Wikipedia talk:AutoEd/Archive 2

Bug with *:
In this edit there was a bug where AutoEd changed *: to * : breaking the formatting. Powergate92  Talk  22:40, 31 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I will have a look. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 17:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Okay, I believe I fixed it. Let me know if there are still problems. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 23:30, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

How to install?
This page lacks a clear instruction on how to start using it. For anybody not intimately familiar with wikis, it is a prohibitive barrier. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 18:09, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Do you have any suggestions? Do we need to provide a link to the user's monobook.js, vector.js, ... ? Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 19:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. I'd start with a section "How to install" and explain what needs to be clicked / copied and so on. In the end, a good approach is to ask yourself: "would my parents be able to use this tool based on the description provided"? :) PS. I came here from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/Formatter. The top of the talk page has a very simple instruction: "To install, simply include this line in your monobook.js: code follows". AutoEd has something similar in the wikEd section but... having read the AutoEd page again, I am still confused how should I install it -> I'd guess I should add the code from the "Basic" section? If so, this is quite unclear and I'd highly recommend copying the simple instruction I linked above to the lead. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 21:17, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

With the new Vector default, we will need to update the docs, so I will see if I can make this more clear. It looks like we could have something like:


 * 1) Edit your user JavasSript page. (Special:Mypage/skin.js redirects to your current skin's JavaScript file)

The hooks for vector and monobook are different but we should be able to handle both. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 20:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)


 * So, I am back - and I still see there is no "how to install" section. I assume that to install AutoEd once adds the line here to their monobook, yes? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 16:51, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

AutoEd breaks link
In this edit, AutoEd broke a link by fixing some hex encoded characters but it converted a part of the hex encoded characters with a special character that breaks the link. Décembër21st2012Freâk  Talk at 01:03, 10 July 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I have seen problems with anchors. I have some ideas about how to fix this but it may take a few days. Plastikspork (talk) 04:17, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Bot?
Why doesn't Auto-ed (complete) run as bot, automatically fixing the Auto-ed indicated errors on Wiki Check or just on all pages? It works, rarely has errors, and is generally a great script. 69.142.154.10 (talk) 10:42, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

AutoEd dating glitch?
Hello, User:Piotrus suggested I report this to you guys. Using the script, History of slavery was recently edited (diff), and a year "(c.450?)" was mistakenly converted to "(ce0?)" (with the number 0). Thanks!

-- Joren (talk) 18:57, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is the anchor conversion bug. I suppose we could remove this feature until I can figure out how to make it more robust. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 16:34, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Removal of section heading blank lines and blank spaces
I'd like to point out that some AutoEd changes to articles, such as this one in Telegraphy are actually regressive, making it harder for other editors with small monitors to properly edit in a cluttered edit box, as well as presenting issues for various spell checkers. Please refer to this MOS guideline on blank spacing/blank lines which states:
 * • Spaces between the == and the heading text are optional (==H2== is equivalent to == H2 ==). These extra spaces will not affect the way the the heading is displayed to readers; however, in the edit window, the spaces tend to be more compatible with browser spell-checking software.
 * • A blank line below the heading is optional; but do include one blank line above the heading, for readability in the edit window.... etc.... [referring on the need to declutter the edit box -hz]

Many years ago software writers habitually removed blank spacing due to the ancient very high cost of memory, which also resulted in the systemic removal of '19' from years stored in memory (e.g.: 1967 stored as only '67', thus saving two bytes). In the present day with ultra-low cost memory available, such byte-saving techniques are trumped by the need for more accurate, stress-free editing (and I'm willing to donate more to WP to that end!). I hope you'll be able to assist with improving Wikipedia's articles in this respect by modifying AutoEd to allow blank space and blank line insertions to persist within and below section headings. Thanks! Best: HarryZilber (talk) 16:17, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I believe you have a point, if nothing else, the removal of blank lines can create diffs that are hard to follow. We do have different varieties of this script, with different features enabled/disabled. If I can find some time, I will see if some of this can't be isolated a bit further, so that one is making a conscious decision to turn on this feature. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 00:28, 28 September 2010 (UTC)


 * You're very kind. [ folksy saying alert ] May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows your dead. [ / folksy saying alert ]. Best: HarryZilber (talk) 23:53, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Adding one user module
Hello, I want to add one module for AutoEd that one user created that, how can I add it? I read the instruction but it was a bit complicated. Nima1024 (talk) 16:48, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * What module are you trying to add. I may not be able to respond for a few days, but I am happy to help when I have a chance. Plastikspork ―Œ (talk) 17:01, 26 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey, that dash module contributed by one of the members. Nima1024 (talk) 15:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

