Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 26

arrange by amount of traffic?
Is it possible to arrange the articles in the AWB list by how much traffic they get? That could be very useful when a change needs to be made across many articles, or when many need to be scanned. Fixing the most popular articles first would minimize the exposure the error gets, and if the fix is problematic, it will come to others' attention sooner, which could save the trouble of having to go back and re-fix lots of obscure articles. — kwami (talk) 19:11, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Where does wikipedia list traffic stats for articles? Rjwilmsi  05:06, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser is the example on how to view the traffic for Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser. In other cases, on the history page of any article or talk page, there will be a link that says "Page view statistics" at the top that you will be able to click to see that page's view statistics. Steel1943  (talk) 05:10, 10 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I take it then this would be a new-feature request. — kwami (talk) 05:44, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

New general fix?
It appears that there's a new general fix that changes  →. Could someone please add this to the appropriate place to WP:AWB/GF? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 23:36, 14 April 2013 (UTC)
 * We disabled this feature. It now only works for  →  . -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:43, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * OK, could you please add that to the appropriate place within WP:AWB/GF? Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 22:13, 15 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Done. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:48, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you! GoingBatty (talk) 16:36, 18 April 2013 (UTC)

New error checking in citation template
Partial FYI and partial question.

With the change over the of cite templates to using Lua modules, the developers are doing two new things: error checking and displaying the errors in red type on the page. To see the red errors, goto Bindusara or my favourite, Gang Forward. (you may have to purge your cache)

For a listing of error checks, see Module talk:Citation/CS1/Error checking. For the help page, see Help:CS1 errors.

Question is, should/can we add some of these error checks as alerts? Some example could be an alert that a cite web has no url parameter or title parameter has a wikilink in a cite web. Bgwhite (talk) 22:50, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Performance decrease
After scanning few thousands of pages (let's say between 3000/6000K), I experience an increase of occupied memory and a decrease of performance. To improve the scanning speed I have to stop it, save the settings, close the program, restart it, log in and press play. Do this all the time it's quite frustrating. Has someone the same issue? There's a workaround or a fix? --Andyrom75 (talk) 00:11, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I wonder if that's what's causing this error. GoingBatty (talk) 00:25, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm adding a couple of things.
 * 1) After scanning around 6500 pages, the occupied memory is more than doubled.
 * 2) If I repeat this two steps
 * 2.A) Adding All pages from Special page
 * 2.B) Deleting all the pages without processing
 * I see a consistent occupied memory increase. This means that when I delete a page (or in general when a page has been scanned/saved/skipped) the memory is not released.

--Andyrom75 (talk) 00:49, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * This used to happen to me a lot when I was using AWB actively. Its very frustrating I agree but I think its due to the Page file size increasing as it processes the articles. After a while the page file gets really big and causes the application to slow down (possibly due to the more processor and RAM required to process the file). This is only a guess of course but I think that's what's causing it. Kumioko (talk) 18:55, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm heavily using it and it's stressfull. I've just noticed that with the same regex, when it's overloaded it execute around 16 pages/min, but if I restart it, it reaches 168 pages/min! 10 times faster!!! If the developer can't solve the paging issue on a realtime basis, they should at least implement a button to flush the occupied ram (or execute it automatically every X minutes). --Andyrom75 (talk) 23:29, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Minor issues on Normal Settings windows

 * 1) it doesn't save the window position and the column width, so I have to restore it all the time. Can these info be stored?
 * 2) the find function, finds only the first occurrence ...well, what it consider as its own 1st occurrence.... Can it cycle between all the occurrences like most of the programs?
 * 3) if by mistake I click over a column (it will order the regex as per that column criteria) there's no way to restore the original order. I have about 100 regex, most of them linked to the others for step-by-step processing, changing the order means to make disaster on pages, so my only chance is to close AWB without saving to avoid of overwrite my regex kit. Is it possible to implement a "third click option" to eliminate the column ordering criteria? --Andyrom75 (talk) 23:37, 20 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Your first point has been suggested and discussed at WP:AWB/FR. Your third point has been suggested and much discussed at WP:AWB/FR. On the second point, for me the find function does cycle through all occurrences, but after it returns to the top of the page I may have to wait 5 or 10 seconds or more before I can click to reach the first occurrence again; it's slightly buggy. Chris the speller   yack  13:35, 21 April 2013 (UTC)

Find and replace by nothing (Regex tester)
Hi,

Is it possible to replace a text by nothing in the regex tester? When I put nothing in the "Replace" box, it's not possible to apply the replacement. Thanks by advance for your answer, Automatik (talk) 14:32, 22 April 2013 (UTC)
 * No.  The normal find and replace function does allow nothing to be in the "Replace" box, but not the regex tester. I usually use "#" (or any character) as the replacement "nothing" when using the regex tester. Bgwhite (talk) 01:03, 23 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Automatik (talk) 15:30, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Namespace Module and Module talk not listed
I just noticed that the new namespaces for Module and Module talk aren't listed in AWB. I'm not sure if they need to be but I wanted to drop a note. If someone thinks it should be added I'll let you decide if it should be submitted. I'll be blocked in a minute so I don't have time to draft it. Kumioko (talk) 00:49, 23 April 2013 (UTC)

Disregard
Currently, our definition of insignificant or trivial changes are ambiguous and subjective. Some of these changes include article format, reference duplication, HTML markup, simplification of links and the 'lowly' non-breaking space which is more important with mobile browsing. I propose modifying the rule to state in no uncertain terms what constitutes an insignificant edit. I'd like to begin by discussing first what other people feel is an insignificant edit and open debate as to how they relate to policy. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * FYI... See Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 25 for a past discussion on the subject. Bgwhite (talk) 00:16, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, that was undertaken by me, but I want a formal aspect backed with details of what is to be of concern and rather what is not a concern. The reason being that anyone can currently complain an edit is insignificant even though a rational argument can be made for it. This is to prevent someone using rule 4's ambiguous nature to challenge the AWB editor that something is insignificant. Technically, if its in MOS it is preferred, but I did have this issue previously arise with typos, spacing, persondata and now simplification of links and WP:NBSP. A major concern was addition of 'dummy edits' and cleaning up of dummy edits, but the wording allows anything considered by one party to be insignificant to be challenged with the onus of the AWBer to come here and protest otherwise. That is unacceptable to me. Cleaning up even the editing window by fixing and simplifying links, Unicode and HTML matters have consensus, yet they do not impart changes to the viewing window. Most useful for foreign scripts like Russian, Japanese, and Chinese, it keeps readability in the editing window in the same manner that the HTML markup to wikicode does.
 * A second point I'd like to make, when these fixes are done the page will not be bothered again for a good amount of time by another AWB user. And I can easily point out that approved bots often perform the same exact tasks without opposition, but are not allowed to address all concerns due to bot policy, which a human can accurately address. By doing these and moving on it will prevent numerous passes by specific task oriented bot runs and actually address all issues at once instead of one by one by various editors who do passes, some thinking that they may run afoul of this ambiguous rule. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 01:26, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Could you please point out where the consensus is for "cleaning up even the editing window by fixing and simplifying links, Unicode and HTML matters" using AWB, and which bots have a primary task to do this? Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 02:16, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

