Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 17

Once in a while. I've assumed it was the servers, and taken that as a sign that I should do other (real world) things for a while. When I come back later, all is well.--Fabrictramp 13:53, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I've had that for over a month or so, but my bot doesn't. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 03:42, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm having trouble getting my watchlist to load. I've tried logging in via both IE and Mozilla and the problem occurs in each. -

Should've really been reported as a bug, but no matter. You may have noticed there has been some mediawiki changes with watchlists... I think that must have broken it, but i've fixed it to use another method (the get raw watchlist) - rev 1472

Reedy Boy

20:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

Could/should we add a "severity" field to the bug reports? e.g. I've just posted a bug which is real but trivial...

Alternatively, perhaps we should get a buzgilla or similar solution? I'd be happy to install and host such a thing. Would it be superior or inferior to on-wiki reporting do we think? --kingboyk 13:13, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

It could be a better solution, for both feature requests AND bug reports - Saves a lot of archving and such. We should be able to get the WMF or similar to host it... Ie on the toolserver or something.

Reedy Boy

14:14, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

A quick enquiry on #wikimedia-tech, we should be able to get AWB listed as a project on the MediaWiki Bugzilla if we decide to go that way...

Reedy Boy

14:41, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd be interested in trying that, I think. What do other people think? --kingboyk 15:08, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I honestly prefer it on wiki. I like to see the reports and requests, but I know that I would never go look at wherever you move them to. Also, there are a bunch of things that non-devs answer and help with that probably wouldn't happen any more (or at least reduced). Finally, I don't think people should have to create another account on bugzilla to report things. I know that I prefer this current system to the off-wiki approach that was implemented for Vandalproof. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:43, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

Not sure where to report this, but a few days ago, I created a page for

That will have been Regextypo fix. Not AWB itself par se... Its false positive, just, is it common enough to remove the mis-spelling... I'll have a look

Reedy Boy

15:35, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that a note just be left on the talk page of the editor who was running the typo fixes to politely ask them to more carefully check their edits. It is incumbent on the user of AWB to validate their changes before saving. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 15:39, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

I know this must be really simple, but I cant figure it. I click open my autowikibrowser, then i click plugins, then CFD, but then there is just a 'CFD.dll'. I dont understand how to get this plugin. I need help. Can someone please help me? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 03:58, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Im presuming its already in the folder with autowikibrowser.exe? If so, start awb, plugins, expand CFD, and click options...

Reedy Boy

10:50, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

So I'm actually meant to activate awb, not just enter the folder?? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:17, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

You need to copy the CFD plugin to the main AWB folder...

Reedy Boy

11:19, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

The 'CFD plugin' being a file simply called 'CFD', and the 'main AWB folder' being C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\AutoWikiBrowser3910? -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 11:24, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

CFD = CFD.dll - Move that to the place where AutoWikiBrowser is. So from C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\AutoWikiBrowser3910\Plugins\CFD to C:\Documents and Settings\User\Desktop\AutoWikiBrowser3910

Reedy Boy

14:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok. Thanks a ton. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:19, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Oh no. I'm sorry to ask again - but what do I do then, after that? Do I open CFD.dll? because I get a message saying 'windows cannot open a file unless it knows what programme made it'. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 08:24, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Just put it in the directory with AWB and start AWB

Reedy Boy

18:31, 23 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok. I'm up to number 3, but when I click Ok in the plugin window, after copying and pasting the contents of WP:CFD/WU, I get a message saying 'Unhandled exception has occured in your application. if you click Continue, the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately. An item with the same key has already been added.' YThe problem is, when I click Continue, the message just comes back up. I dont know what to do. Cheers, -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 01:22, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

This might be easier to resolve in real-time if you go on IRC in #AutoWikiBrowser. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:44, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Good idea. -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 02:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually - I'msure that if you answered this last question I would be ok, so going on IRC would be pointless. Thanks for all your help by the way :) -- Anonymous Dissident^Talk 02:49, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

If I need to notify a group of people about something via their talk page, how can I get AWB to send a lot of people a single message, opposed to simply going to each user page and leaving them a message? I noticed that the Signpost is sent out using AWB, so I was wondering if that was possible. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 02:52, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Yup, and ive done so myself on a few occasions. Add all the articles to the make list, turn off auto tag, general fixes and such. Go to the more tab, then enable Append/Prepend Text. If you want to leave a message on bottom of the page, make sure appends selected. Then put all the text in the box beneath it. Make sure you include a title - == Message Title ==. Sign at the bottom, and give an appropriate edit summary!

Reedy Boy

09:22, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Seems to work. Thanks.

Was able to get the autoupdater to update from 3.9.1.0 to 4.0.0.0, but it hung and I had to kill it's process (but the upgrade worked); but my main question is regarding this release ebing in beta, while that is an obvious step in the development lifecycle, why has the latest stable version been de-authorized? — xaosflux ^Talk 03:51, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

This versions isnt really any less 'stable' that the last proper release version. There is a hell of a lot that has been fixed, improved, and made to work again after MW changes. We decided, that unless major problems were encountered, moving everyone onto the lastest version was a beter idea.

Reedy Boy

08:13, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

I encountered major problems. After an autoupdate, when any changes were previewed in the upper pane, I got the error: "The type initializer for 'WikiFunctions.WikiDiff' threw an exception", and the process stopped, every time. This made it completely unusable. The fix was to completely delete C:\Program Files\AutoWikiBrowser, re-download 4.0.0.0, and re-create AWB in the default folder of C:\Program Files\AutoWikiBrowser4000. Don't know if rebuilding the config file was what worked, or if the new folder name is hard-coded somewhere, but the updater clearly needs looking at. Thanks, Clicketyclack 08:29, 28 July 2007 (UTC)

When I try to open AWB, all I get is an error message saying:

To run this application, you must first install one of the following versions of the .NET Framework:
v2.0.50727
Contact your application publisher for instructions about obtaining the appropriate version of the .NET Framework.
                                   ____________________
                                  |        OK          |
                                  |____________________|

Could somebody please explain what the problem is and how I can fix it.

Have you run AWB in the past? —METS501 (talk) 14:47, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

AWB is a

Microsoft Update: you'll find .Net 2.0 in the "Optional Updates" section. Clicketyclack

18:02, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I've added this question to the FAQ above, as it's bound to come up again. Clicketyclack 09:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but which link do I choose???

 • @

15:03, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Just use Microsoft Update, if you're not sure. See expanded answer in FAQ , above. Clicketyclack 16:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm trying to make a change to many pages which will replace several lines of text and template invocations with just one line. So I figured a regular expression that used either the line start or line end characters was the way to go. But I can't seem to get $ and ^ to work as I expected. Do I need to be using "\r\n" instead? Or escaping $ and ^ ??? (I tried some tests in the RE tester as well as AWB itself, the RE tester is very handy!) I am pretty certain this is a clue shortage on my end, not a problem with the app. Does anyone have an example multiline RE that they have used in AWB that they could share (the RE itself and what text it recognised)? Once I suss out what I am doing wrong perhaps I can enhance the appropriate part of the instructions? (perhaps Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Settings#Sample_regular_expressions??) I did scan through the archives but did not find too much of use... Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 15:52, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If your using the multiline option it means that ^ and $ will match \n. You might want to use the single lined (makes ^ and $ match the beginning and end of the text). I've found from working that you typically want to use \s to match newline as some editor will concatenate everything onto a single line. And with v4 of AWB it will strips all \r, but not the same way

mediawiki does. —Dispenser

18:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow that answer. The text I want to find has line breaks in it already, and the location of the line breaks are part of the way that one knows one has found the right text. So I want the line breaks in the match expression. ^ and $ are not matching the way I expect in multiline mode. I'd again ask for an example RE that shows matching a multiline text chunk... that will allow me to figure out what I am doing wrong. If you have an example can you post or mail it? Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 19:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