ASCII art articles
The User:Alpha Quadrant made an edit at the Usenet article. The problem was that he oversaw that the article has an ASCII art picture integrated that was totally destroyed. Is it possible to exclude these "optimizations" in articles which are listed in Category:Wikipedia articles with ASCII art? mabdul 22:17, 14 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is a "use at your own risk" sort of thing, but I think we do something here. Basically, we could split the page into segments to isolate these sections delimited by, then only operate on stuff outside of these tags.  Even this won't be fool proof, since there is the possibility of these tags being stuck inside of comment tags, but it could help. I have been swamped recently with other stuff, but hopefully I will have some time to look into this in the near future.  The good news is that this only happened once, and it's not a regular problem. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  23:03, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Will you give response if this problem is resolved? I find by accident more articles with ascii art and added them to the category - at least really less at the moment, but maybe there is any possibility to check ofter articles for ASCII art and give the user the choice add the category then? <b style="font-family:Courier New; display:inline; border:#009 1px dashed; padding:1px 6px 2px 7px; white-space:nowrap; color:#000000; font-size:smaller;">mabdul</b> 17:56, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Not working in Minefield
AutoEd doesn't seem to be working in Minefield (the developers' version of Firefox). In my Error Console, I am getting the message, "autoEdUnicodify is not defined" on line 21. Any ideas? Logan Talk Contributions 06:33, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, never mind, it seems to be working now. Logan Talk Contributions 06:40, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Whitespace before stub tags
Alerting you to this discussion I started at Talk:AWB: Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. In a nutshell, I'm concerned the programs are doing opposite things in this regard. Links on the AWB page will lead you to the current MOS discussion. Cheers, Valfontis (talk) 03:48, 2 March 2011 (UTC)

Using AutoEd and GregU's dashes script simultaneously
I think I have followed the instructions to enable this at AutoEd/Customization, but it doesn't seem to work for me. I have my user JavaScript at User:CWenger/vector.js. I have also used User:GregU/dashes.js as a model to write a very simple script to remove the spaces around em dashes at User:CWenger/emDashes.js. –CWenger (talk) 03:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I will see if I can find some time to look at this soon. Please ping me if you don't hear back in a day or two.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  01:30, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Plastikspork, I would really appreciate it! –CWenger (talk) 01:54, 28 March 2011 (UTC)
 * I am also having problems with this. Allens (talk &#124; contribs) 17:39, 25 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I figured out how to handle this; see User:Allens/vector.js. Allens (talk &#124; contribs) 22:23, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Question
I added the paramter to make auto ed appear in the toolbar only, but the tab it was originally at still exists, the only change is that when I hover over it nothing happens. Since I use a lot of scripts, many of which use tabs I hoped that this would reduce clutter, instead I've got a link in the toolbar and a useless tab. Is there a way to fix this? My skin js page is User:Ancient Apparition/vector.js. Cheers, — James (Talk • Contribs) • 8:31pm • 10:31, 11 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I have to sign off right now, but I will try to have a look soon. Please ping me if I don't respond in the next day or two (and if you haven't figured it out).  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  05:28, 12 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I still haven't found out the problem, I've removed that parameter in my vector.js, also with the html to wikitext script, it turned a table in raw HTML and converted it to wikitext, the only problem was the table didn't work with wikitext... I made sure to check the edits I made on other articles and changed the tables back to raw HTML where they didn't work. Is there a workaround? — James (Talk • Contribs) • 9:20pm • 11:20, 16 April 2011 (UTC)

Unproductive whitespace editing
To be honest, I am getting quite irritated with how this and other editing tools encourage useless editing of whitespace. For example, this recent edit does nothing but put an extra space between the header and the text, and if there is a visible difference to the reader, it is negligible. In this specific case, it make it difficult to determine if there was any vandalism or corruption of the text, and its a complete waste of server space since it creates an extra archival copy of the article. If anything, I see this as a tool for artificially inflating edit counts. Such edits—including others such as converting  to   or removing double spaces after periods—do absolutely nothing to improve Wikipedia, and I feel the code should be modified to only address more important whitespace issues. I'm sorry if I sound pissy about this, but these kinds of edits happen a lot, and I'm tired to having to carefully scan text to try to figure out what the heck got changed, often never finding it. –  VisionHolder « talk » 14:52, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree the newline removal is problematic, when it comes to following diffs. I have this on my to do list to remove this particular feature (or at least move it out of the main code).  Unfortunately, I don't have any time to work on it today, but I am hopeful for some time in the near future. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  14:55, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I think it's OK as long as editors use their discretion. I think it should be a general rule to not AutoEd a page unless you see something which will visibly change in the article by doing so. In that case the whitespace cleanup is just an added bonus. (Though I do think the rules are a bit arbitrary, e.g. no spaces in section headers but spaces after asterisks?) –CWenger ( ^ •  @ ) 18:28, 17 April 2011 (UTC)
 * I've had two editors send me comments about the whitespace editing. One seemed to be upset over unneeded space removal after periods and the other about blank line removal after headings. Both, as I recall, are admins. WP:MOSHEAD says the blank line after a heading is optional, but suggests a blank line for readability purposes. With this guidance in mind, I recommend that the blank line removal feature of auto ed be revised.  Thanks. --S. Rich (talk) 05:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Whitespace "cleanup" features should definitely be removed. If editors have whitespace disagreements, they should at least have to invest some effort to thrash the article.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:34, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Suggestion for addition
Could AutoEd support maintenance tags such as no footnotes, unreferenced and primary sources, such that if an article lacks the tags or has no section titled references or sources, or uses government sources then it tags the article accordingly as the use for these tags are obvious. — James (Talk • Contribs) • 8:54pm • 10:54, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

