.9 and v4, but im sure there is much more that can be overhauled. Feel free to do fix bugs/add features as you want ;) Reedy Boy 15:55, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Thank you :-) Jogers (talk) 15:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Should be good having another developer who has some time to put into AWB :). Note to all AWB Users, from the next release, all bugs are Jogers fault ;) Reedy Boy 15:59, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Bottom Frame doesn't show

I'm totally stumped with Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#Bottom Frame doesn't show. Anyone have any ideas? —METS501 (talk) 13:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

There must be a reason behind it. There was no real changes with the designer between 3.9/3.9.1 and 4... And some of the resolutions it should work fine... /me wonders if its something to dowith the way AWB saves state and window sizes in the registry.... But then again, why would it cause problems. What did you do to duplicate it again? Reedy Boy 14:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I tried setting my monitor to 800x600, but it doesn't work any more (well, it works correctly, but not the way we want it to work for testing :-)) —METS501 (talk) 14:22, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm... We've got some other resolutions looking funny according to some users... But we really need to test the tweaks that have been made to it.... Reedy Boy 14:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Expand edit box

See rev 1588. —METS501 (talk) 18:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

            if (groupBox2.Visible)
            {
                groupBox2.Visible = tabControl1.Visible = false;
                tabControl2.Anchor = ((System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles)(System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Top));
                Size size = new Size(x, y);
                tabControl2.Size = size;
                
                Point point = new Point(x, y);
                tabControl2.Location = point;
                
            }
            else
            {
                groupBox2.Visible = tabControl1.Visible = true;
                tabControl2.Anchor = ((System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles)(((System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Top | System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Left)
                        | System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles.Right)));
                Size size = new Size(x, y);
                tabControl2.Size = size;

                Point point = new Point(x, y);
                tabControl2.Location = point;
            }

Something along the lines of that somehow... Reedy Boy 19:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

And probably position... Not sure on the anchors.... Reedy Boy 19:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
            if (groupBox2.Visible)
            {
                groupBox2.Visible = tabControl1.Visible = false;
                oldPosition = tabControl2.Location;
                tabControl2.Location = groupBox2.Location;
                
            }
            else
            {
                groupBox2.Visible = tabControl1.Visible = true;
                tabControl2.Location = oldPosition;
            }

Its now moving to the left at least! Just needs to expand outwards. Reedy Boy 20:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

        Point oldPosition = new Point();
        Size oldSize = new Size();
        private void parametersShowHide()
        {
            enlargeEditAreaToolStripMenuItem.Checked = !enlargeEditAreaToolStripMenuItem.Checked;
            if (groupBox2.Visible)
            { 
                groupBox2.Visible = tabControl1.Visible = false;
                oldPosition = tabControl2.Location;;
                tabControl2.Location = new Point(groupBox2.Location.X, groupBox2.Location.Y - 5);

                oldSize = tabControl2.Size;

                tabControl2.Size = new Size((tabControl2.Size.Width + tabControl1.Size.Width + groupBox2.Size.Width + 8), tabControl2.Size.Height); 
            }
            else
            {
                groupBox2.Visible = tabControl1.Visible = true;
                tabControl2.Location = oldPosition;
                tabControl2.Size = oldSize;
            }
        }

Size and Position. Ideally needs tweakinga bit code wise. Reedy Boy 20:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

AWB Updater

We're going to have the same problem of the updater causing problems and people possibly not being able to use it to update

As a work around, i'd ideally like to be able to change it so that it downloaded a .cs file from the internet, compiled it, and ran it. Meaning tweaks and changes can be implemented for the updates - Users wouldnt have problems of it having errors from changed links and such.

I'd presume this is fairly feasible... In the same sort of way that the DotNetWikiBot does it.

If we could do this for the 4.1 release, I think it would be great.