There is a bright line rule - edits that don't make a visible change in the rendered page are considered inconsequential and should be avoided with AWB. A separate but complementary point is edit rate - an editor who makes 50 edits in 10 minutes is unlikely to be giving adequate review to each individual edit, which could be a factor in making insignificant edits. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 01:42, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * CBM, that is incorrect, speed is not the issue, even cursory typo checks go faster then that. Strangely, that edit did not address other issues on that page. Secondly, if you want to try and pick on it, how about this diff which is okay under WP:NBSP. And oh yes, I fixed a typo and trivial stuff, one which doesn't show in the edit window. Somethings AWB should have caught, it didn't. Strange, but there ya go, if you are good at grammar, might want to fix the rest. Error, errant click, who knows. Sorry it troubled you so, but let's not digress or try and be POINTy. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:13, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If you can replicate issues that AWB should catch but doesn't, please submit a bug report with the specific articles, so the developers can review them to see if AWB can be fixed. Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 02:22, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I know two issues currently being addressed for the next release. One being the headline stripping and the interwiki links in headlines. I retested the page with AWB but it did not catch anything under my default settings. I am operating on no-cosmetic fixes too, but I'll submit a report if anything goes amiss again. Anyways... let's not derail this, we had good arguments for many 'insignificant edits' like not a typo wrapping around certain phrase and such because they do serve a purpose even if you cannot see them, they impact the editing window. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 02:34, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Speed is indeed an issue; to use AWB at bot-like speeds requires bot approval. ChrisGualtieri - your AWB contribs show many AWB edits that should not have been saved - e.g.    . In general, it is not appropriate to go through many articles doing only general fixes with AWB, because many general fixes are only allowed when they are accompanied by more significant changes in the same edit, and AWB users are expected to avoid saving insignificant edits. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 02:43, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * While I disagree with this, you are welcome to your opinion. You've made your point and I refrained from that previously from what Materialscientist said, maybe you can stop beating the dead horse now. It is clear that something went wrong with my skip function, I'm sure I had skip minor genfixes and skip whitespace changes on, but let's not carry on. That is another matter and you are derailing it. Take it to my talk page if you wish to chew me out some more. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:03, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Reparsing Cell biology, Cucurbitaceae and Chinese checkers are simple ones that contain issues according to skip all non-cosmetic fixes yet will provide edits like [this] which are probably seen as 'insignificant' and do not even render IN the box where the ones before were. I'll take this elsewhere, but please stay on topic. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:09, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Disregard everything. I'm ending this because its hopelessly off topic now. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:12, 25 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry Chris ended this thread, as I think he has a very good point with all this. I don't feel 'inconsequential' necessarily means no change to the output, nor does it or should it mean it's unnecessary in the course of a bot run. We all seem to agree that these are things that generally benefit from changing, but nobody is likely to do this manually. And that's presumably why these were incorporated as minor fixes in AWB. While I can agree that whitespace removal, replacing underscores with spaces and perhaps changing template capitalisation are considered inconsequential, I would not necessarily say that they should not be done in the ordinary course of executing an AWB run. I mean would we draw the line at adding or replacing links, or a persondata template? Anyway, a clearer definition would be beneficial, for there are obviously a few editors who are dead set at compromising bot users' productivity that they are prepared to haul the latter over the coals for alleged breaches. We saw that with Rich Farmbrough, and Chris may be a victim of same, again. I sympathise. --  Ohconfucius  ping / poke 03:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Rich unblocked and masked his own bot and did things that were not really defensible, even under IAR, but I do see your point. Much of the issues was a threshold of the term, but that's why I wanted to define it. Even those 'useless' changes reduced scan load times by 10 seconds each and were under skip minor gen fixes with some other option, but I don't have a SS of the settings. I don't primarily do genfixes, I did targeted ones and those match with CHECKWIKI and Yobot does the exact same thing, yet I get heat for it? At what point does making positive changes worse then leaving identified and known issues? I wanted to develop a line, as the one I just did to Chinese Checkers is OK, but my NBSP one is not? This has been derailed so bad that I doubt it is worth reopening, so maybe in a bit. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:56, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that so long as the primary purpose of a bot run is not for making inconsequential changes, and that that purpose can be demonstrated ex-post by analysis of edits, AWB users ought to be cut some slack. No-one should be able to comb through hundreds of AWB edits of an operator, find five that strayed, and say "your AWB contribs show many AWB edits that should not have been saved - e.g.    " (sic) --  Ohconfucius  ping / poke 04:06, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I did not comb through hundreds - I just paged back in his contribs until I saw AWB edits and looked at a few. I would estimate at least 50% of the few I looked at were cosmetic-only. The edit summary gave no clue about the purpose of the run. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:13, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh and just for kicks, you know that test at Chinese Checkers which was done with skip only cosmetic changes are made. I got confusion from an editor on my talk page. diff Just because the purpose is not immediately obvious, an editor can and will question anything that comes up, because they can. What CBM did is not bad, but I disagree with it. Also it seems 'minor genfixes' as a skip option is currently broken, so I got false feedback from AWB. Which actually explains why some edits may seem questionable. But I must point out that Yobot currently (as in last 50 edits) done the EXACT same thing as I did. And has done so before, without the edits being raised at the talk page.       and many more. So whatever. The bot is obviously approved to do so and I am not? Whatever. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:28, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Yobot has chronic problems with violating the AWB rules, and exceeding its bot approval, and I agree that someone should resolve that. ChrisGualtieri, the reason I mentioned your edits here was that it seemed like the motivation for the thread is that you have also been making a lot of insignificant edits and you wanted the rules to be changed to permit them. The real solution is to avoid doing large AWB runs solely for "general fixes"; general fixes should accompany some more specific goal, not be the goal in and of themselves. &mdash; Carl (CBM · talk) 12:09, 25 April 2013 (UTC)
 * It may be a little off-topic, but these edits were a mistake. I reported a similar mistake on my talk page already User_talk:Magioladitis by myself. AWB's code and Yobot's code has been improved a lot to prevent similar mistakes but there is always a human factor involved. My apologies. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Question about Echo
Will the changes with Notifications regarding new messages on your talk page have any impact to new messages that pop up on AWB that notify you that you have a new message? GoingBatty (talk) 18:02, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * AFAIK no; it's a seperate system, in the same way LQT differs to normal talk pages. Though, we might want to include it's notifications at somepoint in the future. Reedy (talk) 23:30, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Flow is the project that will discombobulate talk pages. Bgwhite (talk) 05:11, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Substituting template and editing its content in one step
Hi everyone, is there any way to do this? I know it's possible to do that with PAGENAME using %%pagename%%, but can the same thing be done with templates? Thanks in advance! --Adamanttt (talk) 15:36, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

General fixes removes editor-added italics from cite template
One of the AWB general fixes removes italics formatting in the "work" field of the cite web template, e.g., see an example of AWB in action here. The effect of the formating is that the work field renders in plain text instead of the default template behaviour which puts it in italics. Could someone remind me of the justification for AWB's behaviour, please? Ta, Mr Stephen (talk) 23:34, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * You've got it backwards. The cite web template already puts the work parameter inside italics.  There is no reason to have double italics.  By putting in the double italics, it cancels out the italics used in the template and puts the work parameter in plain text.  Bgwhite (talk) 23:46, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Correct. --  Gadget850talk 01:17, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I come across that quite often. The specific end result intended for is correct because United States Census Bureau should not be italicised. However, I would classify the original edit as a misuse of parameter. The editor who cited included both the US Census Bureau and the US Department of Commerce, whereas merely citing the census bureau in the publisher field would have been sufficient. Now, after the AWB edit, the Census Bureau has become incorrectly italicised. I've tried this as a fix. --  Ohconfucius  ping / poke 01:58, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for that Ohconfucius. Bgwhite: we both have it right, but I must have expressed myself badly.  Mr Stephen (talk) 16:59, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

Nomination for deletion of Template:Empty section
Template:Empty section has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. (I'm not part of the nomination - I'm adding this here because AWB genfixes automatically add this template.) GoingBatty (talk) 00:40, 12 May 2013 (UTC)

Version
I downloaded a new snapshot from here as indicated on the download page but it appears not to have version 5.5.0.2 but still has version 5.4.0.1. May be I did something wrong any help to get latest version to see if fixes problem not been able to get started that I reported on bugs page. Keith D (talk) 13:45, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * We indicate http://sourceforge.net/projects/autowikibrowser/ to download the latest version. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:42, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I initially tried from there but it never delivered a zip file so I was trying other options. Keith D (talk) 16:42, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
 * The download section states: "Download the release version here or alternatively you may download the latest development snapshot here". It's not obvious that the latest development snapshot is less current than the release version.  GoingBatty (talk) 23:08, 16 May 2013 (UTC)

Find and replace redlinks
I need to find redlinks.

How? The Transhumanist 01:47, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Redlinks where? Redlinks on a page? -- Magioladitis (talk)

Current method I'm using to remove redlink entries in a set of lists - need faster method
I'm removing superfluous redlinks from country outlines.

To remove the redlinks of "Political scandals of foo" (where foo is a country name) from each country outline, I take a list of country outlines (on a user subpage) and replace "Outline of" with "Political scandals of". That list now shows which links are red.

Then I use AWB's listmaker to make a list of all the redlinks on that page, and I paste them back in to the same page and linkify them. Now there's only redlinks on that page.

Next I change "Political scandals of" back to "Outline of". The list is now all the country outlines that contain the "Political scandals of" redlink in them.

I make a list in AWB from that, and then do a regex search/replace with AWB to get rid of the entry in each of those outlines.

Unfortunately, I have to do this whole procedure over again for each redlink I wish to nuke (so as not to nuke the blue links too), and this approach only works with sets of links that share the "of foo" nomenclature. Because AWB has no way to search/replace strings based on redlink status (as far as I know).

If you know of a easier/faster way to do this, please let me know...

Please post replies to Bot requests/Archive 55. Thank you. The Transhumanist 06:27, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Question on tagging subcategories
Would anyone know how I could go about adding a template to subcategories of a category? Thanks! Kevin Rutherford (talk) 00:50, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Try this:
 * Set the source to "Category", enter the name of the category, and click.
 * Click, choose to only keep categories, and click . Your list should only contain categories now.
 * On the More... tab, click Enabled and Prepend, and enter the template.
 * On the Start tab, click.
 * Click, confirm everything looks good, and click.
 * Repeat #5 for each category.
 * Good luck! GoingBatty (talk) 01:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Is there a way to also get the subcategories of these categories, so that I don't have to re-enter a new category every time? Kevin Rutherford (talk) 02:59, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, set the source to "Category (recurse 1 level)" instead. Other options are "Category (recurse user defined level)" and "Category (recursive)".  GoingBatty (talk) 02:56, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Find and replace numbers in a table with sort functions
(this section was moved from Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Find and replace)

Hello-

I would like to edit all the numerical entries in the table found on the page List of Detroit Red Wings draft picks. As it stands right now sorting is broken, probably due to inconsistent use of the function, and I believe using  for everything will solve this. This is how it is done on List of Atlanta Thrashers draft picks and sorting works correctly on that page. As I think I would rather delete the whole page and forget about it forever than edit every entry by hand, I am hoping there is a script I can run to automate this process.

The largest number in any column is 3300, so if we were to make every number sortable as a four digit number this should fix the sorting problems. As an example, any entry of |99| would have to become |99|. Using the pipes to find the numbers to change is important as this will ensure only table entries are modified.

So this find/replace function and/or script would look for every instance of |(any number from 0-9999)|, convert it to a four digit number by adding zeroes on the front of the number as necessary, and stick the whole thing inside the sort function (I do want to modify even the four digit entries for standardization and consistency). 8 becomes 0008, 88 becomes 0088, etc.

I don't know anything about regular expressions beyond the fact there are such things and hope and pray someone can help me out with this.

