Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 10

Formatting templates
While I'm waiting to see what I can do on Wikinews with AWB, I'm trying out the MWiki-Browser. How would I go about formatting all occurrences of a template with it?

From

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To

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And, as a (hopefully) minor feature request, can the protection of articles be performed from AWB. This is probably only of use to Wikinews where all articles 10 days old are protected. --Brianmc 08:19, 26 August 2006 (UTC)


 * AWB now works with wikinews. I think the best way to do that would be using the advanced find and replace to only do replacments inside templates, though i haven't really done anything like it before so i'm not sure what would be the best way. Protection of articles would currently be quite technically difficult. Martin 08:37, 26 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the information, I really need to read up on regex or find a friendly expert. :-) --Brianmc 10:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Edit summary link
Just a minor niggle, but can AWB insert w:WP:AWB when not working on wikipedia? I get redlinks in the edit summary using it on Wikinews. --Brianmc 16:03, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Could you create a soft redirect to this page instead, as some projects have their own AWB page, and others just soft redirect to here. thanks. Martin 16:25, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, Wikinews now has WP:AWB referring people to the project page. --Brianmc 10:48, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Hiding tabs from plugin
Any idea why the following code doesn't work Martin?

Friend Shared Sub HideTabs For Each tabp As TabPage In SettingsTabs tabp.Hide Next End Sub

When this code does work: Friend Shared Sub HideTabs For Each tabp As TabPage In SettingsTabs tabp.Text = "I love Bluemoose!" Next End Sub --kingboyk 12:26, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * You can't use .Hide, you have to remove the tabpage from the tabcontrol, then add it back if you want to show it, careful to add back in same order though. Martin 12:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Would that break AWB in any way? Do you ever reference the controls through the tabcontrol.tabpages collection or only by name? --kingboyk 12:46, 1 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It should be fine. Only one way to be sure though. Martin 12:53, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Hehe, yep! --kingboyk 12:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Possible bug in Categorisation
I am trying to remove Category:Giant Panda (Hip Hop) and AWB will not recognize the string. Is it possible that it has something to do with the parenthesis? --After Midnight 0001 21:16, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok, I see whats wrong, fix will be in next release. thanks Martin 10:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Ooh, small world - that's a CFD nomination of mine :) --kingboyk 10:46, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * New release 3.0.2.9 did the job. Thanks for the fix. --After Midnight 0001 21:23, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Notification of new messages
When working on Wikinews and I get a new message on my talk page, AWB is trying to load up a Wikipedia page instead of a diff of my talk page on Wikinews. --Brianmc 07:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, what a stupid error, fix in next release. thanks Martin 10:27, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Found when someone went "where the $#@% did you get AWB for Wikinews?" :-) --Brianmc 15:30, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Image bug
Hi Martin, I encountered a little image commenting out bug, see this diff. A random line break was previously added, so the formatting was Del Marquis (born Derek Gruen August 31 1979, New York) is ... Just letting you know. — Mets 501 (talk) 16:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Problems
Hi, I have some small problems (my browser is Firefox): Thank you!--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 16:01, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I try to work with the catalan version and I receive a message. It appears a window telling me I received a new message. Cool, but now I already read it and I can't close it. I read it with both Firefox and IE and the message is still there. I'll have to kill AWB process. Done.
 * Now, I still have the same problem as some months before. My text editor is wordpad or notebook (I don't have word). I didn't answer then because I was going to change my PC and I decided waiting what's up with the new one, but still can not load the settings (it finds problems even after a <!-- !!!). The supposed working file you corrected, doesen't work. Therefore I was thinking on:
 * Since the important part of the file are catalan typos, I wanted to put them in a page (it could be here) as your Typos page, but I can not load them in AWB as you do in the english version. So, could you please add an option in wich either you can choose from wich page you want to dowload the typos list, or change the page deppending on the language...


 * Probably a caching issue in IE, don't think there is much that can be done.


 * The settings file is not designed to be edited manually, though it can be done, I don't recommend it.