I'll look at doing it, but if anyone has any ideas/easy way to do it


Reedy Boy 17:36, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Would need reference to the csc.exe.. But that isnt in the PATH Variable... And depending on peoples .NET patch levels, it could be in different places... Wonder if it could be done in a similar way to that of the AWB Modules...? Reedy Boy 19:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Just thinking this may be a bit over the top... Im just debugging the Updater now - Its downloaded and unzipped the files, its just getting stuck on the copies. Reedy Boy 19:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Scrap all that. The reason for the problem was that v4 Package had the "Plugin\Kingbotk" folder, not "Plugin\Kingbotk (Wikiproject tagging)". My Bad. Reedy Boy 19:55, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Performance

OK, since we started working on performance. I've added a crude profiler, here are the first results:

Started profiling: ProcessPage("Alexandria")
  Initial skip checks: 0
  Custom module: 0
  Plugins: 0
  Unicodify: 750
  Images: 0
  Categories: 0
  F&R: 0
  Typos: 0
  Auto-tagger: 0
  HideText: 0
  FixHeaderErrors: 750
  SetDefaultSort: 46
  FixCategories: 15
  FixImages: 15
  FixSyntax: 62
  FixTemperatures: 0
  FixMainArticle: 2671
  FixEmptyLinksAndTemplates: 15
  FixLinks: 500
  BulletExternalLinks: 15
  Links: 0
  Metadata: 1515
  End of general fixes: 15

What can we say? regexMainArticle is painfully slow, metadata sorting needs some revamping, too. MaxSem 20:23, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

So are the numbers time in milliseconds? Reedy Boy 20:28, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Yep. I've already fixed the regex, but other parts also need looking at. MaxSem 20:41, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Dev/Profiles - Reedy Boy 21:08, 20 August 2007 (UTC)
Interwiki extraction has been sped up, now we have two bottlenecks: Parsers.FixLinks and HideText.HideMoreText/UnHideMoreText. MaxSem 10:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
[6] Certainly moving in the right direction Max. :) Reedy Boy 10:54, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Some big drops there. This may be old code that we're no longer writing that way, but if there's any lessons learnt it might be a good idea to document them perhaps on /dev. Then we won't get the inefficient ways creeping back in :) I'd always thought that IE was the bottleneck, quite surprised to see these figures... --kingboyk 11:19, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Some general ideas:

  • Watch out for quantifiers in regular expressions, for example, this fix dropped regex running time on larger articles from 1.5 seconds to something unmeasureably fast.
  • One construct like ArticleText = ArticleText.Replace(foo, bar); may be ok, but doing so hundreds times is overkill, it's generally faster to check if the replacement will change anything, like here. This drops memory usage, too.
  • StringBuilder is generally faster than simple strings on many tasks.
  • Slow operations should be grouped if possible, for example I enclosed three different pieces where HideMore/UnHideMore is needed into one call (and thus changed procesing sequence a little, so we need to give it better testing).
  • Compiled regexes give better performance if you use them many times, but compiling is a costly operation and shouldn't be used on simple regexes to be applied a couple of times during their lifetime. MaxSem 16:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

On the topic of speed...

Right now, when we save a page, we wait for the saved page to load before moving on to the next one. What if we didn't wait for it to load, but instead moved on when it started loading? The edit will be saved either way. —METS501 (talk) 13:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I just went ahead and did it (rev 1579). I don't see any problems, and it's MUCH faster, but it would definitely be a good idea to get another set of eyes. —METS501 (talk) 14:01, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Max will be the best to look over it. ;)
As a side note - there are a couple of threading related feature requests - One from Kingboyk, asking for a seperate thread for alphasort and remove dupes on the listmaker... There is also a request, that is something like what you are suggesting here mets... Reedy Boy 14:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

These 2:

Reedy Boy 14:12, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

That second one isn't really related. I wasn't talking about processing the next article while on the previous one, but instead moving on to the next article once the previous one saves, instead of waiting for the previous article to reload (which normally happens after you press the save button and the edit saves) —METS501 (talk) 14:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Also I've changed the edit pages to load with &useskin=myskin, so that it's MUCH faster. Between this and the code changes by MaxSem AWB is going to be running super-fast! —METS501 (talk) 14:13, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Will be interesting to see the overall results... I suppose other features need looking at - as regextypo fixing, due to its nature, is going to be slow.... I know on the first article that tries to be processed - its very slow... I think we've nearly got 4.1 when we get those couple of bugs fixed... Reedy Boy 14:20, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm experiencing problems with saving. MaxSem 14:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Post Mets' changes i presume? Reedy Boy 14:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Yep, after I udid this particular rev (not myskin) - everything resumed to work fine. MaxSem 14:42, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Interesting, everything was working fine with me (and still is) with the old revision. But, of course, we need it to work 100% of the time for everyone. Any ideas? —METS501 (talk) 18:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Next AWB Release

Well, IMHO, its been a fairly successful beta, yeah, bugs were found, but nothing more than is usually found during a normal AWB release cycle.

MaxSem, as we know is starting to overhaul the code again, and there has been quite a lot thats gone into the current SVN version - Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/History, bug fixes, feature requests, and such

So this would be not right IMHO, to call the next release 4.0.0.1 or 4.0.0.1, so im sorta proposing, that the next version is 4.1 - Not beta

Opinions?

Reedy Boy 16:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

We need to test many things before new release, and fix some problems, too. Maybe, next week? MaxSem 16:48, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Thats what i was thinking. I knew it wouldnt be today, but i didnt think it would be too far off. Reedy Boy 18:14, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
/me begs the devs to either take out the beta message or make a "don't show this again" box. It's so annoying! :). --(Review Me) R ParlateContribs@ (Let's Go Yankees!) 19:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
It was there for a reason... But no serious bugs have been found yet. I'll disable it! Reedy Boy 19:42, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Good idea. I had forgotten about the message altogether :-) And I agree, 4.1.0.0 is a good version. —METS501 (talk) 21:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Note: I'm making a huge rewrite of RETF, 4.1 shouldn't be released before it's finished and fully tested. MaxSem 17:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds good. Its no biggy :). Its more just trying to keep people up to date, and us know whats going on Reedy Boy 18:39, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Rewriting done, more testing needed. MaxSem 15:53, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Im currently testing it. Seems fine atm Reedy Boy 17:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I think, the only thing that really needs checking/sorting out for the next release, is the Updater.. See below for more info... Reedy Boy 19:06, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Edit toolbar copyright question

I added an edit toolbar in rev 1607 which incorporates some icons that are under the GFDL. How should we deal with the license? (I know they're allowed to be reused, but how can we credit their authors?) —METS501 (talk) 22:55, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

We should really make a seperate copyright list and include it... Notifying stuff like that - And that bot image for example. Ie where (site), license, etc etc Reedy Boy 23:04, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
For simplicity we can just use something similar licensed under GPL from here, or I could try to draw something myself. MaxSem 05:33, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Popup on hover

I have a question: Lupin's navigation popups allow a "popup" to show when hovering over a link. Can something like this be done in .NET (when hovering over a textbox, for example)? What is it even called in the first place? :-) —METS501 (talk) 00:31, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Its a bit like tooltips.. Just like steve found, they have a text limit... :/ Reedy Boy 18:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Query.php --> api.php

I think, for 4.1, we should try and migrate the rest of the things that use query.php to api.php

I'll make a start... There isnt that many uses of it, it seems.

Reedy Boy 20:18, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Mets has done the GetLists ones - Just GetUserInfo() and GetHistory now to do :) Reedy Boy 09:54, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
Done. AWB is now query.php free :) Reedy Boy 12:19, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Release?

What do you guys think? I think we're ready for another release. —METS501 (talk) 19:39, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I think so. I've used the new regextypofix quite a bit, with no seen problems... Might aswell IMHO... Reedy Boy 20:53, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Increased number of bugs...