Prop to ?
Would it be possible for me to use AutoEd to change, e.g. Prop to ? Best Regards. DynamoDegsy (talk) 14:30, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Changing breaks
I noticed recently that AutoEd seems to replace  with and I recommend that it not do that. For one it doesn't change the rendering of anything and secondly I have seen other applications and users that take the space out so essentially its a self reproducing cycle of users changing the formatting of these breaks. --Kumioko (talk) 14:39, 27 May 2011 (UTC) is an (X)HTML tag, and since Wikipedia uses XHTML served as HTML there is supposed to be a space (as with all self-closing XHTML tags, such as and ). Not having a space, although browsers render will render such code properly, goes against the W3C's guidelines on how to author XHTML pages which are served as HTML (if they were served as XML, not having a space would be correct). If you'd like, I can dig up the actual guideline/note/policy/standard/whatever-the-heck-the-W3C-wants-to-call-it. :) –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 16:03, 27 May 2011 (UTC) I just personally don't think we need to be changing  to .--Kumioko (talk) 16:17, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the quick reply. I understand what your saying and I agree that we should be cleaning up these HTML tage to some degree. I also know about the W3C guidelines but they are more guidelines than rules and most sites will work either way. My concern is really 2 fold:
 * We have one application or user changing it from one thing to another thing and then a different application or user changes it back (or to something else completely) repeating the cycle over and over.
 * Many users including myself find the extra spaces to be a waste of space and if you have an article with a lot of HTML tags the spaces can make the article harder to read and edit. Its much easier to read if the article isn't full of spaces after headers, html code, templates, etc. Again this is a subjective thing but my point is that I don't think we should change these if the have the / in them. I completely agree we should be changing things like <BR>,, , etc to or
 * Okay, fair enough. I still disagree on general principal as a web designer/developer, but I can understand your points. Problem is, I don't think I wrote the regex which it is using to make the replacement at AutoEd/htmltowikitext.js. I'm thinking that it might actually be kind of tough because a lot of the BR-related regex takes shortcuts which it wouldn't be able to if it considered  to be correct. As you can see from the page history, I had to do some finagling to get that code to work anyway. Are you familiar with regex? I'm just having trouble spotting which part of which rule is causing the space addition. (by the way, what tool is removing spaces? I'm just curious). –Drilnoth (T • C • L) 18:55, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I completely understand your points too and I also understand how hard it is to try and account for every variation in coding. I tried to write some regex to clean up the talk page banners and in the end I had to write a seperate line for every project...and then some. I am not the greatest with regex either but if you asking Xeno, Rjwilmsi or GoingBatty they are all really good. Looking at the code though it appears to be that first group of break changes but I wouldn't worry about changing it. I just wanted to make you aware of it. I think one of the apps was Friendly but I can't remember off hand. Several AWB users also do this type of edit. I personally only change it if it doesn't contain the /, has \ instead of /, or shows as /br instead of br/. I have also found that programming it is easier without the spaces btw. Cheers. --Kumioko (talk) 19:21, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Choosing your own modules is very unclear
The section claims "selecting your own modules (sets of automatically-made changes) is actually pretty easy" - which is rubbish, as the "instructions" that follow are very much in some high codery that does not tell me how to use this script with AutoEd. I would like to use AutoEd with User talk:GregU/dashes.js, but I have no idea how to. (It would be nice if that script got incorporated into AutoEd, finally...). --<sub style="border:1px solid #228B22;padding:1px;">Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus&#124; talk 16:15, 1 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If you could get GregU to split his script into two js pages, then it would be much easier. Basically, take everything above the "import" part at the bottom, put that into a second script page, then import that page instead.  This would allow you to import only that top part, without using the last part.  Otherwise, I believe there is a collision between AutoEd and the repeated import.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  01:51, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Changing hyphens to dashes in DOIs breaks the link
Example diff is this edit. AutoEd must not change hyphens to endashes in DOIs as the links get broken. Thanks Rjwilmsi  20:50, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
 * That wasn't this script, see . I believe that user is using an additional dash script.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  00:15, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

script breaks Harvard citation links
This script can break Harvard citation links that deliberately use character encodings. See here (next-to-last part of the diff), and the manual fix. This use of encoding ( or  ) in citation bodies allows the use of apostrophes in template:sfn to italicise part of the footnote-text. The script unencoding it, breaks the links from the footnotes. Please don't do this inside sfn templates (or any of the harvnb family of templates). Thanks. One Ton Depot (talk) 04:44, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Scrunching complaint
AutoEd edits like this one that appear to do nothing but scrunch the source by removing optional white space are a bad idea. Why is that feature even in there? Dicklyon (talk) 23:43, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I agree it can be problematic, see . Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  00:12, 31 October 2011 (UTC)