 * I'll make it so it changes the typos page depending on the language. The ca: page will be http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viquip%C3%A8dia:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos (I have copied your settings into it), note that it will detect any problems with the regex syntax and alert you to it, and is also sensitive to using the correct syntax  Martin 19:03, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Great! Thank you very much!--Xtv - (my talk) - (que dius que què?) 19:10, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Redirects
I want to replace #REDIRECT (.*)  (of course with the \ tags for regular expressions) with, e.g. car (just an example). If I enter this in "Find and Replace - Normal", that doesn't work. The problem is, AWB doesn't take care of this page and follows the redirect. On the redirected page ABW of course doesn't replace anything. Does anyone know how to make this work? Many thanks in advance, Pill- 18:04, 3 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Turn off the "Bypass redirects" option in the "General" menu. Martin 18:26, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Feature request
Could we have an option under the "Make from" setting which fetches articles from a category and all it's subcategories? So for example, if you entered a category such as Category:Wikipedia maintenance, it would fetch all articles from that category, and then fetch all articles from the sub-categories too, etc etc until there were no more sub-categories. This would be very helpful for certain bot tasks. Thanks, — FireFox  ( talk ) 10:21, 04 September 2006


 * I have already coded this, but not implemented as it is a little scary, apart from cyclical categorisation (which can be dealt with), it could be possible to have many hundreds of categories. I guess I would have to implement a limit on the number of results. Martin 11:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, ok :) — FireFox  ( talk ) 11:17, 04 September 2006
 * You could write a plugin FF ;) --kingboyk 21:01, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

International issue
Even on fully localized projects, English names of special namespaces still could be used. For example, on de: you can use  instead of. But AWB does not support such ambiguousness and as result, some pages cannot be recategorized and some images cannot be removed. Of course, you still can use regexps, but it's kinda pain in the ass... Max S em 14:51, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Auto tag - Uncategorised
I was doing some removing of categories from articles, per WP:CFD and in some cases, the only category was removed, but in one case the  tag was added and the other  was not (I added it manually, so the diff shows it in there). They both had iw links, but the 2nd also had a stub tag. Does the stub tag keep the Uncategorised tag from getting applied, and if so, is that a possible upgrade opportunity? --After Midnight 0001 01:37, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, a stub tag will stop the uncategorised tag being applied, as AWB is just being ultra cautious (as often tags give an article a category). But I will tweak this at some point to ignore stub tags. Martin 08:35, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Rats?
Any ideas:

From the Article ATR

Does this on any article.... Restarted AWB

Same all the way through.....

Reedy Boy 17:31, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * What settings are you using? Martin 17:51, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I would guess replace \b with rats. ATR is an anagram of RAT, so I smell a rat. Rich Farmbrough, 19:26 6  September 2006 (GMT).
 * Perhapsly someone vandalised the RETF page? Rich Farmbrough, 19:28 6 September 2006 (GMT).
 * Good thinking, there was a regex mistake on the typo page. thanks Martin 19:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Request to add Chinese Project Support
Hello, I want to use AWB in Chinese Wikipedia, so I request to add Chinese (zh) project support. The namespace in Chinese project is in English (due to two different characters in the same project), so I think Chinese project might be easier to be supported. You can contact me if needed. :) --Littlebtc 17:45, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, will do. Martin 19:40, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Add to selected list from category
Hey, How come sometimes when you select multiple categories, right click, the 'Add to selected list from category' is greyed out and requires multiple re-highlights and or re-right clicking.

Anyone else noticed this? Would you be able to look into it please martin?

Cheers

Reedy Boy 19:00, 7 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've noticed it on occasion, yes. IIRC it usually happens when some of the selected category names contain numbers?? --kingboyk 09:05, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Acronym and initialism Random Edit
AWB wants to change into
 * YRUU: Young Religious Unitarian Universalists
 * YRUU: Young Riousacrileg$2 Unitarian Universalists

Mistake on the typo list?

Reedy Boy 19:05, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes, it was a typo list error, I've fixed it now. Martin 19:26, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

minor edits
Is there an option to mark the edits done through AWB such as spelling mistakes etc. as minor? I am unable to find it. Thanks -- Lost (talk) 06:24, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * In the "general" menu, there is an option. I think I will move it as some point to somewhere more logical. thanks Martin 08:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Found it -- Lost (talk) 09:02, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Plugin example code
Martin, I think the example code needs a slight change regarding the ReadXML event. It needs to test the return value of MoveToAttribute and if False, use the plugin's default value. In VB code like this is giving strange results: Friend Function XMLReadBoolean(ByVal reader As System.Xml.XmlTextReader, ByVal param As String) As Boolean reader.MoveToAttribute(param) Return Boolean.Parse(reader.Value) End Function Friend Function XMLReadString(ByVal reader As System.Xml.XmlTextReader, ByVal param As String) As String reader.MoveToAttribute(param) Return reader.Value End Function