To match

{{X1
| url =

use \{\{X1\n\| url = with SingleLine and Regex checked. (Use the advanced windows, this will not work in the regex tester, that has \r\n behavior (a BUG apparently)) You can also use an unescaped newline. And version prior to v4, you need to us \s*\n. You may also be able to do it without checking singlelined. My best advice is to use AWB normally, right-click on the edit box and select reparse will run the script again. If you want to see a script where this is done see User:Dispenser/AWB Navbox.xml. —Dispenser 22:45, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

OK that was the clue I needed, thanks. I now have a regex that does almost all of what I want. one small problem remains, I would like to be able to get at the page name, and substring something out of the page name to put in a $n var for use in the replacewith part... any ideas on that? Archive 17 gives me the last part of the name but I need just a part of THAT name for it to work. ++Lar: t/c 03:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

RE:

use \{\{X1\n\| url = with singlelined checked.

I changed the instructions to read:

use \{\{X1\n\| url = with SingleLine and Regex checked.

Key words for people searching: line break, paragraph break, return.

Errectstapler (talk) 16:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm using 4.0.0.0 and it's not letting me save an edit or preview. Start and stop are enabled, but none of the buttons below them. I checked that my userid "Larbot" is still on the approved list of users for en, and that the page is not protected, and that I am logged in. Anything else I should be checking? I got the regex I wanted to do to work, just about, and now I can't save my changes! :) ++Lar: t/c 04:06, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

See bug

Show Preview disables edit buttons. —Dispenser

04:31, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Thats now fixed :)

Reedy Boy

14:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

That sorted it. As for the one remaining question, instead of figuring out how to substring "4" out of "Archive 4" (the page name) I'm just typing in the 4 :) Thanks for your help... but DOES AWB have a way to let you get at the value of the current page name from within a regex? ++Lar: t/c 04:50, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Feature requests#A way to filter regexp by namespace. —Dispenser

04:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Hm... So does %%MAGICWORD%% give you access to what you would get (at template invocation time) for {{MAGICWORD}}? Because if it does, I have part of what I want, the ability to know what the pagename is. I could not tell if what Gudeldar posted was his workaround or how he wanted his enhancement to work. With the pagename, parsing out part of the name is easy using RE. Thanks! ++Lar: t/c 12:19, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

To have %%MAGICWORD%% do the same as {{MAGICWORD}} were the intentions behind another of my

Feature requests, but as it stands now only %%title%%, %%titlename%%, and %%namespace%% exist. —Dispenser

21:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

A comment: If you're going to make a "beta" release, that explicitly states that it may have bugs in it, you should never force-feed it on users. I don't mind beta-testing for you, but please, make it an option. Instead of being given the option of running stable or beta-testing, I was forced to upgrade to 4.0.0.0 beta (manually, no less, since the updater kept stalling). In all honesty, if the software hadn't forced me to upgrade, I could've very easily just used the same version for the 15 months I've been using AWB - none of the new features, as great as they may be, affect me, making upgrading pointless for me. Please don't force upgrades when they're not necessary, and if you're going to force upgrades at all, please come up with an AWB updater that just *works*. Ral315 » 23:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Ral, you know just as well as we do that we developers are a just a group of people who are volunteering our time to put forward free software for the wiki community. You are not paying for the software; we are not working for profit. The reason we are forcing upgrades is because of bugs in old releases, not because we are trying to push the new features onto everyone. Most people have no use of the new features, yes, but the bugs affect everyone all the same. We can take down the notice and call it a stable version if you like, but the new version is still going to have bugs, just like every other version that we've released since the creation of this software. The upgrades are absolutely necessary to fix old bugs, and new bugs are continually being discovered and released. It says on your bot's page that you're "interested in coding", so why don't you help out? It's not that easy to develop and maintain software, and we're trying our best. —METS501 (talk) 23:47, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I can appreciate that you are trying to avoid bugs, but surely the 3.9.1.0 version wasn't so dangerously buggy that it necessitated forcing users to upgrade to a beta version? I was able to do basic changes with the old version, but the new beta version failed to make a basic, non-regexp pattern match to allow me to quickly change a bunch of redirects. Since 3.9.1.0 is no longer allowed to edit, I can no longer use AWB. What is the logic of refusing to allow us to run the latest stable released version? Is it just that the system is only smart enough to allow one precisely numbered version to run at a time? ~ Jeff Q (talk) 04:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The system will handle, and allow many different versions to be run. As Mets said, yeah its a 'Beta', but we could have released it as not a beta, and still had these problems. 3.9.1.0 wasnt dangerous buggy, but it does introduce errors, and other mistakes - Its been months since that was released. Features dont work due to MW changes.

As for the updater that works, other than a few minor niggles, at the last release, it worked fine. It maybe does need a rethink, as the way it currently works, means that if some files have been renamed, deleted, and such, the updater wont take account of this till the next version, therefore meaning we do get problems. And also, sourceforge change things, we cannot fix already released versions, so all we can do is try our best to work with what we've got. As for the point about having to upgrade manually... What about every single prior version to whenever the updater was released? Ideally, we could do with some form of static Updater (ie one that doesnt change), but it downloads a cs file from the internet, and then compiles/runs that to find out what it needs to do.

Bugs can only be found if users use it, or developers find them themselves. If they dont show to us, we cant fix them, as we cant fix what we cant find!

Reedy Boy

12:02, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and im sorry if it sounds like we are getting at people. Its just its not a simple task, and MaxSem (our lead/main developer), has been absent. And he usually helps out rather well with developing and bug fixing...

Reedy Boy

12:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

[10]

Revision 1035 = 3.9.1.0

Revision 1496 = 4.0.0.0

461 Revision. Have a look at some of them, some are minor, but others are major re-writes of the software. And theres been 14 commits since v4, fixing bugs and tweaking things...

Reedy Boy

12:13, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

All software evolves over time and all software has bugs. The key point here is that we've been upfront in saying there are some big changes in this version and it might have bugs hence it is "beta". The version you were using was never meant to be permanent and was basically a version 4 pre-release; whether we had labelled the current release as v4 beta, v4, 3.9.3.0 you would still have the bug. Now, please quit moaning because there's nothing worse for demotivating volunteers than having people whinge. File a bug report, explain this is pressing, thank folks for their time, and see what happens. AWB is free - gratis (you didn't pay for it), libre (you have the source and can fix it yourself or hire somebody to do it). At that price you are getting value for money and should be extremely grateful. --kingboyk 12:40, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Actually, AWB is not free. Like all software, using it requires an investment in time and changes in work practices. From what I've seen in the past few SourceForge releases, each update requires abandoning the previous version to get past the "version is not enabled" message to use the tool. This last change isn't working for me, and I'm not willing to invest the time and effort in debugging the problems. There are people like myself who don't find this investment of time — often far more dear than a few bucks — worth it. That doesn't mean AWB isn't a very useful tool for many, and that your work isn't quite valuable. But don't be surprised when you lose some folks along the way. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:24, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Alright I'm stick of you whining, just file a damn bug report. They're typically fast enough to do it within the week. —Dispenser 22:54, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's not get this heated, please. Jeff Q and others: if you want us to keep old versions of the software enabled then fine, we will (if the other devs agree with me), but you must understand that you are responsible for EVERY EDIT you, and do not come complaining to us if you have to spend hours cleaning up work caused by a bug long fixed. How about a compromise: we'll keep them enabled but not allow bot mode on them, because in manual mode you are checking every edit anyway so you'll notice any bugs before saving. How's that? —METS501 (talk) 23:12, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