Theres one of 2 reasons for this

  1. AWB 4.1 is just really buggy
  2. The new error handler is bringing up/showing the user more exceptions than just the previously unhandled ones

Im presuming the latter, based on some of the bug reports - I wish users would just elaborate a bit!!

Reedy Boy 08:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It's probably because it's much easier to report an exception now. Jogers (talk) 11:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah.. It seems to be - ie one of the bugs was related to being unable to load the page - Presumabably relaetd to a connection problem or similar! Reedy Boy 11:37, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Bug fix Release

Just thinking, when we get a couple more of these bug fixes sorted, may be worth releasing a 4.1.1.0 or 4.1.0.2 or something to that affect. Due to a couple of broken features and such that im sure users would probably want to use! Reedy Boy 13:54, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Changelog

Hey Guys, Remember to fill out the Changelog/History when you make svn commits.

Unless its very minor things. But anything of interest, please add it

Cheers!

Reedy Boy 11:13, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

OK :-) Jogers (talk) 11:18, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
Cheers! Just makes others lives easier, as its not always overly clear from edit summaries/the code changes, what it actually does. That way, its at least recorded in a fashion! Reedy Boy 12:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

prepend text tunning feature

I've just added this requested feature and set the maximum number of newlines to 10. It's completely arbitrary so feel free to change it. Jogers (talk) 20:35, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

By the way, do you normally notify users that the features they requested has been added? Jogers (talk) 21:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes. I used to, before it got busy. Up to you :) Reedy Boy 21:52, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

GUI Display

I updated to the latest version of AWB (4.1.1) (sorry i had updated and forgot that it was 4.1.1), and the GUI is still a little off. I can see the status bar now, but I still can't see below the line of 'skip if contains' dputig07 17:00, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I was having a similar problem with 4.0, and updating to 4.1.1.0 did not help. Here is a screenshot.
The lower section of AWB's GUI is cutoff. This capture was made in "windowed mode", but maximizing the window does not change the lower, cutoff, frame.
Plasticup T/C 17:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
4.1.1.0 was a bugfix release, but wasnt a bugfix to fix that - Just some other code related issues. The cause of it is still weird... Reedy Boy 17:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I had asked a couple people who had been having the problem in 4.0 to upgrade to at least 4.1.0.0 and test it out; I did get rid of the split-container in 4.1.0.0. If you were wondering why the seemingly randomly posted here :-) —METS501 (talk) 18:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
It's also weird, because in the screenshot it looks like everything is zoomed in or something. Except the icons about the edit box, they seem to be the only thing not zoomed in so they no longer touch each other. Dputig07 or Plasticup: do either of you know how to grab the latest SVN version and compile it? If you do, can you compile it yourselves and then tell us if you have the same problem? Also if you could check out the display in VC# (when you open main.cs before compiling) and tell us if it has the problem too that would be great. Thanks. —METS501 (talk) 18:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I found the svn, how do i actually grab it? dputig07 18:32, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
It's a bit complex. We've put instructions on the main AWB page at Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser#Getting the sources. Thanks so much for helping, even if you can't do it in the end. —METS501 (talk) 18:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
working on it... dputig07 18:45, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Title text looks larger... Its either Resolution or something to do with people's themes... Reedy Boy 18:46, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
still working on it, i do know that previous to awb 4.0, i didn't have the cutoff problem and i haven't done anything to my resolution or theme dputig07 18:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I know that in 3.9 i added the split container (there was some reasoning for doing so, just cant remember what - rev 921. Then 3.9.1 was released to fix a bug related to it... But that doesnt explain why v4 was funny when 3.9 wasnt Reedy Boy 19:04, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
i technically have 4.1.1.1, I double clicked on main.cs and i get the big error i get is
Object of type 'WikiFunctions.AWBSettings.LoggingPrefs' cannot be converted to type 'WikiFunctions.AWBSettings.LoggingPrefs'.