Thank you, Rejectwater (talk) 16:27, 18 May 2013 (UTC)

Also, I have already tried removing all existing instances of the "sort" function and that didn't work. Rejectwater (talk) 16:36, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Ok, so I have come up with

Find: \|[0]\| Replace with : |0|

This works fine with the number zero, but I would have to write a new rule for every number from 0-3300. This would take quite a bit of time. Rejectwater (talk) 22:29, 18 May 2013 (UTC)


 * You only need 4 rules:
 * Find: \|([0-9]{4})\|(?<!sort\|[0-9]{4}\|)        Replace: |$1|
 * Find: \|([0-9]{3})\|        Replace: |$1|
 * Find: \|([0-9]{2})\|        Replace: |$1|
 * Find: \|([0-9]{1})\|        Replace: |$1|
 * I had strange results when I ran these in the reverse order, but this seemed to work fine. Chris the speller   yack  01:20, 19 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That is fantastic, thank you so much. Rejectwater (talk) 10:59, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I added (?<!sort\|[0-9]{4}\|) to the rule that handles 4-digit numbers so that it won't try to change the entries that have already been processed, because they will still contain a 4-digit number surrounded by vertical bars, causing a recursive mess. This will be very important if the rules are run a second time on the same page. This is why I had garbage when the rules were run in the reverse order. Chris the speller   yack  12:56, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't think it will be necessary to run them again, it looks they are all done. New entries can be done manually when the data is entered.  Thanks again.Rejectwater (talk) 16:13, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

Talk pages loading/updating slowly again
Has anyone else noticed that talk pages are loading and saving slowly again with the new version. Its takes the app several seconds to a minute to make one change. Kumioko (talk) 17:47, 20 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I've never understood it with performance. It seems some seem to be able to edit at 4-8 pages per minute, but I've never even been close to that. I'm lucky if I manage 2 ppm at a sustained level. --  Ohc  ¡digame!¿que pasa? 01:47, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

Redlink/Bluelink Find/Replace feature requests
I've requested that AWB be enhanced to take redlink and bluelink status into account in its Find & Replace feature.

To be able to search for and replace redlinks, and skip replacements that contain redlinks would make AWB an extremely powerful list editor.

To discuss these potential features and explore the possibilities, see:


 * 1) Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests
 * 2) Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Feature requests

G'day. The Transhumanist 03:23, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

How does the make list feature "Links on page (only redlinks)" capture redlinks?
(I'd like to know everything there is to know about redlink processing). The Transhumanist 03:43, 21 May 2013 (UTC)

It searches for wikilinks and removes the blue links. -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:24, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

Wrong attribution?
I don't know if I did something wrong, but I'm using AWB on a Wikia wiki, and I logged in in the program. However, it didn't seem to make the changes (per my contribution history there). I later looked at recent changes on the wiki and saw that they had gone through, but attributed to my IP address. I'm not sure if I did something wrong on my logging in or what. Help please? - Purplewowies (talk) 22:27, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Perhaps you accidentally logged off? -- Magioladitis (talk) 23:25, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
 * No, that's not it. However, I realized I had not typed in my username correctly, it seems, and therefore, it was not saving my edits. It appears to be good for now. :) - Purplewowies (talk) 00:21, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

New SVN Soon?
I was just wondering if there will be a new SVN released soon. I am using 9117 and I see the change log is almost to 9200 with a lot of helpful changes. I am hoping that some of these will speed up the slow talk page loading and saving times I am currently having. Kumioko (talk) 02:32, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * There is a Wikimedia hackathon going on. The last 70 or so changes have happened in the last two days.
 * You can compile the latest SVN version yourself. It is very easy.  Once setup, it takes 10-15 seconds to upgrade AWB each time.  Only need to download the free TotroiseSVN and SharpDevelop.  Bug me if you need help. Bgwhite (talk) 06:29, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, if there is a hackathon going on then maybe I'll do it so I can let them know of any problems while there is momentum to fix them. Kumioko (talk) 14:12, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I got the software installed and downloaded the tarball but I couldn't build the SVN. I'll try again tomorrow. Kumioko (talk) 23:09, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

List: What Links Here for Templates
I am attempting to build a list from What Links Here for the template IPA-en

Making a list for What Links to:"Template:IPA-en" returns 0 pages. Is this a bug or am I doing something wrong?

As a possible work-around, is it possible to save Wikipedia's list page locally and import it into AWB?

--deflective (talk) 18:40, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * For your source, try "What transcludes here". GoingBatty (talk) 19:19, 25 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That's what I was looking for. Cheers. --deflective (talk) 00:10, 26 May 2013 (UTC)

Add a specific edit summary for a replacement
Hi,

Is it possible to add a specific edit summary for each replacement defined in the "Normal settings" box? I thought that the box "Comment" was made for this, but it seems that in fact, this box is just a reminder for the user?

Furthermore, is it possible to translate the "replaced..." word in the automatic edit summary by a translation that we define?

Thanks by advance for your answer, Automatik (talk) 16:28, 10 May 2013 (UTC)

In which language do you want to translate it? We provide selected translations for other projects. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:05, 10 May 2013 (UTC)


 * French, Esperanto. I can help for French translation if you need. Automatik (talk) 18:23, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Up (09:22, 27 May 2013 (UTC))

Regex and Semitic languages
Hi,

Is that someone understands why the following regex doesn't work fine with right-to-left languages:

Find: \[\[([\w-]+)\]\] \[\[:([a-z]+):\1\|\{\{\2\}\}\]\]

Replace:

Text to search: משפחה he:משפחה [1]

Result: [1]

While if I puts in "Text to search", the result is fine:.

Thank you in advance to those who will give an explanation for this,

Regards, Automatik (talk) 13:00, 12 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Up (09:22, 27 May 2013 (UTC))
 * If you don't get an answer here, you may want to try Wikipedia talk:Village pump (technical) instead. Good luck!  GoingBatty (talk) 15:28, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I tried there. Automatik (talk) 03:00, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I've moved the post from the talk page to Village pump (technical). -- John of Reading (talk) 07:16, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Oops - I should have recommended Village pump (technical) (not the talk page). Your post has been moved there.  GoingBatty (talk) 13:07, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

List all pages
Hello,

I use AutoWikiBrowser on the Wikia Halo Nation, but there is one shortcoming. I want the program to add ALL the pages to the list, how do I do that? I now achieve this by listing every page that uses a very common template, but this doesn't include all the pages. So, is there an option for this or is this something for a future version?

Greetings,Wilc0 (talk)
 * Set the source to "Special page" and click "Make list", then select "All pages" at the top of the next dialog. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:49, 5 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Thank you, that helped a lot!Wilc0 (talk)

How do I import a list from a text file?
How do I import a list from a text file? I can't seem to find it in the documentation anywhere. This would be useful if I need to run a small side project in the middle of a big project. I can just save what is left on my list to a text file, clear the list, build the side-project list, then when side-project list is done, import the text file and pick up right where I left off. Thanks. Technical 13 (talk) 13:21, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Technical 13, it's very easy in fact. Choose "Text file" as the source in the list maker and press "Make list". -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:32, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I must have missed that because it was so simple... (sheepishly backs away)  Technical 13 (talk) 13:39, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * If they are separate projects, why not use separate setting files? (File > Save settings as, File > Open settings) -- John of Reading (talk) 13:46, 7 June 2013 (UTC)
 * , because I don't use settings files other than default due to the fact that they seem to do funky things and crash AWB. Granted, last time I tried was back in one of the 4. versions and I wasn't using it on Wikipedia (I was using it on ddowiki.com), but it left such a bad taste in my mouth from corrupting my registry that I'm hesitant from trying to use that again.  Before you ask, I really don't have the time to test and figure out the specifics of what was happening and how to re-create it to submit a bug ticket and without that information, I wouldn't expect the developers to figure out what was happening.  Some day I'll try it again and if it tweeks out, I'll try and put together a list of steps to recreate and report it. Technical 13 (talk) 13:55, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

hud language
I am using AWB on two computers. On one it works fine on the other all the menues are located on the other side of the screen. I suspect that this has todo with languge setting of that computer, such problems are usually easiliy resolved through a simple setting in the program settings. However, I couldn't find one for AWB. Can someone explain me how do I fix it? More specifically, I want a standard English layout to show on the left, not on the right. --79.176.217.170 (talk) 19:49, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

Advanced Settings - Replace Special
Could you post here an example of Inside Template regex substitution? The manual it's not clear at all. Thanks, --Andyrom75 (talk) 22:02, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

How can I use AutoWikiBrowser with older version of MediaWiki
I am trying to add a category to over 4000 pages of a custom wiki all at once. I believe AutoWikiBrowser is the easiest way to do this but it will not let me use it with my current version of MediaWiki (1.16.0). It is not possible to update my version due to the time it would take to reformat stylesheets, extensions, etc. Is there a way to use/adjust AWB with my version so I can accomplish that task? — Preceding unsigned comment added by ZC53DS (talk • contribs) 18:47, 11 June 2013 (UTC)
 * May I suggest using the an older version of AWB for your version of MW. Technical 13 (talk) 18:51, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Help finding the function
Hello,

I forgot how I did those reference changes, here. I would like to know that function. Regards.--Tomcat (7) 13:15, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You probably ticked the "Apply general fixes" checkbox on the "Options" tab of the centre panel. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:15, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It does not make any changes whether it is ticked off or not.--Tomcat (7) 18:32, 12 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Could you please tell us what page you're currently working on where AWB isn't making changes, and provide more details on what changes you wish it would make? Thanks!  GoingBatty (talk) 03:13, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It does not go on Fyodor Dostoyevsky bibliography and my sandbox page, where I just copied and pasted the Letters table. I would like to shorten the references and the size's page, eg there are numerous references with the same information (such as three times "Complete Works, vol. 28(I), p. 535"). Regards.--Tomcat (7) 09:57, 13 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I just ran AWB on Fyodor Dostoyevsky bibliography and saved it. It did change the refs.  Bgwhite (talk) 18:18, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Who wrote AWB?
Who are the programmers who created it, or worked on it over the years?

Who is currently programming AWB?

And what parts of it are they each responsible for?

Please direct me to the web pages where AWB is developed.

Where is the AWB sourcecode?

The Transhumanist 20:18, 13 June 2013 (UTC)


 * See the main page of AWB, especially the infobox. Nobody is "responsible" for any one part. Bgwhite (talk) 20:32, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Does AWB have any undocumented features?
If so, what are they? The Transhumanist 20:18, 13 June 2013 (UTC)


 * See AWB's Bug page :) Bgwhite (talk) 20:32, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

We provide built-in functions. Some of them are not covered by the documentation... yet. -- Magioladitis (talk) 05:06, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting. I'd like to know what they are.  Are they included in the changelog?