That seems quite reasonable. I believe we are already reponsible for every edit we make, regardless of how we make it; this would merely be a totally reasonable refusal of a volunteer development group to support old versions of a helper tool. Anyone operating a bot should probably be (and probably already is) devoting the time to ensure that each new AWB version continues to work with their bot. (BTW, Dispenser, I'm sorry you are so angered by my legitimate concerns. I am trying very hard to make clear that your work is appreciated, but not everybody has the time to devote to helping to fix problems. If you really feel this is an unreasonable request, don't do it. I'm sure this project and Wikipedia in general will get along just fine without the portion of AWB users like myself who prefer to wait for something less likely to cause them difficulties.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. The only thing is, we wont keep enabled too many old versions, just the one before - ie with v4, until we know its definately ok, 3.9 enabled, then v4 can stay with v4.1 - etc etc. Also, the latest sub build/version in a stream may be kept, as the 'bug fixes', so rather than 3.9, its 3.9.1 that will be enabled? And as Mets said, if you cause problems/a lot of work for yourself, its the users "problem", especially if we have recitified it.

Reedy Boy

09:02, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

One potential compromise could be a change to the updater, along the following lines:

1) "Update available" message pops up when new version is made available on sourceforge, with yes & no buttons

2) If user clicks "no", a warning follows saying something like:

* the AWB project will only support upgrades from the last version (or two, etc.)
* your current version has known bugs, for which you are responsible if you stick with this version
* we only fix bugs on the newer version
* if you don't upgrade now, you will probably need to manually uninstall & re-install later

This way AWB users could agree to test new versions, but if there are known issues (as with 4.0.0), they could opt to manually upgrade later instead.

I haven't filed this feature request yet, but if there's broad consensus here, I'll be happy to do so. Clicketyclack 11:15, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Sounds to be in the right direction, IMHO. The only thing will be, is we shall only keep a certain number of "old versions" active, as otherwise the checkpage list of approved versions will get rather long, and people will get further behind with bug fixes. When we released v4 beta, there werent any really 'known' issues - we had fixed what we had found, but we knew it wouldnt be perfect.

Reedy Boy

11:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Certainly. I'm quite happy to keep on testing beta releases BTW, though it's also reasonable to assume that not everyone can or should. Climbing the vast mountain of daily WP admin is as much as most people have time for, and I'm as grateful to them for donating admin hours as I am to the AWB team for developing and maintaining AWB. Thanks, all of you. Clicketyclack 13:37, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I didn't mean for this conversation to raise such a heated discussion. My main problem was with you labeling a product "beta" and giving it to everyone - if it's potentially volatile and bugs may exist, it should be a beta, and not be forced on everyone, and if it's pretty much bug-free, it should be a normal release. On the other subject of forced upgrades, even projects like Mozilla Firefox, where bugs may lead to system takeovers (not just a buggy bot that'll get you blocked for a few days at most), give you the option of not installing the new version until you restart the program, something that would allow me to finish my work, then upgrade - something I'd be perfectly happy to do. Part of what bothers me the most is that often, I have very limited time to do my AWB work every week, and to have to upgrade is a pain, particularly when I know that the upgrade's probably got nothing to do with the features I actually use.

Don't get me wrong, I seriously appreciate the work you guys do. But while I understand that you don't want to support old versions (and I do agree with your reasoning on that), we should be allowed to use old versions, except where they contain serious bugs, at our own risk. Ral315 » 08:11, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

has something changed recently with the end of the line \r\n ?

I wrote a simple regex to remove a blank space at the end of each line of the list= +\r\n -> \r\n and that doesn't work

I used "test regexes" for

1. Czarodziejki (Charmed) (1998-2006)
2. Wanted (2005)
3. Bounty Hunters (2005)
4. "Clubhouse" (2004)

and the result is:

1. Czarodziejki (Charmed) (1998-2006)
2. Wanted (2005)\r
3. Bounty Hunters (2005)
4. "Clubhouse" (2004)

\r\n changed to \n in "replace" tab ? --84.234.42.68 01:04, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, AWB has switch to unix style linebreaks so no more \r! See above. —Dispenser 01:10, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

is \r\n still is compulsory in "find" but not in "replace"? I changed all \r\n to \n and now it does the mess in the articles --84.234.42.68 15:55, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

I figured that in find should be \n and in replace still \r\n, and I finally see on the diff spaces that were removed, thank's for that;) --84.234.42.68 16:09, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

When I attempt to send out a message to someones talk page using AWB I get an error message saying "The Type initializer for 'Wikifunctions.WikiDiff' threw an exception." What does this mean? How can I fix it? How does one send out messages using AWB to people? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 00:50, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Throwing an exception is when something went wrong. As to fixing it... We cant unless we know what exactly you were doing to get the error....

Reedy Boy

18:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Look at the top message on this page..

Reedy Boy

18:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting that every time a diff is supposed to be rendered and then AWB just stops everything (this is on the SVN version). I can't do any more developing until I figure out what this is. —METS501 (talk) 19:35, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Fine for me... Blame Vista?

Reedy Boy

19:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Reedy Boy, Remember what you told me to do to send messages to various people using AWB? That's what I was attempting to do but it didn't work. I got that error message. Wikidudeman ^(talk)

22:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm still not able to figure out how to do it. How does one send a message to multiple users on this new version? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 10:43, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It should still be the same... We just need to find a cause for that error, unfortunately, i dont get it, so troubleshooting it is harder!

Reedy Boy

10:57, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I have the same problems on ro.wikipedia. I receive the following messages: "The Type initializer for 'Wikifunctions.WikiDiff' threw an exception.". --Pixi 16:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm doing it the same way it's always been done. Have you tested it to see if it works for you? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 11:02, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

[11] - Confirmed working for me

Reedy Boy

17:20, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Are the people who are having problems on vista?

Reedy Boy

17:15, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Not me. When I run AWB, it's on XP (SP2). I've had no troubles with AWB itself though: only the updater (see my reply to Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 17#Beta release above). After removing v3.9, and installing v4.0 from scratch, it works fine so far. Clicketyclack 20:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm on Vista. —METS501 (talk) 20:14, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Vista.--Pixi 23:12, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Seems to be the common link. No chance of me being able to debug it then. :/

Reedy Boy

18:13, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Just today I went on AWB for the first time in a couple weeks. But when I tried to open it, I got the following message:

This version is not enabled, please download the newest version.  If you have the newest version,

check that Wikipedia is online.

Please press "Yes" to run the AutoUpdater, "No" to load the download page and update manually,

or "Cancel" to not update (but you will not be able to edit).

I click on "Yes", but it doesn't seem to complete the update. The meter always stops at about 40% full. Am I doing something wrong? Ksy92003(talk) 18:50, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, but I saw the same behavior myself, and ended up cancelling the update and downloading a fresh copy.--SarekOfVulcan 19:06, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, how would I do that? I mean I had problems when I was downloading the AWB the first time and somebody walked me through it. I mean I'd really like to be able to use the AWB software again... I can't use it as it is; it says "Software disabled." How would I at least download the fresh copy? Should I delete the AWB folder I currently have and start from scratch? Ksy92003(talk) 19:12, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's a known bug in the updater. They're working on it. In the meantime, deleting the old AWB and re-installing the new one worked for me.