AutoEd with other scripts
I just installed AutoEd, however it doesn't seem to be doing anything other than adding an "auto ed" link to my vector skin that switches to edit mode and makes no changes. I tried disabling WikEd (through the gadgets panel in preferences) and got the same results. I use a number of other scripts as well (here's my common.js and I also use some gadgets). Is there something simple I seem to have missed, or should I start troubleshooting by disabling other scripts? I'm on Chrome 15 right now (won't have a chance to test on Firefox till later). —danhash (talk) 17:11, 31 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I got it to work. I missed some of the documentation on custom listing my modules and stuff. Currently everything is working, except for the dashes module. If I enable dashes.js, it seems to be the only module that does anything (whitespace etc. is not fixed, only dashes). Should I take this to GregU? —danhash (talk) 21:41, 10 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Posted to dashes.js talk (seems to be a problem with dashes.js). —danhash (talk) 20:10, 21 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems to be a problem with Chrome (more info at dashes.js talk here). —danhash (talk) 19:38, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI: problem with pi article
FYI: an editor ran this tool on the pi article, and it introduced a problem into an important math forumla. I undid the change, but I thought the tool owners would want to know so they could research and solve. If you look in the rev history of pi; look at the article after the tool was run: you'll see a large red warning message in the middle of the article. --Noleander (talk) 12:53, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Remove image captions without an image from infoboxes
Could you automate edits like this: ? Thanks Illia Connell (talk) 15:25, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Remove spaces between ref tags
Could you add the functionality to remove spaces between ref tags? That is, change

to

Thanks --Decstop (talk) 23:12, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
 * That would be great. Other reference punctuation fixes like moving punctuation before a reference instead of after it and removing whitespace between punctuation and a reference would be very helpful. AWB does this, but to have the functionality in AutoEd would be helpful. —danhash (talk) 15:57, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Also change  to   per Template:Dead_link Illia Connell (talk) 01:30, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Not working?
AutoEd does not seem to be working for me right now. What is going on? Liam987 (talk)  08:07, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

== It should ignore anything inside  may be causing the problem, so I decided to make another edit and replace the function entirely with use of  —no need for redundancy. Is the problem still present? {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits}&#125; 15:04, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes it is. --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 16:19, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Since this fix is not urgent and the code was working before your changes, would you generous, amazing javascript programmers mind working in a sandbox rather than making changes to the live core.js script? Some of us use this tool every day to fix articles. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:11, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Three days and still no fix. --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 13:53, 12 July 2014 (UTC)

Update: AutoEd still works... sort of. You need to open the editor before clicking the AutoEd function. It should then clean up the article. This works at least on my end. --k6ka (talk &#124; contribs) 14:19, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe is likely a race condition since the code at AutoEd/complete.js has a few calls to, which is not synchronous if I remember correctly, and AutoEd/core.js calls autoEdFunctions which is defined only after the call to core.js. Helder.wiki 15:35, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
 * It's absolutely a race condition. I don't use AutoEd, but I imported the complete.js through the console as an experiment, and got an undefined variable error on . I immediately moved the call to core.js to the end of complete.js to ameliorate things, but it's not a true fix (won't prevent race-condition errors, just makes them less likely). I'd suggest that, since we must have everything loaded, we could make a loader function to avoid the problem. AFAIK user scripts can't use   properly, so we get to implement something ourselves. Here's an idea: make the list of modules to be loaded an array, have the loader function load them and include a callback at the end of each module that checks if all the modules are ready. The catch is that we would then need to modify all the modules to include that callback function, not including any other necessary structural changes. Here's a 30s example (obviously not complete!) of what I'm thinking:


 * This would let modules load asynchronously but only execute once everything was ready. As a bonus, we could do away with the awkward  snippet by having modules add themselves automatically to a list of functions to be executed. The catch is that all existing modules would have to be adapted to fit this model. {&#123; Nihiltres &#124;talk&#124;edits}&#125; 16:51, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

AutoEd made a tiny bad edit on R.A. Dickey
Subtle and small, but a significant error nonetheless. It appears that this edit using AutoEd placed a space between "R." and "A." in the Infobox MLB player "name" field, changing the name to "R. A. Dickey" which is incorrect. Names without spaces between abbreviations are uncommon so this probably won't happen very often, and I'm completely unqualified to comment on how scripts work, but could/should it be updated to ignore name fields inside template data entirely? --Threephi (talk) 17:28, 29 March 2013 (UTC)
 * That wasn't AutoEd. That was someone making further edits before or after running AutoEd.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  22:47, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

AutoEd breaks redirects
It changes #REDIRECT to # REDIRECT and this breaks it. I doubt many people would use it on such pages but worth noting. --JetBlast (talk) 19:44, 26 August 2012 (UTC)
 * ping, still doing it in 2014. (t) Josve05a  (c) 10:40, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Fixed. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  22:54, 5 October 2014 (UTC)

AutoEd (?) breaking infoboxes
After running (what I think is a functionality controlled by) AutoEd on a biography with a person infobox (e.g., Frank McLaury), the infobox failed to display. I am referring to the function to "Fix caps in headers and lists". When executed, the initial characters of the parameters for the infobox are converted to initial caps, as in the following example:

{{Infobox criminal | Name = Frank McLaury | Image_name = Fmclaury.jpg | Image_size = 220px...