Hide

at System.ComponentModel.ReflectPropertyDescriptor.SetValue(Object component, Object value) at System.ComponentModel.Design.Serialization.CodeDomSerializerBase.DeserializeAssignStatement(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, CodeAssignStatement statement) at System.ComponentModel.Design.Serialization.CodeDomSerializerBase.DeserializeStatement(IDesignerSerializationManager manager, CodeStatement statement)

so i cant load the designer - dputig07 19:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

nm, somehow it likes me again...... -dputig07 19:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Lol, we get that too. Not overly sure. Closing and reopening it at times helps! Reedy Boy 20:03, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
this is why i decided not to go into development for a living, but i am working on a theory, i am not sure , but here's what i seem to be experiencing, i would assume that all the features do not locate relative to each other, they stay locked even though the window is resized, so hence the overlap when awb gui is contracted, and the height of the overall application is over 800, which i think is taller than most laptop/normal desktop computer screens. could this be it, or am i full of it???? -dputig07 20:08, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
after messing with the overall size a bit (down to 606), the white area in the IDE is very skinny and the options at the bottom overtake the screen but the display look normal again when executed -dputig07 20:20, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
The minimum size was set so, that for example, on my machine, at least, at the smallest size, the bottom area is fully viewable, and the web browser shrinks and contracts. Reedy Boy 20:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
I have a widescreen laptop so theoretically, shouldn't the current version not cut off the bottom? o well, at least i know how to manipulate parts of awb, thanks-dputig07 20:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
Doesnt help other people. Now that you've got it working for yourself, can you save it, and then visit the AWB directory. If you look, you should see some files with exclamation marks on them in red. Most likely, it will be called Main.Designer.cs. Right click on it, press SVN commit. A new window should come up, with the file checked in the bottom window. Right click it, and select "Show differences as unified diff". It should open a text file. Post the contents of that on here for us please. Reedy Boy 21:07, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

hope this helps -dputig07 01:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Damn, that was big. I've removed it because it was seriously kill loading times; if you're curious what it was, check out this revision. I don't think it can do much help though, because I can't go through all of those millions of changes :-) Reedy? —METS501 (talk) 03:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Dontya just love the VS Designer - Its got a habit of doing that at times. You make minor changes, and it moves loads of code round. You can get it to use taht diff.... Errm Reedy Boy 08:17, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
the changes i made to it was to make the height of the overall gui around 600 instead of 800, sorry for the length, there, less than 5 lines instead of 3000 -dputig07 04:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
rev 1694 - I made a few tweaks to fix the truncated bottom (just increased panel size). Can you just checkout that revision for me, and tell me if it still looks alright? Thanks! Reedy Boy 08:26, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
It's strange. Any time I make a change in the Main in design mode (even changing a single label in the properties tab) many changes from rev 1964 are automatically reverted when I click save. Jogers (talk) 11:14, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Theres got to be something that is causing it all to move about strangely.... /me wonders if its loggingsettings....? Reedy Boy 19:29, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
My thinking being, it seems to cause various other problems aswell... Reedy Boy 19:41, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Do you experience it too? Jogers (talk) 14:50, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Not when i tried last night. But i have many times before today, in versions > 3.9... Reedy Boy 14:59, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
See rev 1700. Jogers (talk) 15:01, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. At least its just position movers... Rather than it moving around huge blocks of code for no reason! Reedy Boy 15:07, 18 September 2007 (UTC)
Now reporting as fixed! Reedy Boy 11:10, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Guys, Just to let you all know, i've done a lot of automated code refactoring using [7]

Its not really changing the code, just changing things to match coding guidelines and such

I'll do a few different commits to bring it all up to scratch!