We'd better add an entry to the FAQ on this one. Clicketyclack 19:28, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Okay, but could you please provide the link to where I have to go to install the new one? In the meantime, I'll start removing all traces of the old AWB, if that'll help me install the new one. Ksy92003(talk) 19:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Clicketyclack :). Link for download - [12]

Reedy Boy

19:33, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much, Clicketyclack and Reedy Boy (Reedy Boy, I think you're the one who helped me the first time I had problems). It's working for me now. Ksy92003(talk) 19:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

No problem. This AWBUpdater problem could be tricky... As it wont update to the next version, due to the "bug"/SF changes that are preventing it from currently working... Its just weird some people have upgraded fine

Reedy Boy

20:24, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

After much pain I got 3.x to upgrade to 4.x, but had persistant issues. A clean install of 4.x in it's own directory has resolved multiple issues. — xaosflux ^Talk 21:42, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

It must get stuck due to a missing file in the new release - no wikifunctions2.dll... Its just weird how it works fine for some and not for others... Im thinking AWBUpdater should download the updater file and compile it on the fly... Then it can be made to work with any changes... Any other opinions?

Reedy Boy

22:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Hello, I've been doing the

I just found Stubsensor yesterday (thanks, Triddle!), and yes, AWB is very nice for it. Triddle, I know of two ways to load up AWB for that. One is to use "links on page". However, that will load every link on the whole page, wanted or not. The other is to copy the links on a section to a word processor (I did this when I edited the section to claim it), and save as a plain text file. In AWB, choose to make the list from the text file. --Fabrictramp 14:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Another good reason to use AWB - All the other general fixes, and also typo fixing that can be done at the same time during edits ;)

Reedy Boy

14:31, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Natch! Thanks again for all the hard work you and the team do on AWB. I'm also quite active on

WP:DEP, and our project literally wouldn't exist without AWB. :) --Fabrictramp

14:37, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

We do have a private offshore bank account... ;)

Reedy Boy

14:55, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I'll make a big deposit just as soon as I get the money from the Nigerian prince! ;) --Fabrictramp 19:14, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I'd doubtless have a bowel movement too if that happened to me. -

Talk

19:21, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Damn, i wanted Ugandan Dollars ;)

Reedy Boy

09:58, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Firstly thanks for all the hard work with AWB - it has made a great difference to the Māori Wikipedia (where I am a bureaucrat. However, with version 4 I am having problems getting it to work. It takes about 45 to 50 seconds or more to load pages - and that goes for pages with hardly any text in them, one or two lines. This means it is way faster to do it all manually - this may be due to the slow NZ internet speed, I'm not sure - which means it doesn't get done because its too onerous. I'm thinking this would be quicker and easier when you're not on the wrong side of the world from the server? I'm wondering how or if we can re-enable older versions? Also for the Māori Wikipedia, how do we grant certain users the AWB bot status so that they can use the full range of features if we need them to be able to do lots of work quickly. At the moment I have a lot of categories and subcategories that I want created. Unless there is some bot that can take a list of names and churn them out for me? Kahuroa 12:48, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a checkpage for AWB? If so, you look at the AWB checkpage here on en.wiki, if you follow the bot format, that will work. What is the page loading like in normal IE? And what specification computer are you using?

Reedy Boy

12:51, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

The enabled version list is done from here on en.wiki. We were discussing re-enabling 3.9, but it never came to a proper decision, and was never done. Was it faster for you in the old version? MaxSem had written a page about how to setup a checkpage, but i cant find it for the life in me!

Reedy Boy

12:56, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

I created a checkpage for you at mi:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPage. Feel free to customize it and add users and bots as necessary. If you'd like a non-open approval (that is, users have to request approval), then change the page and ask people to request access on the talk page and remove the message (the line starting with <!--Message:) Hope this helps! —METS501 (talk) 14:37, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that and for creating the page. Yep it was faster in the old version. Page loading time in normal IE is less than 3 secs. The new version takes ages to start too. Computer is 3.2 gigahertz pentium, 1 gig ram, 128 meg display card. 2005 vintage. Kahuroa 19:38, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

GPL + C#/VS ? I recommend this reading: Free But Shackled - The Java Trap --Arny 15:35, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Nice reading, but we can't do anything about it. —METS501 (talk) 15:41, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi, i just got my self AWB. After i added my user ID and passwd onto my profile and when i tried to login in i get this error pops-up: "This Software does not support skins other then Monobook. Please choose monobook in your preferences and try to relogin." Ive went thru the preferences hundreds of time and couldn not found a field for choosing a Skin . I even went thru and search the AutoWikiBrowser archives and wiki bugzilla still no clue on what could probarbaly be. Can someone advice which part ive missed out. --killerserv (talk) 13:48, 13 August 2007 (GMT)

Reedy Boy

12:28, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Can AWB have an option to look through random articles to reach articles that might not be seen in systematic searches. There could be an option to see 50 or 100 random articles at a time. Snowman 10:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Does query.php/api.php do a list of random pages. As otherwise, it would have to run the

Reedy Boy

12:29, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi. When I try to connect to #en.wikipedia, after logging in, the following error is displayed.

Unhandled exception has occurred in your application. If you click Continue the application will ignore this error and attempt to continue. If you click Quit, the application will close immediately.

followed by,

See the end of this message for details on invoking 
just-in-time (JIT) debugging instead of this dialog box.

<nowiki>************** Exception Text **************
System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
   at WikiFunctions.UserProperties.set_WikiStatus(Boolean value)
   at WikiFunctions.UserProperties.UpdateWikiStatus()
   at IRCMonitor.IRCMonitor.CheckStatus(Boolean Login)
   at IRCMonitor.IRCMonitor.btnStart_Click(Object sender, EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnClick(EventArgs e)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.OnMouseUp(MouseEventArgs mevent)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WmMouseUp(Message& m, MouseButtons button, Int32 clicks)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.ButtonBase.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Button.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.OnMessage(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.Control.ControlNativeWindow.WndProc(Message& m)
   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)


************** Loaded Assemblies **************
mscorlib
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework/v2.0.50727/mscorlib.dll
----------------------------------------
IRCMonitor
    Assembly Version: 1.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 1.0.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/AWB/IRCMonitor.exe
----------------------------------------
System.Windows.Forms
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Windows.Forms/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Windows.Forms.dll
----------------------------------------
System
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Drawing
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Drawing/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Drawing.dll
----------------------------------------
WikiFunctions
    Assembly Version: 4.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 4.0.0.0
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Program%20Files/AWB/WikiFunctions.DLL
----------------------------------------
System.Configuration
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Configuration/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Configuration.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Xml
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.312 (rtmLHS.050727-3100)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_MSIL/System.Xml/2.0.0.0__b77a5c561934e089/System.Xml.dll
----------------------------------------
System.Web
    Assembly Version: 2.0.0.0
    Win32 Version: 2.0.50727.833 (QFE.050727-8300)
    CodeBase: file:///C:/Windows/assembly/GAC_32/System.Web/2.0.0.0__b03f5f7f11d50a3a/System.Web.dll
----------------------------------------

************** JIT Debugging **************
To enable just-in-time (JIT) debugging, the .config file for this
application or computer (machine.config) must have the
jitDebugging value set in the system.windows.forms section.
The application must also be compiled with debugging
enabled.

For example:

<configuration>
    <system.windows.forms jitDebugging="true" />
</configuration>

When JIT debugging is enabled, any unhandled exception
will be sent to the JIT debugger registered on the computer
rather than be handled by this dialog box.

Subsequently, the recent changed list is not loaded. I have had similar problems with both Vandalproof, when verifying authorisation and Vandalfighter, when attempting to retrieve the Recent Changes list.