This breaks the infobox which requires lowercase parameters. If this functionality is not implemented by AutoEd, I'd appreciate a redirect to the correct script. Thanks.

— btphelps {{sup|(talk to me) (what I've done)}} 22:03, 5 October 2014 (UTC)
 * {{Reply to|btphelps}} Doesn't seem to be a problem with AutoEd. I just ran it on the McLaury article, and all it does is change some whitespace around the section headings.  Do you have a specific diff for the edit showing the breakage? Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  22:41, 5 October 2014 (UTC)


 * I caught the original issue before I saved it, so I created a new instance for you to review. Try selecting the entire article (CTRL + A on a PC) first, then click the "Fix caps in headers and lists" button. — btphelps {{sup|(talk to me) (what I've done)}} 07:01, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * btphelps, Are you sure that's AutoEd? It sounds like WP:WikEd per this search.  Good Luck! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  23:57, 6 October 2014 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not sure which script supports that functionality. Thus the (?) in my original post. — btphelps {{sup|(talk to me) (what I've done)}} 01:48, 7 October 2014 (UTC)

Obsolete installation guide?
AutoEd, for me, using Firefox, appears under the "More" drop-down menu, not on a tab "at the top of the article...between move and history". Is that true generally? Should the Installation Guide be modified to take that into account? Dhtwiki (talk) 07:26, 30 October 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, that menu item changed sometime in the last year, from a bare triangle to a triangle with the word "More" next to it. – Jonesey95 (talk) 13:44, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

AutoEd incorrectly replacing dashes in DOI values?
This edit claims to have been done with AutoEd. I do not have a way of checking whether AutoEd or a manual change incorrectly converted a hyphen to a dash within a DOI value, but if AutoEd did it, that is a bug that should be fixed. DOI values use hyphens and will break if dashes are used instead. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:02, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

did not appear
I installed AutoEd but it did not appear on my toolbar. Anyone who can help? SparrowHK (talk) 01:54, 8 December 2014 (UTC)SparrowHK
 * SparrowHK, did you check at the top of the page in the "More" links next to View history and the page watch star? Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk) 02:54, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I did. SparrowHK (talk) 03:54, 8 December 2014 (UTC)SparrowHK
 * I moved it to your common.js for you. You should try moving the other stuff you put in monobook.js and vector.js to common.js.  The common.js should work for all skins, while the vector and monobook ones are specific for only the vector and monobook skins.  If it still doesn't work, you might want to try removing everything else from those files to make sure it's not tripping on errors before it gets a chance to load AutoEd.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  06:25, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Obsolete HTML
Please add change from obsolete HTML to replacement.


 * <big ></big> → big
 * <center ></center> → center
 * <tt ></tt> → <code ></code>
 * <strike ></strike> → <s ></s>

is probably too difficult to revise. --  Gadget850talk 17:05, 28 October 2014 (UTC)


 * Hello Gadget850, there is no consensus about this, please compare first WP:HTML5!?<kbd style="white-space:nowrap;color:#567"> → User: Perhelion  14:43, 29 October 2014 (UTC)


 * There is no official statement from Wikimedia "Wikitext is not HTML". For example the <big ></big> is in the Wikieditor (it was suggest to WONTFIX). HTML4 was long before Wikipedia exists, but Wikimedia has decided to allow all this obsolete tags!?! Why? Because they are much more practicable as Wiki-syntax (against cryptic CSS)!?<kbd style="white-space:nowrap;color:#567"> → User: Perhelion  12:08, 12 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I am dropping this proposal. As I look deeper, much of the use of is either redundant in that it is used to center elements that already have center styling or 100% width or the elements have parameters for center styling. --   Gadget850talk 16:53, 12 November 2014 (UTC)


 * I have been updating WP:HTML5 with various methods for updating obsolete markup. --  Gadget850talk 11:24, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Getting Errors
When attempting to use AutoEd, I am gettin the error: "Exception encountered, of type "BadMethodCallException""  Ormr2014 | Talk 23:14, 18 May 2015 (UTC)


 * NM it's working now...  Ormr2014 | Talk 00:18, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Misfires
Does anyone know why AutoEd won't go off if I click it after editing a page? ThanksKeith-264 (talk) 06:36, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

How do you use it?
Do you just go on an article, pick the AutoEd option and then press save? I was recently reverted when I did this for nonconstructive changes.Rubbish computer 16:44, 4 August 2015 (UTC)