So I'll be changing my functions to take an ExistingValue argument, and return that if MoveToAttribute returns false. HTH HAND :) --kingboyk 10:29, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

In VB this code does the trick: Friend Module XMLUtils Friend Function XMLReadBoolean(ByVal reader As System.Xml.XmlTextReader, ByVal param As String, _       ByVal ExistingValue As Boolean) As Boolean If reader.MoveToAttribute(param) Then Return Boolean.Parse(reader.Value) Else Return ExistingValue End Function Friend Function XMLReadString(ByVal reader As System.Xml.XmlTextReader, ByVal param As String, _       ByVal ExistingValue As String) As String If reader.MoveToAttribute(param) Then Return reader.Value Else Return ExistingValue End Function End Module --kingboyk 10:41, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

AWB process won't die
I've noticed that if I exit AWB (by closing the form) while it's trying to verify that I'm logged in, the process keeps on running for several minutes (until I kill it). Note that this is with no plugins installed, just plain AWB. --kingboyk 14:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Alos, ff you don't notice this, you will be unable to extract the upgraded version.... Rich Farmbrough, 12:33 10 September 2006 (GMT).

hndis and surname
I recently separated the surname template so it no longer redirects to hndis. One of the "general fixes" for AWB appears to replace with. How can that fix be disabled for AWB in general? -- JHunterJ 17:23, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * I've changed it in the next version, I'll release it now. Martin 18:36, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Watchlist problem
Even when I have "Add all to watchlist" unchecked in the menu, all of the articles that I edit are still getting added to my watchlist. Is there a toggle somewhere that I've missed? --Elonka 21:06, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Are you sure you have the option unchecked in your preferences too? — FireFox  ( talk ) 21:12, 09 September 2006
 * I thought that the AWB options were independent of individual Wikipedia preferences?  --Elonka 22:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes they are, but once AWB has submitted a page for saving to Wikipedia your Wikipedia preferences take over. If they say "add all pages to the watchlist" that's what Mediawiki will do. AWB and Mediawiki are independent products and they don't share their settings in any way. --kingboyk 12:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Okay, I may be mis-remembering, but I thought that the way it used to work was that they were entirely independent. In other words, I could have AWB working in the background, and any changes it made could be flagged to not show up on my watchlist.  But at the same time, I could be normal editing in another window, and those changes automatically would show up in my watchlist.  Otherwise I have to keep remembering to check or uncheck the watch box depending on which window that I'm in.  In other words, what I would like (and the way that I thought it used to work) was that I could keep my normal Wikipedia preferences set as "add to watchlist", but if I keep the menu option unselected on AWB, that it's able to keep the watch box unchecked.  AWB seems to be able to toggle the watch and "minor" boxes on...  Isn't there a way that it can also turn them off? --Elonka 18:43, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
 * My experience has been similar to what Elonka seems to expect. In the past, when I have had the AWB preference set to "not add to watch list", it didn't add them, even though my standard setting outside of AWB was to add them. --After Midnight 0001 18:58, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It can't be done, because if AWB unchecks the "add to watchlist" box, it unwatches stuff that was already in your watchlist, there is no way to discriminate between what is already in your watchlist and what isn't. Martin 19:15, 10 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ah, good point, I see the problem. Hmmm.  Well, to be honest, I'd be willing to take that risk.  Could the option of "do not add edited pages to watchlist" be added to AWB, perhaps with a clear disclaimer, like, "Warning!  Changing this will affect all articles that you edit with AWB, and could have the unintended consequence of inadvertently unwatching an article that was already on your watchlist.  Please use with care." --Elonka 20:55, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Bolding article name in Image bug
This seems to be a problem in the latest version (3.0.3.0) with this article Starstreak missile, at least. Rich Farmbrough, 12:34 10 September 2006 (GMT).

Not enabled to use this?
I just tried running AWB for the first time. After having set up my procedure, when I press "Start the process", I keep getting the error message "You are not enabled to use this." It then opens a window to AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage, on which I am clearly listed as a registered/enabled user. Did I set up my procedure wrong? --Ginkgo100 talk · e@ 22:21, 10 September 2006 (UTC)