I have tried disabling active scripting and turning off my firewall. Thanks.Tbo ¹⁵⁷talk 19:21, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

If your getting the problems with both AWB and Vandalproof. Your missing the .NET framework - [13]

Reedy Boy

19:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to mention that I run Windows Vista, which I think already has .net framework 3.0 installed.Tbo ¹⁵⁷talk 20:11, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Many people run vista with it fine. .NET framework v3 does nothing for AWB, it needs v2 Installed. Does AWB work?

Reedy Boy

20:46, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, AWB works fine. Its just IRCMonitor which doesnt work.Tbo ¹⁵⁷talk 22:26, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

IRCM is slightly broken, due to its versionning being changed, but the program not being updated to cope with the changes. Just with you saying you got errors with Vandalproof, i thought it may be something else... Really needs sorting for the next release

Reedy Boy

22:35, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help. With vandalproof I can't even login but Im guessing thats a separate problem.Tbo ¹⁵⁷talk 22:57, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

• {{THISPAGENAME}} could be replaced which the actual page name.
• When searching Users:edits on the AWB panel all the edits are listed and it can return the same page dozens of times when many edits have been done. A list without duplicates would be useful.
• {{disambig}} (and perhaps for other forms of this template) gives a warning that there are no categories on the page unless one is included in a template. Perhaps AWB need not give this warning for disambig pages. Snowman 12:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

For the second one, this is easily done by the user. Click filter, make sure remove duplicates is selected...

Reedy Boy

12:23, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Or just press the Remove duplicates button.

Reedy Boy

20:36, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

not sure if it's a bug, feature or what, but as i think the category shouldn't be moved from here to the end [14] (it means that there is no such section but it is required, category's name means "articles to expand") --84.234.42.68 17:48, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Its something that the General Fixes does...

Reedy Boy

17:51, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

i don't know what "includeonly" is but is there for some reason --84.234.42.68 19:34, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

I've been thinking about that as well. If a category that is up for deletion at CFD is edited with AWB, the deletion categories are moved to the end, which is fine if the cat is deleted. But if it's kept, the CFD template is removed and more times than not, the deletion categories are left. I'm sure this happens with articles that are up for deletion as well. Is there any way to skip moving any categories that are within the subst'ed xFD templates, even with General Fixes on? --Kbdank71 19:41, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Include only tags are used on templates that are transcluded. If the include only tags are used, whatever is between them, will only affect the page where the transclusion occurs, rather than the template page. If your just removing/replacing categories, turn off General fixes

Reedy Boy

20:35, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

They are right though, those categories shouldn't be moved. Feature request? —METS501 (talk) 00:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

You said they shouldnt be moved - ie Bug.

Reedy Boy

16:34, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Many times, yes, I'm just removing or replacing categories, but this will happen no matter what people are using AWB for. I suppose it would be a bug for categories within any includeonly and noinclude tags. What about the xFD tags? Would that be a feature request? --Kbdank71 16:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

How can I use WikiFunctions.dll in order to make list of articles from certain source in a C# application? When I try to use functions from GetLists class the type initializer for 'WikiFunctions.Variables' throws an exception. Jogers (talk) 19:29, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Try use the Listmaker control... May give better results.

Reedy Boy

20:47, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I get the same exception when I try to invoke the ListMaker constructor. Jogers (talk) 21:48, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Everything suddenly started working when I added the [STAThread] attribute above the Main method. Jogers (talk) 22:21, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it possible to get a list of pages, but then use the talk pages of those pages? I would like to know so that I could use it with the Kingbotk plugin, which allows you to place and fix up {{WPBiography}} tags on talk pages. --Credema 22:29, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there is the option "convert to talk pages" in the "list" menu. Jogers (talk) 22:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I found it, thank you for your help. --Credema 20:54, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Hi. I disagree with AWB putting stubs after categories, like here. Any reasons AWB does things this way? Thanks. Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 22:15, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a common question, so we really should integrate it into the FAQ somehow. The short answer is that there are two sides to this issue and while many people agree with you that the stubs should be above the categories, there are also large numbers who like them better below the categories. I will note however, that the edit you link to should probably not have been made, as it appears to fall against the guideline of insignificant editing. If the stubs are to be moved, they should only be moved when other more significant edits are taking place. If I had more time, I would examine the AWB user's diffs more closely to see if a warning is in order; perhaps someone else could take a look. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 02:25, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I notified the user in question. Apparently that edit was a glitch, the user uses AWB for a good purpose most of the time.

Since there is no consensus about moving the stubs, is it possible to have AWB not move them from whatever location it encounters them? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 15:17, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

Thats the difficult one - As its good to move them, say if the user tags it up at the top or whatever...

Reedy Boy

15:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree that AWB should continue to do it the way it is now. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 18:26, 19 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm working on a Microsoft Word VSTO add-in (which will be GPL'd) for MediaWiki-based sites, which will be GPL'd and downloadable from Codeplex. The WikiFunctions.dll assembly seems like the best external library of basic MediaWiki connectivity, and I'd love to be able to use it in my application. However, I'm very much inclined to NOT having users have to download and piece together the various bits from separate packages - I'd far rather be able to include the WikiFunctions.dll in the installer for the Word add-in. Have you ever faced this situation before? Is there any reason that a GPL-licensed application couldn't redistribute the WikiFunctions.dll as part of its binary installer package (with appropriate attributions of course)?ParanoidMike 01:38, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

No problem if you include the binary you downloaded yourself. Don't forget, it's copyleft. Of course, you'll have to honor GPL by mentioning that "this software includes parts from AWB developed by blah blah blah...". Be advised though that WikiFunctions is designed primarily for AWB and thus has some limitations such as requirement for approval to be able to edit pages. Probably you will find something else more useful. For example, WikiAccess (with docs in Russian, hehe). MaxSem 08:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Followup to MaxSem: There's a statement on the [Wikipedia:WikiFunctions] page that says “WikiFunctions also contains much in the way of standalone code reusable by other projects and AWB plugins.” In light of your advice, what does this statement mean exactly? I'd advise at least an expansion of the WikiFunctions reuse text, if not a re-examination of the construction of WikiFunctions - e.g. to require approval only when performing some of the more “dangerous” functions (whatever you believe those to be). Surely editing wiki pages isn't considered dangerous, is it?

This brings up a good question: is the approval authorization managed on the server side, or is there some “guard code” in the Wikifunctions.dll code? If some of the authorization is performed at the client side, then I believe that (a) folks looking to bypass such restrictions could simply edit and recompile the Wikifunctions.dll source - is that what was done in the MWikiBrowser fork? - and (b) it should be reasonable to re-factor that code so that it only applies to atypical functions.ParanoidMike 17:50, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

The approval is done on the client side. Personally, I found the authentication code and removed it within about 15 minutes of downloading the project. Now I can use AWB without any approval at all (note: this was just for the sake of interest. I don't do enough editing to warrant AWB usage). Such is the nature of open source. Ahsile 11:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Suprised you took you that long. But yeah, its open source, all source released, so you can in theory do what you want to it

Reedy Boy

12:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I have recently been approved and I want to make sure I use this tool properly as I'd assume a screw up could cause wide spread "chaos". A significant number of

I presume your not wanting to move pages or anything? Just changed the disambigauted links?

Reedy Boy

09:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• LOL - nope actually i am wanting to move pages first. I've figured out the "fixing" issue - just not the moving issue (unless you can't move).
   ►Chat 
  09:36, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... I think you can load the pages, press the move button, as long as you have the rights, but you'd have to enter the new name... I dont really know. Theres that many features that i've never even touched...