 * Could you be more specific? What was reverted and why? You seemed to have used AutoEd a lot recently. Of course, you are responsible for knowing what any (semi-)automated process you run is doing before you save. Dhtwiki (talk) 02:37, 5 August 2015 (UTC)


 * In response to a message in my talk page I posted an explanation to User talk:Rubbish computer as to why I thought that a specific edit was unsuitable. -- PBS (talk) 06:11, 5 August 2015 (UTC)


 * The automatic preview wasn't working but I've been given some advice elsewhere on fixing this and will try that. Apologies for saving without checking what the changes were. Rubbish computer 13:00, 5 August 2015 (UTC)

Script removes necessary character escapes from Alt text
While most modern browsers might not have a problem, I understand it's recommended practice to escape symbols such as quotation marks and ampersands within alt text. The script currently doesn't recognise this, and instead replaces all instances of &amp;quot; and other escaped entries, even in alt text strings where they are appropriate. --Paul_012 (talk) 03:36, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

How do I make a custom regular expression replacement
I want to tidy up opus numbers on (classical) music pages -- these are often written "Op.123", which should be "Op. 123". So I need to be able to apply regexp replace on the page. Is there a simple way I can add my own script to Autoed so I can run this when required? I imagine that it's easier to use the functionality already provided to access the page text as a string, but can't see how to provide a tab/button/whatever to do things just when required (rather than a generalised "tidy" function; I need to be able to do a quick visual check before committing changes).

Can someone suggest how to do this, or if applicable the Completely Different approach I should be taking? Thanks. Imaginatorium (talk) 12:48, 15 November 2015 (UTC)
 * Here's one of my custom scripts: User:Jonesey95/AutoEd/unnamed.js. You are welcome to copy it into your user space and play with it. Post a note on my talk page when you get stuck. Note that I use my own version of the "core" file and do not do the standard tidying. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:33, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Blank lines between headings
Looking at Running Man (TV series), I notice that BG19bot, running WP:CHECKWIKI, adds a blank line between heading lines.

AutoEd would remove that blank line.

WP:HEAD does say "Include one blank line above the heading, and optionally one blank line below it, for readability in the edit window."

Blank line or no blank line, I think the bots should be consistent.

What do you think?

NYDirk (talk) 21:51, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Done! At least AutoEd should no longer change them if it's 1 blank line or fewer.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  22:45, 5 October 2014 (UTC)


 * , AutoEd is back to removing blank lines after a section heading. See the message below this one. Cheers!  01:10, 18 November 2015 (UTC)

Stub spacing
The other day I came across a discussion between two editors where one was blaming the other that they did not leave two empty lines before the (first) stub tag. We actually have a suggestion at WP:STUBSPACING saying "It is usually desirable to leave two blank lines between the first stub template and whatever precedes it." AutoEd will remove one of the lines,. Personally I'm a bit so-what, just thought I'd let you know. -- Sam Sailor Talk! 06:58, 14 October 2015 (UTC)
 * , should be fixed now. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  02:39, 19 November 2015 (UTC)
 * No, on the contrary I forgot my manners, it is I who ought to thank you for making such a script. Thank you. Sam Sailor Talk! 06:29, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Not adding space before forward slash
AutoEd stopped adding a space before the forward slash in named references. See Charles Manson named ref:

Also, there is major horizontal white space showing in ref #1 between the numeral and where the text starts, and minor extra horizontal white space showing in refs: 1, 7, 9, 12, 20, 26, 27, 29, 32, 35, 38, 39, 42, 43, 50, 52, 53, and so on.

Ping me back. Cheers! 00:57, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * , I am not aware of any requirement to add a space before the slash. Is this a problem?  Also, I'm not sure what you are talking about with regard to minor extra horizontal space.  Thank you! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  02:16, 19 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi . There is no requirement to add a space before the slash but it is one of your advertised features and I like it. I thought you'd want to know that it's not working.


 * Look down in the reference section at the first reference on Charles Manson page (linked above) and you'll see a bunch of empty space after the [1] for the link and before the link text starts. It happens to a lesser degree on about 25 other links. Thought your tool could find the errant white space and nuke it because I sure can't find it. Ping me back. Cheers!   06:52, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Blank line after heading
It seems that AutoEd is removing blank lines after a section heading. According to the MoS section on section headings these lines are perfectly bona fide. Many editors prefer to have them. Please disable this feature of AutoEd. Thanks and regards, --EnOreg (talk) 06:50, 29 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Done! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  22:44, 5 October 2014 (UTC)


 * , AutoEd is back to removing blank lines after a section heading. Can you disable that again? Cheers!  01:07, 18 November 2015 (UTC)
 * , Can you provide an example page where this is happening? I just tried adding a blank link after a section heading and my AutoEd did not remove it.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  02:14, 19 November 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi . I'll get back to you the next time it happens. Usually does it in See also, and External links. I like your tool. I wish it did even more. Cheers!   06:55, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