WIN8
Can AWB work in WIN8? 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 04:47, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes. Bgwhite (talk) 04:57, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I met a network access error about WikiFunctions.Parse.Parsers when I opened it. What's wrong? 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 12:43, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Whats the full error. The details of the error will help the developers determine the cause. Kumioko (talk) 14:14, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * When I opened it, appeared loading screen, and then 3 error boxes pop up in Chinese:
 * "WikiFunctions.Parse.Parsers"的类型初始值设定项引发异常.
 * translate: "WikiFunctions.Parse.Parsers"'s type initializer raises an exception.
 * 无法从传输链接中读取数据：远程主机强迫关闭了一个现有的链接.
 * translate: Unable to read data from the transport links: An existing link was forcibly closed by the remote host.
 * 基础链接已经关闭：发送时发生错误.
 * translate: Basic link has been closed: An error occurred while sending.
 * Then the main program interface appeared. but when I login in, the third error box will pop up. So I can not do anything by AWB now, and do not know why. When I used in WIN7 before, everything is normal. 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 15:58, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

submit &bot=1
How do you submit &bot=1 in api requests with AutoWikiBrowser ?--Snaevar (talk) 14:25, 15 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you have a bot account that you want to use AWB? -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:21, 16 June 2013 (UTC)
 * So you wan't the context behind that question, ok. I am actually not asking for myself, but a fellow user on is.wikipedia, and yes, he does have an bot account with an bot flag. However, his bot edits do show up in the Recent changes (with botedits hidden). When bots do not submit &bot=1 through the API, their edits will show up in RC like that, hence my original question.--Snaevar (talk) 21:35, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Problems with the Technical page
See Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Technical. The Transhumanist 14:51, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oops, the link was broken. It's fixed now.  The Transhumanist 10:35, 19 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposal: New design for AWB navigation structure
The current AWB navigation system is bloated, distracting, tangled, and confusing. I propose that it be simplified, back to the basics, to MOS formatting standards...
 * 1) Build a navigation footer.  Because a navigation footer is placed at the bottom of the page, it can be extensive without interfering with reading the pages it is on.  AWB pages' headers (that is, everything above the lead paragraph), are bloated to an extent that they hamper efforts to study those pages. Also, a reader can easily get lost in the AWB department because a large portion of the tops of the pages all look the same.  One of the main ways that articles are differentiated from each other is by their first paragraphs.  But on AWB pages, you can't even see the lead paragraphs (or start reading them) until you scroll down the page.  Each page's content should have the highest priority on its own page, not the navigation system.  Let the reader start reading about the subject of each page immediately.
 * 2) Once the navigation footer is made, nuke the headers. Get rid of everything above the lead paragraph except essential hatnotes.
 * 3) Add a lead paragraph to those pages which have none.
 * 4) Then for each major subset of pages within the department, build a series template or helpbox to tie those pages together.
 * 5) Then place a very simple one-line navbar to connect the main AWB page and the main page of each of the subsets.  To minimize confusion and spaghetti networking, include it only on the pages included in the navbar itself, as the second tier of the system is the helpboxes mentioned above.

It's a simpler system design, which could alleviate the confusion and distraction created by the current header-based approach and its multi-tiered horizontal menus. Note that these are merely suggestions on how the system should be improved. The Transhumanist 16:53, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Support - as proposer. The Transhumanist 16:53, 18 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Oppose - I'm an idiot when it comes to technical manuals and finding things, and I have had approximately zero problems. If I can do it, any monkey qualified to run AWB can do it. No need for any change, and particularly not a change that fragments navigation and actually makes things more complex, not less. — The Potato Hose  19:15, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oppose for now - I am going to say oppose but I may not fully understand what your saying either. it doesn't seem like a major amount of work to do one page so would it be possible for you to give us an example in the sandbox or something so we are in line with what you are talking about? Kumioko (talk) 19:36, 18 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposal to move warning box to just beneath the AWB header box
This proposal is to reposition the warning box on the AutoWikiBrowser page. That is, move this box:

To below this box, like this:

This way, the AWB header box lines up with its position on other AWB-related pages, for a slightly cleaner format. The Transhumanist 06:04, 20 June 2013 (UTC)


 * Support - as proposer. The Transhumanist 06:06, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Why?— The Potato Hose 07:15, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Looks more professional, which sets a good example for editors who visit the page to start using AWB to improve the encyclopedia. Click on all the links in the top row of the header box starting from the right-hand side, and you'll see what I mean. The Transhumanist 09:49, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * WP:ILIKEIT is hardly a justification, particularly when one looks at the edit-warring history of your recent edits to these pages. All I can see is you making a bunch of changes unilaterally, over objections from others, and simply ignoring or obfuscating their objections. Leave well enough alone. — The Potato Hose 17:46, 20 June 2013 (UTC)
 * They didn't object to the content of the edits so much as the process in which they were made. (Since we're talking about them, I've pinged them).  It was at their request that I discuss graphical layout changes first.  And so here I am.  The reason I suggested the modification is because it improves the graphical layout (moves the clutter to below the header where it is less cluttery). The Transhumanist 19:42, 20 June 2013 (UTC)

AWB on ReactOS
Has anyone tried running AWB on ReactOS? Did it work? Helder 23:38, 21 June 2013 (UTC)


 * From the ReactOS Wiki, "While ReactOS does not have any components to support .NET..."  If there is no .Net support, then AWB will not work.  Bgwhite (talk) 00:00, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
 * But it seems possible to download it: Frameworks. Helder 09:56, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

Bots using AWB
When bots are using AWB, they seem to carry on indefinitely after the operator presses start until the operator presses stop. This means 24/7, every day. The operator can't just be sitting there repopulating the 'make list' every time it runs out (although I know when logged in as a bot it can hold more pages) so is there a way to make the list replenish itself from its source? This would be useful. Sir  Rcsprinter,  Bt (constabulary)  @ 19:46, 22 June 2013 (UTC)

New version of AWB released - New features
Version 5.5.1 of AWB was released today. A full changelog can be found here. Among the more prominent changes are: Bgwhite (talk) 20:31, 23 June 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) You can now select/deselect what alerts will show up in the Alerts box.  This can be accessed from the Options menu -> Preferences -> Alerts tab.
 * 2) When a new page is loaded, if there are find matches, Find button will turn yellow.
 * 3) Show user notification count in bottom right corner of AWB: grey background when none unread, red & bold if 1 or more unread.

Someone needs to update the User Manual. Especially, AutoWikiBrowser/User_manual needs new screenshots. -- Magioladitis (talk) 20:55, 23 June 2013 (UTC)


 * The loss of the ability to go directly to the relevant part of the edit window by single-clicking the diff is a serious flaw/bug. An  optimist on the  run!    18:44, 24 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It has been reported as a bug. See section "Single click to focus the edit box to a line - no longer works with SVN9282". The suggestion to put the .dll file in with AWB did not help, though. Chris the speller   yack  19:48, 24 June 2013 (UTC)

GoingBatty can you please help with screenshot of the new alerts tab? -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:58, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * GoingBatty (talk) 00:50, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * ✅ - I uploaded a new version of File:024 AWB illustrations for AWB manual.png that shows all six tabs, including alerts. GoingBatty (talk) 01:51, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I saw GoingBatty working on updating the manual so I added a few edits too. Hope you don't mind. I see there are a few images that still need to be updated though. Kumioko (talk) 03:15, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * More to do - just not tonight.... GoingBatty (talk) 04:02, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

And an unfortunate side effect of this is that clicking on a specific line in the Diff window is no longer a shortcut to that line in the editing window. This is a terrible inconvenience for the small laptop (small enough for the "Find" field to be cut off) I use. GotR Talk 22:36, 26 June 2013 (UTC)


 * GotR, wrong place to report this. It should be filed under bugs.  Make sure you are running version 5.5.1.1 that came out yesterday.  It fixed "clicking" issues of the type you reported... hopefully. Bgwhite (talk) 23:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * For a number of users, 5.5.1.1 did not fix this problem. An early snapshot of 5.5.1.2 is available here. The discussion of this bug was removed from WP:AWB/BUGS earlier today, somewhat prematurely, I think. Go back to a version of that page that still includes the section "Single click to focus the edit box to a line - no longer works with SVN9282". Chris the speller   yack  01:03, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

tools SVN snapshot
From what I know, wasn't the latest rev nearly 9300 or something? How come ~awb/snapshots/ only has rev 8964? -- (T) Numbermaniac (C) 07:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Toolserver. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:47, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, I see. Do you know where those links are available now? -- (T) Numbermaniac (C) 08:52, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * We now make releases more often. you can always build your own version of AWB following instructions found at AutoWikiBrowser/Sources. -- Magioladitis (talk) 08:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * After spending most of the day trying this, SharpDevelop 3.2.1 brought me up short with "Can't read Microsoft Solution file format 12.00". This is just about enough to cure me of trying to get past the edit box focus problem of SVN9282, instead backing off to SVN9117, unless some kind person can give me a clue. Chris the speller   yack  18:30, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Never mind, I now see that there's a new release available (5.5.1.1). Chris the speller   yack  18:35, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You might want to try upgrading to SharpDevelop 4.3.1. GoingBatty (talk) 00:36, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but 4.3.1 didn't like my version of .NET, so I'm thinking enough time has been wasted, and Release 5.5.1.2 is working. Chris the speller   yack  13:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