Reedy Boy

09:39, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm totally stumped at this point, but i appreciate the help - i can't figure it out at all. :-)

 ►Chat 

09:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• So i can't find seem to find any instructions on mass article renaming - am i missing something?
   ►Chat 
  02:16, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I dont think your missing anything - Im sure AWB doesnt support mass page moves... Dotnetwikibot can to an extent... Could be setup to take current name, change the names as you suggest, and move it. Whats the backlog number that needs doing? As it could be a bot task...

Reedy Boy

10:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

• What do you mean by "backlog number that needs doing"? I 'm not very familiar with bots, but would a bot be able to pick up on variables in parenthesis? basiclly if the article in
   ►Chat 
  17:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

The backlog would be the number of pages that needed changing over. Basically, it needs to go through a list of articles in that category, and if it uses the wrong disambiguation, it could be moved/renamed...

Reedy Boy

18:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

How do I count the backlog?

 ►Chat 

18:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Reedy Boy

18:50, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Is there a way for AWB to compare two categories? I'd like to be able to use it to clean up duplicate categorization (e.g. articles that are simultaneously filed in both Category:Writers and Category:Canadian writers), but haven't been able to figure out how to do that yet except by manually looking through articles in the parent category one by one. Bearcat 19:07, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

• Go to the List menu and select List Comparer. You will have the option to create 2 distinct lists in the same manner that you create lists for AWB use. When you hit the compare button, you will get results that show which items are duplicated and which are exclusive to each list. HTH. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 01:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that there is something wrong with the way AWB converts deg in notation from to the small circle and visa versa. If there is a word beginning with an f or F after a deg, with or without a space between, it removes the space and changes a small f to a large F. Sometimes the deg sign is used other than for temperatures. Snowman 21:54, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Reedy Boy

11:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I know this is a small thing, but I noticed that AWB just edited an article I've contributed to, and it moved a comma from inside a quotation mark to outside. i.e. "fsgfdgfdgdf," → "sdfdsfdsfs", Gramatically speaking, the first is correct, not the second, so why does AWB do this? Can this issue, albeit a small issue, be fixed? Drewcifer3000 22:58, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I think the latter is grammatically correct in En-English, but I will probably be corrected on that. -

Talk

01:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "En-English." But, according to the

MLA Style Manual the comma comes before the quotation mark. So unless Wikipedia is based on some other set of style rules, I'd recommend changing it. Either way, even if there is a disagreement on style, one way shouldn't be favored over the other, so I'd recommend just taking it out of the program altogether. Drewcifer

02:33, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This is a British English vs American English thing. AWB shouldn't change it one way or another. —METS501 (talk) 03:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I cannot reproduce it. MaxSem 07:44, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

What does that mean? You mean you can't make the program do it on another article? Drewcifer 08:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Right. Please provide a diff, but I currently suppose that it was caused by Find & Replace, or by operator's mistake. MaxSem 09:03, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

diff Drewcifer 09:11, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I've asked the user who made it about a clarification. MaxSem 09:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The matter is addressed in

(talk)

10:01, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Interesting. Thanks for the quote. But can the program detect how a quote is being used? There are cases where a comma should be inside a quotation such as: "You see," said Drew, "can AWB tell the difference?" That's a much more common usage than the other. Drewcifer 10:13, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Obviously, the earlier example can be turned on its head by alternate usage [Arthur said, "The situation is deplorable."] (the sentence-within-the-sentence, including the period mark, becomes a part of the quote). Under ideal circumstances, the AWB is overseen and guided by an experienced user cognizant of the Manual of Style in all its complexities (not nearly always the case, as we know). If one disagrees with a specific detail of a multi-detail AWB edit or series of edits, the individual point in question can be restored to its original form, accompanied by an edit summary quoting the particular application of the Manual of Style applicable to the situation.

(talk)

10:56, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

This is not something AWB is doing on its own. I have my AWB 'Find and Replace' set up to change <comma><quote> to <quote><comma> as per the Manual of Style, as mentioned above. If there's a particular place where this is wrong, I'd be glad to change it back. However, I've been making this change (as part of other more substantial corrections) to articles for a long time now; I've never seen a case where the final comma logically belonged inside the quote and no-one has ever objected to any of these changes. In the examples that started this discussion I'm in no doubt that the comma does logically belong outside the quotes. (By contrast, although there are often cases where logically the final full stop/period ought to be moved outside the quotes, these are harder to distinguish, so I don't attempt to automate that change.) Colonies Chris 18:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Given that the MoS says in certain circumstances a comma should come after a quote, the edit that I was initially concerned with seems ok. But there are cases where a comma should be in the quotation marks. Ideally, the editor should be able to tell the difference, but I doubt this is often the case. So I'm just worried that this program is changing something based on the user's ability to interpret an obscure rule that the majority of its users don't know about. I imagine the majority of edits go something like this: "AWB says I should change it, I guess it's right." Whether or not a particular edit is correct or incorrect, I don't think it's something that should be included into a semi-automated program. Drewcifer 18:48, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Please read what people are trying to tell you. It's not AWB, it's custom replacements this particular user created and uses for his own tasks. MaxSem 18:59, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Oooooh, gotcha. Nevermind than. Drewcifer 03:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with AWB. All I know is that, in one of the articles I watch (Free Republic, about a political website), there's a quotation from the site's founder that includes a misspelled word. AWB shouldn't be used to alter verbatim quotations. In this instance, the error has been marked with "sic" but it was "corrected" again today. People using AWB need to check the context more closely. If an error in a quotation is such that you doubt it was so in the original, please check it yourself or at least query it on the talk page rather than just automatically altering the quotation. JamesMLane t c 16:56, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, things like that are always a problem, and that's why we don't let any users run the typo fixing feature on automatic. That means that this is really the users' responsibility, not the software's. —METS501 (talk) 18:06, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

JamesMLane, Please feel free to leave a polite note on the talk page of the user who made the "correction error". The user who did it probably did not WL the page and won't know that you reverted, so a polite note will help get their attention and hopefully make them more aware of their actions. If they continue to do this, they could end up with their access removed. --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 01:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Presumably it would help if AWB was a bit more careful about stuff that was contained within one of the various <quote> tags though? You can understand why people might miss a one-letter change in the middle of a dense piece of text, perhaps make it default to requiring users to positively change stuff in quotes rather than requiring them to undo an auto-change. FlagSteward 14:56, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

How about a Userbox for users to put on their userpage, so they could identify themselves?

Feel Free to make one.

Reedy Boy

19:16, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Like Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Userbox. — xaosflux ^Talk 15:24, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Cheers xaosflux - I thought there was one somewhere.

Reedy Boy

16:06, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi guys. I do a lot of article assessment (High Start etc) for various Projects, which means that ideally I'd like to have the whole article in 'view' mode in the main screen, and edit the Talk page in the edit box. Is there a way of doing this? The best I've come up so far is to have two instances of AWB running, one editing the Talks and one the articles, but it's suboptimal. Failing that could we have an "Article Assessment" mode (or plugin?) on the wish list? ;-/ FlagSteward 14:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Kingbotk/Plugin. MaxSem

15:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

That's the ticket, cheers. Once I'd sussed where the new tabs were that is.... ;-/ Would be even better if you could edit the Talk page while Previewing the article page though. FlagSteward 01:28, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

When I run the program, I can't see the bottom buttons such as "add" because they are cutoff for some reason. When I try to resize it or use a different screen resolution it does nothing and makes no difference. When I resize it seems to stay cutoff. How can I fix this? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 00:56, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Visit

WP:AWB/B archives and notice that it's alreadyfixed. MaxSem

05:20, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

How is this possible, I've seen it done before. --User:Charitwo/Sig 16:39, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

#Frequently asked questions. MaxSem 16:46, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

If I read this tab correctly, AWB can upload logs of activity. I've tried to get this to work, but I get nothing. I've checked the archives here, and the User Manual, but I can't figure it out. Can someone help out? --Kbdank71 14:19, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Generally only used for bot activity, but should work fine for normal users. It did work last time it was checked. What did you do?