Reedy Boy 16:17, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Error handling in case of invalid regexes

ErrorHandler.cs is great but we don't really want users to submit bug reports when they just typed invalid regex like here. How do you think this should be handled? Something like MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Invalid regular expression");? Jogers (talk) 18:56, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Probably some of them do need changing, that is true. I think Max just changed them all to the error handler to standardise it a bit Reedy Boy 19:16, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
How about rev 1707? Jogers (talk) 19:46, 19 September 2007 (UTC)
Good idea. Im sure there are a few other similar cases that should be catered for similarily - Just need to watch out for them on the bug page. Reedy Boy 23:04, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Next bugfix Release - 4.1.2.0

I think we should probably be thinking about putting this out soon. Most of the bugs have been cleared up, and potentially, the designer bug has been fixed

Anyone else?

Reedy Boy 23:11, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Sure. The progress bar in the database scanner doesn't work as it ought to yet but it's a minor issue. Jogers (talk) 12:04, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, its marked as in progress, not finished anyway ;) Reedy Boy 12:40, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
Im just grabbing a dump now, so i can help with this, and that special filter bug thingymabob Reedy Boy 13:11, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
The question is why a blank line appears in search results. Jogers (talk) 13:20, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
We can hack round it... if (article.Name.Trim() != "") AddToResults(article); Or something ;). You should visit IRC jogers if you can :) Reedy Boy 13:24, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
OK :-) Jogers (talk) 13:29, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

4.1.3.0

Im thinking should come out soon - Again as another bugfix release.

Couple of changes... Might aswell push them out to users!

Reedy Boy 21:34, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

*poke*

I'm "poking a developer" as it says I should on the approval page. Don't know know if this is the right place to do it but here it is.

  • poke*

Cnbrb 15:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Done :) Reedy Boy 19:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Display issues

I was having display issues with 4.0.0.0 (right side and bottom not showing, etc.). I finally had some time to download the newest version, and it seems to be fixed. Of course, in the meantime, I reformatted my HD and changed my resolution, but it's working at any rate. Thought I'd let you know! —  MusicMaker5376 18:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Cheers - The latest release seemed to fix it for most people.. Seems to have possible broken it for one person. Cheers for letting us know! Reedy Boy 19:16, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Error Handler Addition

            else if (ex.GetType().ToString().Equals("System.OutOfMemoryException"))
            {
                MessageBox.Show(ex.Message, "Out of Memory error",
                    MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
            }

Can someone add that into the ErrorHandler.cs for me?

Its just an extra handler for OutOfMemoryException - Just stick before the else.

I'll add it when i get home if no one gets round to it, so if you cant, dont worry - Its more for me, so i dont have to type it again...


Reedy Boy 11:02, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

Woo. Go me - rev 1750, commited via unix command line from my dreamhost account =) Reedy Boy 13:43, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

I was looking at this feature request again, to do it, would be fairly simple

There are a few ways to do it

  1. Duplicate CFD plugin for an image one, and make it work with images
  2. Expand out the CFD plugin to work for images too - Just gives an extra file
  3. Bring the CFD plugin into AWB/WF (Why is it seperate anyway, Max? My thinking was that it was a plugin example?). Removes a seperate file... And gives easier expansion of the code into AWB. It could then work with/replace the sigular category/image add/remove/replace

What is anyone elses opinion?

Reedy Boy 13:02, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Probably, #2 is preferrable over #1. As of #3, I designed this feature for bots only and didn't wanted it to be available by default, fearing edit warriors and so on. MaxSem 20:04, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. It keeps the functionality seperate. I'll add it as an extra project then somepoint soon! A duplicate and replace/update should be enough Reedy Boy 20:27, 14 October 2007 (UTC)
rev 1775 - Done Reedy Boy 18:35, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Startup Parameters

Wondering if it would be worth including startup parameters

So users can have shortcuts, then have like AutoWikiBrowser.exe -f "project.xml" - And AWB would load that xml file, instead of default.xml...?


Opinions?