We should probably take that SVN snapshot page offline or update it with instructions that its not being updated and with a pointer to where to go. Kumioko (talk) 17:10, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * It's going to get offline soon. We don't have access to change this page anyway. -- Magioladitis (talk) 18:19, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh ok I thought that might be something Reedy had to do. Kumioko (talk) 18:29, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I've already removed any mention of the SVN snapshot page from AWB's English Wikipedia pages. If you see a mention I missed, remove it. Bgwhite (talk) 18:33, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Template:Dead end
I nominated this template for deletion.--Müdigkeit (talk) 20:55, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * FYI, the nomination has been withdrawn. -- John of Reading (talk) 11:25, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh my ... the updater worked
Fan me somebody, I feel quite giddy! Well done, whoever got it going. Mr Stephen (talk) 21:15, 25 June 2013 (UTC)
 * -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:40, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Does size of list matter?
I have recently noticed that when I work on smaller list of pages (e.g. 3000 articles) AWB works much faster, something like 100-150 pages/min compare to bigger list of 50.000 articles and 5-10 pages/min. Why is it like that? Is there any optimum for number of articles in a list? And finally, how to run in one go split lists, so be able to work fast and do not have to load new list every e.g. 3000 articles? Blackfish (talk) 11:15, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Try going to preferences and unclick "Enable logging", at least to test it. When the logs get very large, AWB slows down. If you dig through the archives, you will find an earlier discussion of this. Chris the speller   yack  13:35, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Proposing a new subpage to track releases and snapshots
How about AutoWikiBrowser/Releases or something similar, solely for announcing new releases or snapshots? This could be added to an AWB user's watchlist, and simply checking the watchlist would show what updates are available. I think those who do not wish to compile their own code would love this, and the developers would only have to add a line to it after publishing a release or a snapshot. Chris the speller  yack  17:26, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * AutoWikiBrowser/CurrentVersion? An  optimist on the  run!    17:31, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

We also have AutoWikiBrowser/History. Every time there is a new release the page is updated. -- Magioladitis (talk) 17:35, 26 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The CurrentVersion page looks pretty useful, while History sometimes gets updated a half-dozen times a day. But CurrentVersion doesn't show availability of snapshots. Could we agree to add a line to it upon posting a snapshot that is newer than the latest current release, and removing that line when a new release is recorded? Chris the speller   yack  19:57, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Possible bug
I'm not sure this qualifies as a bug, because the article has the category People of Colorado but I wanted to bring it up anyway. AWB is trying to add the persondata template to Colorado Women's Hall of Fame. Kumioko (talk) 18:52, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I think "a non-profit, volunteer organization" should not be placed in "People from..." category. -- Magioladitis (talk) 19:17, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Pretty much agree but thought I would bring it up anyway. Kumioko (talk) 22:23, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * You did well. Sometimes it's difficult to choose the correct category for an article. -- Magioladitis (talk) 22:37, 30 June 2013 (UTC)

Newer version doesn't handle large lists very well
I have noticed that the newer version of AWB doesn't handle large lists very well. In the old version...and some patience...I could create a list of up to 500, 000 articles (which I think is a limit on the API, not AWB). With the new one though any list over about 300, 000 seems to crash. Not sure if I am the only one having that problem but wanted to mention that as well. Kumioko (talk) 23:17, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
 * I use 300k lists myself for parsing. And can confirm that assessment. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 04:20, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Newer version compared to...? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:11, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

And another question: How do you load that many pages? Do you use the NoLimits plugin? -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:50, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't remember the version I had before but it was like 8900 simething I think. Whatever the SVN version was before the last couple releases. For the second question no I don't. I'm not going to start on the whole I can't be trusted with admin tools rant but there are ways around it. Its not pulling in the articles that's the problem. The problem comes in when you have a list built of more than 300, 000 articles and try and do anything like list compare. In the version I had before I could do it and now it locks up if I have more than about 250-300, 000. Up to that, it works, anything over, it crashes. Kumioko (talk) 13:36, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm using SVN 9335 on Win 7 and can use list compare with a list of over 580,000 just fine. (What transcludes page (all NS) (NL, Admin & Bot with Template:WikiProjectBannerShell)  GoingBatty (talk) 23:06, 1 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I can pull the list in, but when I try and do the compare, it just locks up and or crashes completely. So getting the data is doable, but doing anything with it is not. I basically have to pull in some (under 300, 000), do the compare and then repeat the process. Kumioko (talk) 17:13, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Have you tried opening up the list compare tool and then making the list? (instead of making the list and trying to copy it into the list compare tool)  GoingBatty (talk) 22:41, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Moving a template with no visible output except in the cats
Hi, do edits fall foul of WP:AWB item 4? The only visible output of the template is in the categories, so does moving it to a different place, and re-dating it at the same time, count as "no noticeable effect on the rendered page"? -- Red rose64 (talk) 09:32, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * According to Template:Use dmy dates/doc, this is a useful change, as the change in date records the last time an editor checked that the date formats were consistent. -- John of Reading (talk) 09:57, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The editor brought this issue to me before and I explained this in detail. I also am running the maximum number of fixes I can to prevent minimal changes. The vast majority have other changes built into them, but some do not require any other changes per general fixes, tagging, unicode, or MOS. This is more of the common types of edits performed: Some make big changes, others are smaller. The entire purpose of this is to address as many issues as possible and check for adherence to that template. If someone knows of more MOS fixes and other things I can do in the process; let me know. I hate to update just the template, but sometimes it happens. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 12:40, 29 June 2013 (UTC)
 * The book title in "Further reading" could be italicized. If you had a rule to lower-case "General Manager" (per WP:JOBTITLES), you would have had an iron-clad reason to edit this article, though you would probably then feel obliged to handle the other job titles, and doing so by hand requires care (I wish AWB had a way to flip the case, as wikEd does). It's usually not very hard to find a hyphen in a number range instead of an en dash, or a missing comma before a coordinating conjunction, or before "including" when it is just introducing additional detail, or in geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions ("had taken off from Portland, Oregon(comma needed here) and was destined for"), or before "where" (he attended Harvard where he met his future wife). See if a semicolon and comma are needed with "however" ("Her throw was accurate, however the ball bounced out of the basket"). Chris the speller   yack  15:56, 29 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe this is an acceptable change and indeed useful change although it may seem to violate the letter of the rule about the absence of changes to the rendered page. The rule can be taken too literally. Unusual for WIkipedia, updating the template is not typical cleanup, but routine maintenance, for which derogation from the rule is acceptable. The project to ensure that dates are suitably aligned has a wide scope, and it would be unreasonable to expect changes to each and every article subject to regular audit. To ban changes to one article is tantamount to banning audits entirely. Such change is planned, so I'd say it was an absolutely necessary change. AFAIK, this is by design the only template I know of that needs to be updated in this way. The script user passes by to audit a page that hasn't been checked in over two years. Even though the article hasn't changed materially in the intervening months, the updating of the template is necessary as a mark of compliance, much like a financial audit. However, the rule as argued above implies that the auditor must find an instance of fraud although it is not the obligatory outcome of an audit. Or to insist that each medical visit finds instance of cancer. To oblige the editor engaged in such routine maintenance to ensure at least some change is made is thus rather unreasonable, and could result in contrived changes for changes sake. What's more, it would severely damage productivity. Having said that, I found a number of stylistic changes possible for the article concerned, but not many could have been made by semi-automatic means. --  Ohc  ¡digame!¿que pasa? 17:26, 29 June 2013 (UTC)


 * It may be useful if it is done correctly, but many of the templates are being moved before HAT notes which is against WP:Hatnote. The templates should come after HAT notes. Keith D (talk) 22:57, 5 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't know how to code this. The template isn't placement fussy but by consensus should be placed somewhere near the top. It is invisible on the face of the article. I rely on rules in the custom module to remove the dates template outright, if it exists, and add back a template using the prepend function within the "more" tab. Doesn't AWB automatically reorder the respective elements? --  Ohc  ¡digame!¿que pasa? 01:59, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It requires a pass after placement with the script in this case; changes the script makes will sometimes hit a successive pass with Gen Fixes and that itself will also take a second pass to address if not done by hand. In this case, it is probably because the append/prepend function doesn't work like a "stack". It either occurs before Gen fixes and is avoided as a manual option or occurs after Gen fixes. I don't know enough to say anything for sure either. ChrisGualtieri (talk) 03:18, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Adding Template Data to the Multiple Issues template
Template:Multiple issues is on the list of commonly used templates for which users are being asked to add TemplateData to support the Visual Editor. This will be a big job for this one template. I also wonder whether adding this data might effect AWB in any way, as I understand AWB often uses this template. — ℜob C. alias &Agrave;LAROB  00:16, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * When used properly, Multiple issues doesn't need to take any parameters - it just has multiple maintenance templates within it. GoingBatty (talk) 00:28, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I wonder whether the TemplateData for parameters within the called templates will also make it into Multiple_issues in Visual Editor. Only one way to find out, I guess. — ℜob C. alias &Agrave;LAROB  17:07, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

VisualEditor handling of italicized links vs. AWB's GenFixes handling
Just a heads-up. VisualEditor pipes a link when you italicize it, and puts italics within the pipe. AWB Genfixes takes out the italics and places them around the whole link, outside the square brackets. Is there any WP guidance on which style is preferred? If nothing changes, then GenFixes will be trying to convert a whole lot of these if the use of VisualEditor skyrockets. Chris the speller  yack  02:34, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * There is none. But anyway we removed the functionality that moves italics outside the pipe some time ago. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:51, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I thought I had seen such activity within the last few weeks. Thanks for clarifying this. Chris the speller   yack  14:05, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * There was an activity by me with an unreleased version of AWB. It was mainly an effort to fix cases like foo . The code is more accurate now and fixes only these cases. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:22, 2 July 2013 (UTC)
 * And it looks like that code will be needed quite often as the use of VE ramps up. If VE links text that is already italicized (like an album title), it produces Focus 3, but if it italicizes a link, it produces Focus 3 . Let me compliment you on being out ahead of the curve. Chris the speller   yack  17:36, 2 July 2013 (UTC)

Innocuous whitespace
It appears to me that this revision simply removes one innocuous space. Many times I have checked a revision and seen nothing in the diff report except whitespace deleted before a wikilink pipe, at the end of a paragraph, after a ref tag (newline). (Unfortunately I sometimes see nothing at all. And there are many many diff reports where I see nothing in some paragraph that is highlighted.)

Is there a reason for AWB to flag such articles for attention? (This one is a stub created yesterday. There is a colon both preceded and followed by spaces only a few lines below the fix made with AWB.)

--P64 (talk) 17:38, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
 * AWB is coded to make many fixes - there's a list at WP:AWB/GF. Some of them fix obvious errors, while some, like this one, merely make the article text a bit smaller. Under the AWB Rules of use, editors using AWB should not tell the software to save edits where the only changes are the minor ones. [ping!] ought to tick some of the boxes on the AWB "Skip" tab to avoid accidentally saving edits which have such small benefit.