Name on drop down tab
Hi, On the drop-down tab AutoEd is named: auto ed

Should not that be AutoEd? Just sayin'. Cheers! 10:07, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Moving s to inside the wikilink
Hi, I notice AutoEd is moving the s to inside the wikilink so: ]]s becomes s]] as in: field]]s is changed to fields]]. You can see an example at Agriculture but I did not approve the change and I left it be. Also, since field and fields both have separate disambiguation pages would changing the wikilink from ]]s to s]] also require a DAB update for that wikilink? MoS encourages us to put s, ed, ing, etc. outside the wikilink.
 * , it should only move the s inside if the link text is different from the link. I have not seen the MOS page which encourages moving the s outside, unless it would simplify the link.  For example,   is shorter than , but   seems the same as  .  This feature was imported from one of the older parent scripts. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  00:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Did you ever see the extra white space at Charles_Manson in for example ref [1]? UPDATE: Looks like WMF fixed it on the backend. It was all the repetitions of the named ref that were not showing up.
 * No, I never saw this. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk) 00:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I notice AutoEd is now converting: /> to: / > as advertised. I like it!
 * I'm not sure where it is doing it, but I guess if it's correct, then great. Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk) 00:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Finally, AutoEd is not always creating an Edit Summary. Why is that? Ping me back. Cheers! 23:09, 25 November 2015 (UTC)
 * It may fail if there is already a long edit summary, but it should always work if there is room to add an edit summary. There may be conflicts with other scripts, if they are modifying the edit summary.  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  00:52, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi, Can you code autoEd to move apostrophe s to inside the wikilink if it is a piped wikilink? Like: Apple's would become Apple's ? Cheers! 09:30, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
 * In the first case, on the Apple is linked, and in the second case, the entire string is linked. Since they don't produce the same output, this case was excluded. Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  13:38, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

nbsp being removed and replaced by plain space
Greetings or any, autoEd is removing  templates and replacing the  template with a plain space. I know some editors go to a lot of trouble inserting the nbsp templates only to see their efforts go poof. I had to stop using autoEd because it was undoing the previous editors' additions. Ping me back. Cheers! 10:40, 31 January 2016 (UTC)
 * Hi Checkingfax. Can you provide an example of an article where this is happening?  Thanks! Plastikspork <sub style="font-size: 60%">―Œ <sup style="margin-left:-3ex">(talk)  13:40, 31 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Hi : Rats. I bumbled that call. It is: User:Ohconfucius/script/MOSNUM dates (not autoEd) and I saw it on Mary, Queen of Hungary. That date script is a good one but I cannot use it if it is going to delete templates recently placed by other editors. Sorry for the false alarm. I just double-checked and MOSNUM dates for sure, cross my fingers hope to die, nukes the nbsp templates and replaces them with plain spaces which is odd to me. Cheers!  13:56, 31 January 2016 (UTC)

Whitespace after Wikilinks
Might I suggest you move the call to autoEdWhitespace to be after autoEdWikinks instead of before it (in "formatter.js" and "complete.js")? With the current order, whitespace inside of a link is moved outside of it and preserved, even if it results in a space at the end of a line. (See the link to "Псыж" in this diff, which was using "formatter.js".) If you switch them, that doesn't happen. - dcljr (talk) 06:28, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Adding a "Rules of use" section
I've been encountering editors using / abusing AutoEd more frequently, including making controversial mass edits and inconsequential changes using AutoEd. I'd like to suggest that a set of rules be added to the page, mirroring the following "Rules of use" at WP:AWBRULES
 * You are responsible for every edit made. Do not sacrifice quality for speed and review all changes before saving.
 * Abide by all Wikipedia guidelines, policies and common practices.
 * Do not make controversial edits with it. Seek consensus for changes that could be controversial at the appropriate venue; village pump, WikiProject, etc. "Being bold" is not a justification for mass editing lacking demonstrable consensus. If challenged, the onus is on the AutoEd operator to demonstrate or achieve consensus for changes they wish to make on a large scale.
 * Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit. If in doubt, or if other editors object to edits on the basis of this rule, seek consensus at an appropriate venue before making further similar edits.

Any thoughts on this proposed addition? Alansohn (talk) 20:21, 19 December 2016 (UTC)
 * I support the concept, but I think it doesn't make sense to post the same set of rules in two places, from which they will inevitably diverge. Let's just say on this page that all of the AWB rules apply. That way, if the AWB rules change, the AutoEd rules change with them. – Jonesey95 (talk) 08:50, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't like Wiki Markup
I had implemented this, and the gadget itself worked fine, but then the Wiki markup thing in the edit box disappeared. Easily inserting markup like is easier to form than, say,. The bullet-point format should at least be consistent within an article; and, I find, the usual form is with spaces. Dhtwiki (talk) 21:13, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