Reedy Boy 12:15, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, definitely. This would allow users to have several shortcuts for different tasks. Very good idea! Jogers (talk) 12:53, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Does give the future potential to also tell it to login with profile x... Reedy Boy 15:33, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
That would also be very convenient. Jogers (talk) 16:01, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Nearly done... Will commit in a bit and report back here :) Reedy Boy 18:59, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
rev 1738 - Done both settings file AND user profile. Seems to work fine. Needs testing before next release. Will document in User manual so people can test it. Reedy Boy 19:08, 29 September 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User_manual#Startup_Parameters Reedy Boy 19:11, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Steve/User:Kingboyk suggested having an awb file type, ie the settings files as .awb, and running them would start awb and load the file. Googling to look into this, the above would be needed as a prequisit, to handle the file, and the association, can be set via the registry in AWB, which calls AWB. Only does cause problems if AWB is opened from different directories.. Is it worth changing the settings.xml to .awb? Reedy Boy 20:07, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It sometimes does, if its had a while... I think it must be related to some page it hasnt updated/loaded...

It should be simplish to fix.. Im just having a hard time doing so...

Any ideas?

Reedy Boy 15:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorting

From my talk page: —METS501 (talk) 20:45, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello! On Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests/Archive 2#special handling for Personendaten template you said the de.wikipedia sorting order would be fixed in the next release. Version 4.1.2.0 from September 23 still moves the Personendaten template on top of the categories. Could you double-check? --08-15 10:51, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

rev 1517 is the commit to supposedly fix it... Reedy Boy 20:56, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

This little thingie detects possible flaws in code. Of course, it's reports are full of bullshit such as "don't expose fields" or "don't use underscores in identifiers" which even M$ doesn't follow, but some checks are quite useful. I started to work on these suggestions in rev 1765 and could even put the FxCop project into SVN (though it's over a megabyte). MaxSem 20:00, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

May be interesting to see what it does. I did start doing something like this a while back with CodeIt.Right - rev 1702 Reedy Boy 20:03, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Good to see most of the "errors" are casing or spelling and such. Reedy Boy 20:28, 14 October 2007 (UTC)

Me

Hi guys. Just letting you know that I'm sorry I haven't been able to help out with AWB recently, but in a month or so I'll have much more free time so I can help again. There is good news though: part of my course load at school is a programming course, so hopefully when I return to help I'll be better than ever! :-) (Granted, the course is in java, but most of it carries over very nicely except for a few syntax changes and various other differences) —METS501 (talk) 04:44, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, C# and java are very syntax similar. I'd hedge bets that you werent learn much anything than a new language ;). I'm 4 weeks into my Uni course, i've not learnt anything programming wise... Reedy Boy 08:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Well done MaxSem :D

Just want to make a point, that im doing a huge tagging run with AWB.

Done nearly 300 edits so far, and over 1100 skips, 45Mb of memory, and 77Mb of VM

Quite a bit better than it was before =)

Reedy Boy 11:41, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Didnt realise before, some of the memory usage was included in VS, as i was running it via that. After running most of the afternoon, using 100mb total memory, and 300mb VM. Reedy Boy 17:15, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Is that bad? MaxSem 17:53, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Nope. Would seem a hell of alot better than it was before :) Reedy Boy 18:14, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Next Release

Next bugfix to be released this weekend? As 4.1.4.0? As its more bug fixes, than new stuff... Hmm...

Quite a lot of tweaks, improvements (code from FXCop), etc etc

Oh, and whoever does it, make sure you full disable the "Watch" button to use the Ajaxy method - It is broken!

Reedy Boy 22:22, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to see the bracket bug fixed first, though I don't know how to do it efficiently. MaxSem 15:36, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

After numerous math-related complaints, I've released 4.1.4.0 and disabled all the older versions. Note: due to emergency nature of this release, I had to disable anchor-fixing code until it's integrated into Parsers.cs and fully tested not to cause any problems. MaxSem 21:04, 3 November 2007 (UTC)