 * As for the colon, AWB hasn't been coded to change the spacing around colons. In any case, the one you mention is inside quotation marks and faithfully copies the spacing of its source. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:46, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I used to tick the box of "No changes are made" on the Skip tab but stopped it when no changes were seen on the flagging of articles.-- Zayeem (talk) 15:03, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I recommend you check the fourth AWB Rule of use and choose some suitable "skip" options. I'm not sure which options other editors use - I tend to use AWB with Find & Replace rules set up, and use the "skip if no replacement" tickbox to avoid saving edits with only "general fixes". -- John of Reading (talk) 20:00, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Oh ok got it, will try that, thanks.-- Zayeem (talk) 05:47, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Stubs on Welsh Wiki = new, green shoots (egin)
Wiki-cy calls it's stubs "egin" (green shoots). Our definition of an Egin is that it has only one paragraph. Can AWB understand what a paragraph is, so that it can delete all the templates (and all variations) in all articles with more than one paragraph. Our definition of a stub is having only one paragraph. Please let me know if I'm not making my question clear enough. BOT-Twm Crys (talk) 08:45, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Jump from diff to edit box
I am running windows 8. Before my AWB recently updated to v. 5.5.1.1, when I clicked on a right-hand line in the difference box the cursor would jump the same line in the edit box. It no longer does this. Is there a switch I can set to re-enable this feature? -- PBS (talk) 15:19, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I believe 5.5.1.2 has fixed that. I'm not sure where that's been posted, but you could try "Help > Check for updates" within AWB. -- John of Reading (talk) 15:37, 11 July 2013 (UTC)
 * John is exactly right. See Archive 26, section "New version of AWB released - New features", in which I told where to get a snapshot that will get you right back on the road again. Chris the speller   yack  00:46, 12 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the help. I found the relevant section in the archive (Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 26). I see that I am not the first person to mention this and although it is now removed (on 27 June) there was a bug report "Single click to focus the edit box to a line - no longer works with SVN9282". As of today "Help->Check for updates" still states that 5.5.1.1 is up to date. I'll try following the link and download the 5.5.1.2 version. -- PBS (talk) 07:47, 12 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I have now used 5.5.1.2 on 50+ edits, the jump to the edit box works as it did prior to 5.5.1.1 and I have not come across any other problems. -- PBS (talk) 10:28, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

How to not show what is replaced
Is there a way for the edit summary to not show things like "replaced: bla > bla2", and instead just use the default edit summary we already declared? Thanks. -- (T) Numbermaniac (C) 12:01, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
 * You may read AutoWikiBrowser/Find_and_replace. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:10, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Short answer: On "Options" tab, hit "Normal settings" button, uncheck "Add replacements to edit summary" box. Chris the speller   yack  19:45, 13 July 2013 (UTC)
 * That's what I was missing! I had seen it before, but not when I needed it. Thanks Magioladitis and Chris. :) -- (T) Numbermaniac (C) 05:46, 14 July 2013 (UTC)

HTTPS
Does AWB use HTTPS in the underlying link between user and server? 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 14:34, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:31, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Since GFW blocked port 443 of all languages wikipedia.org AND upload.wikimedia.org: 208.80.154.225, so China users can not use https to link wiki, further can not use the AWB. Is there any way to set AWB do not use https? or set a proxy for AWB? or set linked server's IP? 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 07:22, 16 July 2013 (UTC)
 * In AWB's preferences, may I suggest making the site address en.wikipedia.org:80? I have not tested it myself, but port 80 appears to be HTTP. -- t  numbermaniac c 02:43, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * AWB's preferences's site have not the setting about port, only project and language, is it? 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 05:03, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Set the project to custom, then type en.wikipedia.org:80. Try that and tell me how it goes. -- t  numbermaniac c 06:50, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Hang on... once you set the project to custom, you should be able to select http or https. -- t  numbermaniac c 06:59, 17 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Did that work? -- t  numbermaniac c 02:38, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
 * , Sorry, no. After I set the project: zh.wikipedia.org:80 in custom, I got a error connecting to wiki about the root element is missing. Is URL format wrong? 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 19:06, 19 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Did you make sure the box on the left said http? -- t  numbermaniac c 00:03, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, there are two choices, http and https. 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 08:59, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

Did either of them work? -- t  numbermaniac c 09:05, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * No one work, because of the error connecting to wiki about the root element is missing. 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 09:25, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Really confusing. I'm going to try it now. -- t  numbermaniac c 10:42, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * I think I have got it. Do the following steps:
 * In preferences, set project to "custom".
 * Set the left box to http.
 * In the webpage box, type en.wikipedia.org/w/ or zh.wikipedia.org/w/ (if you forget the /w/ it gives the error you reported)
 * Start editing :) -- t  numbermaniac c 10:45, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * OK!! I got it! I miss /w/ before. Thank you so much. XDDD 乌拉跨氪 (talk) 17:18, 20 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Great. The error message was asking for where the index.php and API.php are. They're buried under en.wikipedia.org/w/. -- t  numbermaniac c 01:33, 21 July 2013 (UTC)

Use of AWB by Kmzayeem to make insignificant or inconsequential edits
For example, refer to this edit. The user in question has flatly refused to discuss this matter despite 2 requests to do so. AfricaTanz (talk) 11:24, 16 July 2013 (UTC)


 * "Edits"? Is it a grammatical mistake or a deliberate attempt to harass an editor? I had made only one edit there, didn't repeat and not even pushing for that edit! -- Zayeem (talk) 11:35, 16 July 2013 (UTC)


 * No harrassment intended. I brought your violation of the AWB usage rules to your attention, politely. You refused to discuss it by edit summary and deleted my posts, which is why we are here now. I have no idea if you are using AWB to make additional insignificant or inconsequential edits. I hope not. When I get a bit of time, I'll look into that more. AfricaTanz (talk) 20:35, 16 July 2013 (UTC)


 * This appears to be part of a pattern of this editor using AWB to make solely insignificant and inconsequential edits. Here are some links from today:
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kamil_Drozd&diff=prev&oldid=564536133
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Public_Companies_Act_1767&diff=prev&oldid=564535560
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hail!&diff=prev&oldid=564535900
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=North_American_Aerospace_Defense_Command_(disambiguation)&diff=prev&oldid=564535825
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Native_Tobacco_Board&diff=prev&oldid=564535798
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Public_Companies_Act_1767&diff=prev&oldid=564535560
 * AfricaTanz (talk) 02:10, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * In the previous thread here, at, you seemed to say that you would try ticking some of the "skip" checkboxes. Have you done this? Which "skip" checkboxes have you ticked? As you are discovering, editors get annoyed when you use AWB to make edits having such a small effect. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:42, 16 July 2013 (UTC)


 * John, I have ticked two checkboxes, "skip if no replacement" and "Only whitespace is changed" under the Skip tab. Also, User:AfricaTanz has some behavioral issues, he has duked it out with a number of users and now he is targeting me for no reason! His main concern was with my edit on Bangladesh article, sure I had accidentally made that edit but I didn't repeat it there and not even pushing for that edit. Even here, among the six links (not to mention I had made over 300 edits during this time), he has posted the same link twice and another one which is clearly a typo fixing. I seriously don't know if it's unintentional or not. His post in my talkpage was like We can go to the AWB page and discuss whether you should continue having access to this tool, if you would prefer that to this. I didn't feel like replying to a post of this sort so decided to remove it.-- Zayeem (talk) 09:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Try ticking "Only minor genfixes" and/or "Only cosmetic changes are made". Of the edits listed here, I think either of those skip options would have skipped your edits to Bangladesh, Kamil Drozd, Public Companies Act 1767, Hail! and North American Aerospace Defense Command (disambiguation). (Aside: the earlier thread is now archived here) -- John of Reading (talk) 10:03, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * John, thanks. Should I tick all the three options, like this one and the two which I already ticked? -- Zayeem (talk) 10:19, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes, keep the existing ticks in place. -- John of Reading (talk) 10:22, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Okay.-- Zayeem (talk) 10:30, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The obvious strategy is to personally attack someone who is questioning one's rule breaking to divert attention from the issue at hand. I checked only about 10 of your AWB edits from yesterday and found that the majority were "insignificant and inconsequential". I can certainly check more of your 300 edits if you'd like more evidence of this. AfricaTanz (talk) 13:01, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Let's look at the sequence of events. (1) You made an AWB edit to Bangladesh that was clearly "insignificant and inconsequential." I alerted you to that problem on your talk page. (2) Four hours later, you reverted my post, with the following edit summary: "post here only if I make an error". (3) Four hours after your reversion, I posted the following on your talk page: "I am hoping that your use of AWB here to make an 'insignificant or inconsequential edit' was an error and that you would welcome a notice about it. Otherwise, you are intentionally violating the AWB policy. We can go to the AWB page and discuss whether you should continue having access to this tool, if you would prefer that to this." (4) Thirteen hours later, you reverted my second post, with the following nonsensical edit summary: "Well, nobody really intentionally make these edits, also the edit didn't make any error in that page so there is no point discussing it". Your decision to do that gave me only two options: ignore your abuse of AWB or take the issue to this talk page. I chose the latter course. Your total mischaracterization of the chain of events is highly regrettable. AfricaTanz (talk) 13:11, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * If it's any help, I've looked through Kmzayeem's last 50 edits (11:39 to 12:03 UTC) and the extra "skip" options seem to be in place and are doing their job. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:13, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Don't want to stretch the dispute but just to clear things off, I CAN remove or revert any posts in my talk page. The point is that I didn't revert any of your edit, neither repeated that edit in that article. You should have reported me only if I had repeated that edit or pushed for that edit to exist in that article. Your report here just shows your assumption of bad faith which you have consistently perpetuated.-- Zayeem (talk) 16:42, 17 July 2013 (UTC)


 * That's utterly ridiculous. You refused to discuss the issue on your talk page, which is your right. So, I brought the issue here, which is my right. It's no more complex than that. AfricaTanz (talk) 03:25, 18 July 2013 (UTC)

Last week's thread: Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 26 Thanks, John of Reading. --P64 (talk) 22:05, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Is anyone being told off for incorrect orphan tagging?
It seems there is currently a problem with the "what links here" information for images - see Village pump (technical)/Archive 120. It's not yet clear how big the problem is, or whether it affects article-article links as well as article-image links.