Reedy Boy

17:31, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's what I did (granted, I had no idea what to do, so I was guessing at everything): Clicked on "Log to Wiki Code", then "Upload", unchecked "Add to Watchlist". At this point I think I clicked on "Turn on", chose the desktop, clicked "Apply", created a profile and entered my password. I didn't know what else to do then, as nothing was happening. I made some changes, but nothing was added to the log file and nothing was uploaded. --Kbdank71 20:37, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Sounds about right in general. You will notice there is the number of lines. It will only upload when it hits the number of lines. Minimum is 1000 lines (may want to set it to that to test it out). Try doing quite a bit of stuff till you hit the 1k lines. It should then auto-upload.

Reedy Boy

20:57, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Makes sense. Of course, nothing is even going into my log files. The only thing that happens is *Logging: WikiFunctions.dll v4.0.0.0 *'''[[7 September]] [[2007]] 11:09 Initialising log.''' and then nothing after that, no matter what I do in AWB. --Kbdank71 15:41, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

When I wanted to stop last night, I saved my (long) list as a text file. Today, I can still find the Save List As Text File bit, but no-where to choose to open my saved list. Help ! thisisace 23:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Click the "make from" box. It's an option there. --Izno 01:25, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you. thisisace 18:07, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

I demand an edition of AutoWikiBrowser for Mac OS X! It would make my life so much easier. (Also, I wouldn't have to keep booting into my Windows partition to do something like generate a list).

If it wasn't you I would remove this comment as trolling :-) It can't happen, so don't stay awake waiting for it :-) —METS501 (talk) 02:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Afaict AWB is highly tied into microsoft technology and removing that dependency would basically mean a complete rewrite. Plugwash 12:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you have an Intel chipped Mac? If so, you can use Parallels Desktop for Mac or VMware Fusion to run Windows programs without rebooting. I don't know of any reason why AWB wouldn't work with them. (Unfortunately, I bought my newest Mac about 3 weeks before the Intel Macs came out, so I can only use AWB at work). --Fabrictramp 13:37, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I believe a few users do do that currently...

Reedy Boy

13:41, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Can AWB work on Windows ME?

Not sure. Try it out and let us know :-) —METS501 (talk) 03:00, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

It does indeed. -

Talk

19:45, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Does it not through the error about not supporting unicode or whatever? If not, we'll add it to the main page

Reedy Boy

21:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

D'oh. I have XP, not ME. Sorry. -

Talk

21:38, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi,
I've use AutoWikiBrowser a lot last week on my admin (bureaucrat) account at fr.guildwars.wikia.com (same username as here) and did some needed work. But the list of things to do just keep growing and the software ask me to manually validate every changes. So, i've asked for a bot account that is nammed Vorlax1. Got it. But now, even though i've made a check page, AutoWikiBrowser just keep saying that "Vorlax1 is not enable to use this."

Can you help me a little ? TulipVorlax 20:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Think it needs to be a bot on the master page too... AFAIK

Reedy Boy

20:34, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

And this page would be on wikia.com or wikipedia.org ? TulipVorlax 20:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

[15] is the central Wikia Checkpage

Reedy Boy

21:09, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, i know where it is. Thanks. I'll ask them about this. If they put it on that list and it still dont work, i'll return... TulipVorlax 21:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok! It can log in now. A staff guy added the bot name on the central check page. Wonderfull. But now, every attempts to make a list of page did absolutly nothing. I even try to get links from the Main page, nada! I'll go check the others help pages around here but if someone understand more than me what is happening, i'll be gratefull if he would give me a hint. TulipVorlax 01:18, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Just to keep you informed, i can make a list with a Google search. Strange. TulipVorlax 02:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Geez ! I've just downloaded the previous version of AutoWikiBrowser and now i can get a list from a category again. But, now, it just keep asking me to upgrade. so annoying ! TulipVorlax 02:52, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

You'll need to have api.php installed on that wiki. —METS501 (talk) 02:55, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, i've read the update notes but was thinking this was already part of a normal wiki installation. I've asked Wikia staff about this. TulipVorlax 03:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikia staff reported that api.php is already installed on Wikia. It's just that it's not in ...wikia.com/w/api.php but in ...wikia.com/api.php. See this link for confirmation of it's presence : http://fr.guildwars.wikia.com/api.php Wikia staff said i should configure the bot to use the correct path to the script. But, i dont think we can do that. Unless maybe, by modifying the source if it can be compile with SharpDevelop (i dont have MS-Studio). If there's is no solution, i'll just keep using previous version sadly loosing Google support. See ya TulipVorlax 04:13, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, that wont help. You could change it, There is probably no easy way for us to do this in code, without having to have an if for wikia... Unless you can get the wikia admins to do a symlink or some other referencing of api.php in /w/...?

Reedy Boy

13:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't think i can ask them that. I'll continue to use version 4.000 for as long as i will need it or will be able to. And then, might delete the bot account because i'm unable to use the python bot. Thanks for your help in understanding what was wrong. TulipVorlax 18:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, just as a side point, googling uses a different method for searching! If you ask nicely, i cant see why they'd have a problem doing a symlink for api.php.... Most other stuff that work straight from mediawiki, use api.php

Reedy Boy

18:31, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I've post information already. There : [16] Last reply. I dont know what is a symlink but leave the decision of letting the software get unuseable to them. As i said, i will continue to use previous version because i need it to be able to get category listing, as for Google, if i ever need to use it (my wiki is not referenced much; i get too few results), i can fire the other one (i have both version installed) get a list and save it for loading it in the other one. Lol. TulipVorlax 18:43, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

A symlink is a symbolic link. A shortcut, in affect.

Reedy Boy

18:58, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the full version of the name of this. Now i can read this : symbolic link (or even better this Lien symbolique) TulipVorlax 19:58, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Je ne pas parles vous Francais (or something like that) ;)

Reedy Boy

20:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

héhé! I live in Montréal. And yes, my first language is french (that's why my wikia project is also in french) and i learn english on TV and video games like Final Fantasy 7 (they try to teach me in school but they did not succeed). As weird as it seems, i dont speak english. Lol. When english people ask me directions downtown in my city, it's like my brain freeze or crash... Lol. But i can translate written english to french or the other way around. Aside that, i dont know if Wikia use Unix or a compatible OS. I hope they will find a way some day. They do a real lot for us already and they don't always have time for the troubles of a single user even when it's the founder of a wikia. TulipVorlax 20:23, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Although its generally an OS thing, most webservers can do a similar thing. Chances are they're using apache, which, if they are, can do it.

Reedy Boy

20:38, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

<butting in> That's why it doesn't work on the project i work on... :( --Izno 06:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I am unable to see the entire set options menu, as it goes below the bottom of my screen and doesn't scroll. I tried increasing how many pixels my screen will display, but that has had no effect on the problem. Is there a way for me to fix this? Thanks, The Hybrid 21:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Reedy Boy

21:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Alright, so if wait for the next release to come out, then it won't be a problem anymore? The Hybrid 06:35, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

We dont know. We tried to fix it in 4.1, but it didnt seem to be fixed...