AWB Integration
Is it possible to run the AutoEd script on AWB as it scans a page? I have been manually running the AutoEd while I am running AWB (mostly catching just typos on pages), and it seems like AWB could potentially apply the same edit rules that AutoEd runs on. Balon Greyjoy (talk) 01:04, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Not as a simple "push this button" feature, no. But it may be possible for AWB to be made to do the following...
 * Under its tool menu, AWB has a command called "external processing", which sends the pages in AWB's Make list to an external program for processing. It is therefore theoretically possible to load a JavaScript runtime environment and run AutoEd on there with some modification (I say "theoretically" because I haven't actually done this myself, nor heard of anyone doing it).
 * Another approach would be to enter the regexes from AutoEd's various modules into AWB's Find and Replace settings (Normal and/or Advanced), and then save those settings.
 * Yet another approach would be to add the regexes to WP:AWB/Typos, the list that AWB uses for its AutoWikiBrowser/User manual feature, but a discussion should be held on its talk page before undertaking such an effort.

I hope this helps you to implement a solution. The Transhumanist 07:28, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Thanks for getting back to me. Looking at your suggestions, it seems like the easiest options are the first two suggestions.  Regarding the external processing, I am looking on the user manual page.  Am I correct in thinking that I could just copy all of the javascript code for the different modules into one script, select that as the script in External Processing, select "Pass article text as file," and it will feed its fixes back into AWB? Thanks for the help! Balon Greyjoy (talk) 15:58, 10 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The first option is probably the hardest (most technical). I used that to pass pages from AWB to a custom perl script (via a perl engine), which took the page as input, and then generated an output file that was in turn processed by AWB. JavaScript programs are not stand-alone -- they require an additional environment (besides the operating system) to run in. Such as a browser, or a run-time environment like Node.js. Then the scripts would need to be written or modified to work specifically in Node, and would have to include statements to generate an output file. But I don't know if you could call Node.js as you would a program. I've not used it yet. Entering the regexes into AWB would be your best bet.  I'm surprised nobody has done that already. It might be worthwhile to ask around. The Transhumanist 01:05, 11 January 2018 (UTC)

Line stripping in refs
I see edits like this: as damaging. They're against WP:CITEVAR, they make complex articles far harder to work with. AutoEd should not be making changes like this.

Hellcat
'Hellcat' an air-to-surface version to give light helicopters a capability against Fast Attack Craft and other high-speed naval targets was considered in the late 1960s. Two missiles would be carried on a pair of pylons on the helicopter, with an optical sight mounted through the cabin roof. Hellcat was also considered for COIN purposes, with four missiles carried on a militarised Short Skyvan. Despite being offered by Shorts for some years, it does not seem to have been sold.

Hellcat
'Hellcat' an air-to-surface version to give light helicopters a capability against Fast Attack Craft and other high-speed naval targets was considered in the late 1960s. Two missiles would be carried on a pair of pylons on the helicopter, with an optical sight mounted through the cabin roof. Hellcat was also considered for COIN purposes, with four missiles carried on a militarised Short Skyvan. Despite being offered by Shorts for some years, it does not seem to have been sold.

Thoughts? Andy Dingley (talk) 14:39, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * The primary question is whether AutoEd does this as part of its default feature set, in which case this is the right talk page, or whether is using a custom script that adds to AutoEd's usual features. I don't use AutoEd's default scripts, preferring to avoid cluttering my diffs with changes beyond those that I intend to make, so I don't have a way to tell you. Have you asked that editor about this edit? That seems like it would be the first step. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:03, 15 January 2018 (UTC)
 * Hi folks. Sorry if this edit caused irritation. This is not a script feature. I scroll through pages after the script runs and make a handful of manual edits to make pages' styles consistent. In most articles, the "consensus" or dominant citation style is the non-vertical version. I apologize if the bot-run edit summary belies the human judgment in seeing what the dominant citation style is in the article. I can avoid making that jump in the future. --<b style="color: #be0032;">Jprg1966</b> <sup style="color: #003366;">(talk) 17:39, 15 January 2018 (UTC)

Edit summary tag for other projects
The default edit summary tag is 'Cleaned up using AutoEd'. Would you please add ':en:' to form 'Cleaned up using AutoEd' ? This would alleviate the problem I have been having with redlinks in my edit summaries due to the deletion of my softredirect at c:WP:AutoEd, as discussed at c:COM:UDR. Thank you. — Jeff G. ツ 14:02, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * support - or maybe as an alternative c:Commons:AutoEd could be set up and linked when using the tool at Commons. Jcb (talk) 14:12, 8 April 2018 (UTC)
 * I would like to avoid maintaining a separate codebase on Commons, perhaps the output could depend on . Here, that evaluates to "".   — Jeff G. ツ 04:07, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Not compatible with Beta features
autoEd does not work if either Wikitext syntax highlighting or New wikitext mode Beta features are enabled. -- Waddie96 (talk) 10:13, 18 April 2018 (UTC)
 * This feature is not actively maintained. —Th e DJ (talk • contribs)

Not seeing box.
WHY????? Eddie891 Talk Work 00:11, 30 April 2018 (UTC)