If article-article links are affected, I expect it will show up when someone complains to an AWB user about an edit adding an Orphan tag to an article that does have links, despite "what links here" showing no links. If anyone receives a complaint like that, it would be very helpful to post the details at the VPT thread. -- John of Reading (talk) 20:07, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

How to assess articles
I've had AWB access for almost a month now, and I've been wanting to assess articles for my Wikiprojects, particularly for Category:Unassessed concert tour articles. I know you can use AWB to do this and I've seen people do it. But I can't seem to figure it out. Can anyone explain to me how it's done? I tried to make a list with the category but it says "List complete!" and there's still nothing in the list. Thanks. &mdash; kikichugirl  inquire 00:04, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you have "List > Remove non-main space" ticked in the main menu bar? Since the category contains talk pages that shouldn't be ticked. -- John of Reading (talk) 06:24, 4 August 2013 (UTC)

Unbalanced brackets with Dtabase Scanner
Hi,

Do you know what's considered as brackets when we check pages with unbalanced brackets with the tool Database Scanner? I didn't find it in the code. I know there is {},, [], <>, but is there anything else?

Thanks by advance, Automatik (talk) 11:39, 4 August 2013 (UTC)
 * In fact, I think these are the only brackets wich are considered by the database scanner. Automatik (talk) 21:20, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Feel free to test it using a sandbox with many different types of unbalanced brackets to see which ones are corrected. Andrew327 21:34, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

Loading preferences
Hi,

When I load a preferences file, as I have already loaded a first time an other preferences file, the words of the file list that I load are added to those of the previous file. Does anyone know if it's possible to not have the sum of the two lists (for instance, the F&R aren't added when we load a file)?

Thanks by advance, Automatik (talk) 21:28, 11 August 2013 (UTC)

AWB and split dumps
I noticed that the dumps from a (non English) Wikipedia are split into several pieces, while before it was only one file. How can I make sure that AWB checks the whole Wikipedia for something I want to look up? How to handle this split, should I merge the (in this case) four dump files? Romaine (talk) 03:13, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I've been dealing with 30+ language dump files the past few weeks and haven't seen any "split" files. For the larger languages, files are split, but are then recombined to create one file.  For example, the nlwiki dump has nlwiki-20130730-pages-articles.xml.bz2, which recombined the 4 separate files. Bgwhite (talk) 03:53, 12 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Ok, thanks! Romaine (talk) 14:45, 12 August 2013 (UTC)

ReGex replace questions
I have some questions and for all of the ones with an answer of no, they are requests to add the functionality. I think I had some more questions, but I've forgotten them at the moment. Technical 13 (talk) 13:29, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Important stuff to me:
 * 1) Is there a way that escaped characters could be used in the "replace" section?
 * 2) * For example: Is there a way to replace  with  ?
 * 3) Is there a way to have a regex replace and have the "replace" section be empty as to delete such text?
 * 4) * I'm currently forced to replace stuff I want to delete with  but feel that is less than optimal.
 * Less important stuff
 * Can the "Links" counter in the "page statistics" be expanded to two values as such: "wikilinks / external links"?
 * Can the "Links" counter in the "page statistics" be expanded to have a second line the gives a tally of incoming links with two values: "total incoming / from (article)"?
 * For your second question - this is a quirk of the Regex Tester. In the actual Find & Replace dialog, you can leave the "replace" column blank. -- John of Reading (talk) 13:46, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm going to assume this is a known issue that is already being worked on and there would be no point in me submitting a bug report for it? Technical 13 (talk) 13:57, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I found it mentioned in the archives but a bug report wouldn't hurt. -- John of Reading (talk) 14:11, 21 May 2013 (UTC)
 * I don't see that it's even a bug. It's such a common thing that MS Word will search and replace in exactly the same way, and delete with nothing in the output string box. --  Ohc  ¡digame!¿que pasa? 09:27, 28 August 2013 (UTC)
 * - For your first question, your example works fine for me. Try adding that F&R rule (make sure you check the Regex box) and processing AutoWikiBrowser/Sandbox.  GoingBatty (talk) 03:24, 22 May 2013 (UTC)

Moved from Feature requests page. -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:33, 26 August 2013 (UTC) public string ProcessArticle(string ArticleText, string ArticleTitle, int wikiNamespace, out string Summary, out bool Skip) { Skip = false; Summary = "Delete template X"; //Delete template ArticleText = Regex.Replace(ArticleText, @"{{\s*(Template[ _]+Name[ _]+One|Anyredirects)\s*(.*?)\}\}", "", RegexOptions.IgnoreCase); return ArticleText; } Kumioko (talk) 14:04, 26 August 2013 (UTC)
 * For the second question I have found the deletion of templates to be clunky too. I have found its better to do this as a module as shown below.

What the rules for the regex of the "Normal" Find and replace?
Hi,

When I use the special character \n, with n a previous capture, it works with the regex tester tool and with the advanced Find and replace (F&R), but not with the normal F&R.

Does anyone know what regex syntax uses the normal F&R?

Thanks by advance, Automatik (talk) 06:22, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm using \1 in a "Find" string with normal F&R, as shown here. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:29, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, my regex must have had a problem. Automatik (talk) 17:20, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Skip page if a minor Regex correction is the only change made
I'm going through a complete dump of the Swedish wikipedia, correcting typos using the Swedish list of typos (about 1,300 typos). Most typos in this list I consider major (i.e. a change of "Stokholm" to "Stockholm") while I think some are minor (i.e. a change of punctuation in an abbreviation, like "s k " to "s.k. "). What I would like to do is to automatically skip an article if the only change made is "s k " to "s.k. ", but if an article contains both "Stokholm" and "s k ", I'd like to correct both typos. Is this possible? I have inserted "s k " > "s.k. " in the AWB Find and Replace section and marked it as minor there, and checked "Skip if only minor replacement made". (I was thinking of having an "Exception list" in the F&R with about 20 frequent minor typos to skip if they are the only corrections to be made in an article). This works fine if "s k " is the only typo to be corrected in an article, but if "Stokholm" or any of the other 1,300 typos are present in the article the whole article will be skipped.. It's quite a big problem since the list of articles containing typos is long, over 5,000 articles, with maybe 1,000-2,000 of them containing just a minor typo. And since there are 1,300 typos to be checked it's of course not a solution to include the major ones in the Find & Replace :) //Inteloutside2 (talk) 13:41, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I didn't see any option looking like this with Enable Regex Typofix, so personally I do it with Pywikipedia (which has also the advantage of working with Linux, but the withdraws to ask some developer skills and a heavy conversion of AutoWikiBrowser/Typos). JackPotte (talk) 15:30, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Have you tried checking the Skip if no typo found box? GoingBatty (talk) 00:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that solved the problem. In this case there's no need to mark the lines in the F&R as "minor" (and use the "Skip if only minor replacement made"). Just inserted the RegEx lines for minor typos in the F&R that AWB should skip, if they are the only occurrences in the articles. So the F&R section corrects these minor typos, and then when the "real" Regex Typofix starts its work there's nothing to correct if there are no major typos in the article, and the "Skip if no typo found" box skips the article. Brilliant. Thanks again! //Inteloutside2 (talk) 01:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Filter in Win 7
AWB seems very different under Windows 7, compared with Windows XP PRO, which I continue to use on an older computer, slower, but no problems..

Right now, I cannot figure out how to have the Filter choice under the Make list.

The side bars for the changes and the whole page text are working fine, but sometimes the have disappeared.

The statistics on the lower right are appearing right now, but sometimes they are gone,too.

Also, I can log on, but I can't save the log on, so I must log on every time I start AWB. It says "User name Dthomsen8 already exists." Any advice?--DThomsen8 (talk) 18:17, 29 August 2013 (UTC)
 * - Sorry you're having so many issues. I'm not experiencing those issues on my Win7 machine.  What version of AWB are you running?  GoingBatty (talk) 23:35, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * AWB 5.5.1.1., which is the latest, but different results on Windows 7 from Windows XP PRO. --DThomsen8 (talk) 23:40, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The latest version is 5.5.1.2. Try updating to the new version.  Also, before you start the new version, clean out everything from the c:/Users/ /AppData/Local/AutoWikiBrowser folder.  Sometimes something goes haywire and cleaning the directory out fixes the problem.  Bgwhite (talk) 23:56, 30 August 2013 (UTC)


 * I find that the sidebars to the diff window do not appear if I closed the previous AWB session from a minimised state. Mr Stephen (talk) 15:16, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * See Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs. Make a comment there that it is also a problem for you.  More voices the better. Bgwhite (talk) 17:50, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * I went, but John of Reading was there first, and posted more usefully than I would have. Mr Stephen (talk) 19:49, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Remove wikilinks in headings
I'm not good at RegEx. What I would like to do is to change " A|B " or " B " to "B" within headings. (I realize I have to verify that it doesn't do something wrong.) — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 11:30, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Maybe find:  replace:  . (Without check Singleline here.) Automatik (talk) 11:39, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

How to make a specific change
Hello! I am from ta.wiktionary. I have been uploaded nearly a lakh words for ta.wiktionary. Now, i am going to upload morethan 10,000 new entries. To speedup my upload, i need a tech-help. How can i change a fullstop(.)to hashcolon(#:). Please note that not to change any other fullstops of the line but only the first fullstop after the hash. See the image below paricularly note the red marked area. Here, # denotes the meaning of the header, and the #: denotes the Quotation for the header. Thanks in advance. --தகவலுழவன் (talk) 07:40, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Did you try something like this: Find:  Replace:   You shouldn't check Singeline here. With this, you can manage the basic case. But you'll see that's not enough: the third and the fourth citations will be changed to have a #: because they have a fullstop. I suppose you don't want this so you can add a test in the find:   : here you check that there isn't a bracket ( before the first fullstop. Automatik (talk) 06:22, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Sorry for the delayed feedback. Your guideline works 95% well. Because, Colon (punctuation)comes at the end of the (#:)line. Kindly tell, what should do?--தகவலுழவன் (talk) 20:18, 8 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes check orange.png.I fixed the Colon (punctuation) error with the help of new rules.100%ok. Thanks indeed.Bye!--தகவலுழவன் (talk) 18:12, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

AWB vs AutoEd fight over newline
AWB adds a newline between header and sub-header while AutoEd removes it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 16:37, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Can AWB's make list feature be used from an external script to make and save lists?
If so, how? The Transhumanist 18:51, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Can AWB's database scanner be used from an external script to make and save lists?
If so, how? The Transhumanist 18:51, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Remove template
I would like to removing the template as. X, Y and Z are text. I don't know how to let AWB know that. Thank in advance.--Cheers! (talk) 06:17, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * - Try creating a Find and Replace rule where you're finding  and the replace field is blank, and you check the Regex button.  Good luck!  GoingBatty (talk) 02:57, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I got it.--Cheers! (talk) 16:46, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

AWB, network
When i launche AWB, after few minutes of work it crash my internet connection. WTF is this? I have scanned my PC and it is clean, no viruses. How andwhy AWB crash my net connection? --XXN (talk) 22:41, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Where do you want to connect? Wikipedia or Wikia? -- Magioladitis (talk) 13:34, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Update to the CS1 module
Within the next couple of days I propose to update Module:Citation/CS1 and Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration from their respective sandboxes. Details at Module talk:Citation/CS1/Archive 8.

This update impacts all of the templates that use Module:Citation/CS1.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 01:34, 19 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Done 21 September 2013.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 11:15, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Tag filter
This must have been discussed before, but I can't immediately find it. Is there a method to return in AWB recent changes based on a tag filter, e.g. only giving pages from recent changes with the tag "visualeditor"? If not, would this be a useful improvement for others as well, or am I the only one that sometimes needs this? Fram (talk) 08:45, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

AWB vs AutoEd fight over newline (cont.)
Dear AWB editors and developers, please read User_talk:Magioladitis. I would like your comments before implementing the new consensus. -- Magioladitis (talk) 07:05, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Wikia projects question
Greetings good people of the wiki! I realize this application is designed to work with Wikipedia and not necessarily other projects but I have a question about AWB support to other projects and I was hoping someone here could tell me. For a while now I noticed that AWB users on Wikia projects occasionally do some edits that seem specific to this wiki and I wanted to ask about that. A couple examples are given below: I don't want to make any changes yet, before I start a discussion there, but I was wondering what sort of support we might be able to expect if we do come to an agreement on some changes that would be beneficial. I just didn't want to have a big discussion there and get peoples hopes up if the answer was a default no. Thanks in advance for the help. 71.126.152.253 (talk) 00:40, 25 September 2013 (UTC)
 * 1) in some cases it attempts to add certain tags like Unreferenced or Multiple issues on projects that do not use that template
 * 2) Some of the Wikia wiki's use namespaces that don't appear in the Namespaces drop down options (but some do).

Image Preview
I'm doing image projects where I need to see the image before I approve the edit. Is there a way to display the image from the File page in AWB?

Peteparker (talk) 00:48, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

App won't open/run
I've gotten permission to use AWB, downloaded it (a couple times), unzipped the files and when I click on the AutoWikiBrowser.exe and it tries to run, I get a pop-up screen that says "AutoWikiBrowser has stopped running". And nothing happens. I must have gone through this sequence over a dozen times. I even requested permission again, as I thought that maybe that hadn't been done correctly. If it matters, I'm using Chrome on Windows 7 on a 2012 laptop. Thanks for any answers you can provide. Liz Read!</b> <b style="color:#006400;">Talk!</b> 22:31, 16 September 2013 (UTC)
 * So, no idea on what the problem is? Liz  <sup style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><b style="color:#006400;">Read!</b> <b style="color:#006400;">Talk!</b> 00:01, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I doubt if Chrome has anything to do with it. AWB runs on an IE engine. Maybe a Windoze issue? --  Ohc  ¡digame!¿que pasa? 04:31, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, I'm sure other people who use it also work on PCs. Do I need to update IE or something? Liz  <sup style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><b style="color:#006400;">Read!</b> <b style="color:#006400;">Talk!</b> 17:34, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Try right-clicking on the file and select 'Run as Administrator'. If you get a message saying 'The publisher cannot br verified. Are you sure you want to run this software?' click 'Run' --Racklever (talk) 17:44, 26 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Don't click on "AutoWikiBrowser.exe". It is an XML file that just brings up an XML reader for me.  Try just clicking on "AutoWikiBrowser". Bgwhite (talk) 18:16, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'll try that and see what happens. Thanks for the advice. Liz  <sup style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><b style="color:#006400;">Read!</b> <b style="color:#006400;">Talk!</b> 15:11, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Link to the AWB project's page in the edit summary
Hi,

Instead of adding a link in the edit summary to AutoWikiBrowser by default for all projects, would it be possible that the software add a link to the good namespace (eg. Wiktionary: for en.wikt) ?

Regards, Automatik (talk) 14:10, 23 September 2013 (UTC) (moved form Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Dev the 16:39, 2 October 2013 (UTC))

Regex problems
I have the following lines of C# AWB regexes that bug out in the compiler of the module. The regexes work in my script but fail in AWB. The error messages indicate issues with escape sequences and the quote marks. I briefly experimented with escaping the quote marks but still couldn't get rid of the error messages. Please help me understand how this needs to be changed for the rules to work?

--  Ohc  ¡digame!¿que pasa? 01:22, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * From MSDN, "Use double quotation marks to embed a quotation mark inside a verbatim string" -- John of Reading (talk) 06:24, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Check page failed to load
I seem to be unable to log in using AWB currently - it pops up saying "Check page failed to load. Check yor internet is working and that the wikipedia servers are online." By posting here, it appears both are working. It was working a couple of days ago. Any ideas? -mattbuck (Talk) 13:43, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Did the system force you to change your account password a day or two ago? If so, have you updated the password in your AWB configuration? -- John of Reading (talk) 16:06, 4 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes and yes. I just restarted AWB and now it works (should have tried that earlier), so perhaps it was a temporary glitch with the program not loading correctly first time. -mattbuck (Talk) 17:23, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Subrules
Aren't subrules supposed to be only triggered if the parent rule is triggered? My subrule triggers every time, no matter if its parent rule was applied or not. Ithinkicahn (talk) 05:11, 7 October 2013 (UTC)

Update to the live CS1 module week of 2013-10-06
Within the next handful of days I propose to update Module:Citation/CS1 to match Module:Citation/CS1/sandbox and Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration to match Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration/sandbox. This update changes several things:


 * 1) ISSN error detection and formatting; discussion;
 * 2) Expand the list of namespaces that are not categorized; discussion;
 * 3) Tweak subscription / registration help message: (Help) to (help) to match style of other CS1 messages;
 * 4) Trap coauthors without authors; discussion;
 * 5) Hide error messages  requires , Missing or empty  ,   requires  ,   suggested, and   suggested; discussion;

—Trappist the monk (talk) 22:51, 7 October 2013 (UTC)


 * Done.


 * —Trappist the monk (talk) 10:41, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

How do I enable AWB?
I have tried to log into AWB with my account and it gave me the following error:


 * Fuse809 is not enabled to use this.

Fuse809 (talk) 06:40, 10 October 2013 (UTC)
 * You need to request access by posting at Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. -- John of Reading (talk) 07:20, 10 October 2013 (UTC)

Snapshot?
Where can one download the latest snapshot of the AWB program? - (t)  Josve05a  (c)  13:47, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Josve05a there is no latest snapshot than the distributed version available right now. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:11, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User: Magioladitis Okey. I use rev 9470 (it says in the About-section that I use the version 5.5.1.4). Is that the latest released? - (t)  Josve05a  (c)  14:18, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User:Josve05a Yes. I could make a snapshot in the weekend with rev 9528 for those who want to test any Talk general fixes functionalities. -- Magioladitis (talk) 14:28, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
 * User: Magioladitis, Thank you so much. That would be much appreciated. - (t)  Josve05a  (c)  14:31, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

Using with Wikidata?
Has there, or will there, be consideration for use of AWB with the Wikidata setup? It would seem that AWB would cherry ripe for some of the simple maintenance tasks that mere mortals (who cannot code) could undertake. 110.175.161.180 (talk) 00:25, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

walkthrough for creating new pages
I am using AWB to create new pages (in ro.wikt) from text files with full-fledged articles, generated by an external tool. I created a batch script that is called by External processing. Do you think is useful to write a walkthrough for that procedure? (it was not trivial for me). If yes, where to link it in the documentation?

Kind Regards,Phaneb (talk) 06:13, 17 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Phaneb as a first step create it. Then, we will where to put it. -- Magioladitis (talk) 15:33, 17 October 2013 (UTC)


 * I have created the walkthrough at AutoWikiBrowser/Create new pages. I wanted to add some screenshots but I can't since I'm not confirmed on the English Wikipedia.


 * Please rename or correct the page if you consider that is needed. Thanks, Regards, Phaneb (talk) 22:27, 17 October 2013 (UTC)

Sub - 1's
Not sure of this issue, but I caught myself making a possible error on the math articles. For some reason the markup wants to change -1 to −1. In my editor it is really hard to see the difference, but is the change correct or incorrect? I can't imagine it as an unknown error if it is an error, but I undid the change because I did not understand it. Anyone able to explain it for me? ChrisGualtieri (talk) 00:33, 22 October 2013 (UTC)
 * It generally should be &minus; (&amp;minus;). I can't distinguish &minus from – (&amp;ndash;) on my computer, so I'm not sure what AWB is doing.  — Arthur Rubin  (talk) 20:26, 24 October 2013 (UTC)