Reedy Boy

10:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Alright, I just have one last question: I downloaded 3.9 like the bug report said, but it won't let me edit with it because it isn't the most recent version. Is there a way around this, or should I just be patient and wait for a new version without the bug to come out? Thanks, The Hybrid 19:54, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Its ok with 3.9... There has to be a common factor. We will hopefully get this sorted, and soon as we do, we will get a release out.

Reedy Boy

20:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not allowed to edit with 3.9. I keep getting a notice saying that I have to download the most recent version in order to edit. Is there a way around this? The Hybrid 20:13, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Nope, it was disabled, not because it broke anything, just because it was really out of date.

Reedy Boy

20:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Alright, that's what I needed to know. Thanks, The Hybrid 20:38, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Is it allowed/possible to create articles using AWB? I want to create a lot of articles with a lot of information similar except for the name and the corresponding link to foreign wiki. Is it possible to do this? For instance to input a list of articles to be created as well as the redundant info? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 15:34, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's possible. Make a list of pages to be created and use "Append/Prepend text" in the "More..." tab to specify article content. Jogers (talk) 15:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I want to make variables though. For instance I want to change some things in the text for each article and the thing changed is the name of the article itself. How is that done? For instance I need to create a list of articles about a district in Germany and the only thing changed in the text is the name of the article. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 16:02, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

If the name of the article subject is identical to the page title you can use "Find and replace" to change some string in the appended text to %%title%% (it's a keyword that represents the title of the current article). Otherwise, I see no easy way to do this. Jogers (talk) 16:16, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually there are two variables. The name of the article in the text and the alternative German language version of the article. I want both variables to equal the name of the article which I would be creating at the time. Wikidudeman ^(talk) 16:47, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The solution above should work then. Just remember to check "Apply after general fixes" in the "Find and replace" menu because it won't work otherwise. Jogers (talk) 16:59, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

So what should I do? Create the articles with specific things that need to be changed and then after creating them go through and replace what needs to be changed with the "find and replace" tool? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 17:03, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's going to work. I have a list of articles that I need to create and this is what is in the "append" area:

'''Eixen''' is a municipality in the

I want to replace "Eixen" with the names of the articles that I plan to create, I.E. "Behnkendorf" or "Deyelsdorf". How do I create an article and add the above as the content except replace "Eixen" with the name of the article being created? Wikidudeman ^(talk) 17:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Create the "Find and replace" rule that will change "Eixen" to "%%title%%". Jogers (talk) 11:27, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It's actually easier to

variable. Jogers (talk

) 21:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

made a feature request that would take this even further. Regards, Ganeshk (talk

) 20:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

As of now, you can't. /Feature requests. —METS501 (talk) 20:58, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to put this. I essentially can't use AWB from behind a proxy server (returns error "The remote server returned an error: (407) Proxy Authentication Required."). I'm not sure if it's just because I have the wrong settings somewhere (in which case I just need some help), whether I have got everything right and it just wont' work (in which case it's a bug), or if it simply doesn't have the required funcitonality (in which case I need to go to "requested features"). Which is it, and can it be solved? Happy‑melon 14:04, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you use Internet Explorer? Jogers (talk) 14:37, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

It has been reported as a Bug and also a feature request. AWB doesnt actually have the feature, so, its a feature request. In theory, it should follow the system IE settings, but this wouldnt work for internal processes. It has already been requested as a feature on the page.

Reedy Boy

17:42, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Did you know there's a magic word that report the scripts path ? I mean, of course you know, but, could this be used on a sort of check page to tell the bot where is the script on that perticular wiki ? On Wikia it seems to give an empty string. Here, it give this : /w
TulipVorlax 21:59, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I haven't used it in a while, so I don't know if it's the new version that I just downloaded, or AWB in general. Anyone having problems? --Kbdank71 20:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

What sort of problems are you having? —METS501 (talk) 20:57, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I can load categories using the CFD plugin, and start the process, but as soon as I press save for the first change, it just doesn't do anything. It says saving, but it doesn't. That's pretty much it. --Kbdank71 21:03, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I hate to ask this, but did you forget to click the check to the left of the plugin name? --After Midnight ⁰⁰⁰¹ 17:31, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, the typical "Is your computer plugged in?" troubleshooting question. I've asked that many times myself.  :) No, I can confirm that the plugin was checked. Although, after upgrading today the problem seems to have resolved itself. --Kbdank71 16:33, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

A specific script that does not work with IE7 on Vista is wikEd, finally figured this out after trying to figure out what was keeping AWB from running since I got a new computer in April. I thought I had read all of the FAQs, but I guessed I missed the one about some scripts not being compatible with some IE versions, I discovered it accidentally today when I was logged in with IE to check my paystub (for some reason the Disney employee portal doesn't work with Firefox) and rather than load Firefox I decided to just stay in IE to go to Wikipedia, and IE refused to load the page. Knowing that AWB uses IE, I slapped myself in the head and said "That's been the problem!". I figured it was wikEd because before IE barfed on the page it had a broken image icon on the little wikEd icon in the corner; I disabled wikEd and AWB (and IE) started working. Would it be a good idea to specifically list wikEd as a script that doesn't work on Vista in tha FAQ?--HarryHenryGebel 16:44, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

The latest (0.9.44 - yesterday) version of wikEd is indeed not compatible with IE7, I will fix that tonight. I doubt that previous versions were incompatible. Please use the wikEd talk page for wikEd-related problems. Thanks, Cacycle 17:11, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Cacycle, sorry I thought since the wikEd talk page asked for help making it work on Vista that the problem was already known there. I tried before in April and June to get AWB working and couldn't get it to work; I assumed that since the fix I made today made it work that wikEd was the problem all along. If it was popups or something in monobook at those times I'm sorry for the mistaken assumption.--HarryHenryGebel 18:09, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

How to batch input the disambiguation pages that has links that need to be repaired to fix them in AWB? --Dunnob 18:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

I made a change to the EB1911 template on Wikisource a while ago and I'd like to use AWB's find and replace feature to help fix some of the articles. I want AWB to make changes to articles on the list that just have the parameters 'previous', 'next', and 'wikipedia'. Also, the value for |wikipedia= should be in the format [[Wikipedia:Whatever|Whatever]] or [[w:Whatever|Whatever]] or [[Wikipedia:Whatever]] or [[w:Whatever]]. So the occurences of the templates it will change should look something like this:

{{EB1911 |previous=Autocracy |next=AutoWikiBrowser |wikipedia=[[Wikipedia:Automatic|Automatic]]}}

I would like the |wikipedia= paramater to just have the word. e.g.

{{EB1911 |previous=Autocracy |next=AutoWikiBrowser |wikipedia=Automatic}}

I would also like a list of all the articles it skipped (those would be found in the logs section, right?). I hope my question was somewhat clear. Psychless 20:53, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd appreciate an answer, as it will take me over 80 hours, at least, to finish this without AWB. Psychless 21:28, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

What's the problem? Do you need somebody to help you write proper regular expressions? Jogers (talk) 12:11, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that would be it. I've tried to do it myself with no success. Psychless 01:19, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, use the database scanner to search the relevant database dump for articles containing the following regex:

{{EB1911 *\|previous=.*?\|next=.*?\|wikipedia=\[\[(Wikipedia|w):(.*?)\]\]}}

This will create the list of articles to work on. After you do this, use advanced find and replace settings as follows:

• create an "in template rule" that catches the EB1911 template
• create a "template parameter rule" that catches the wikipedia parameter as a subrule of the above
• finally, create a subrule of the rule above that replaces \[\[(Wikipedia|w):([^\|]*?)(\|(.*?))?\]\] with $2.

It worked in my sandbox for all cases you provided. Hope that helps. Jogers (talk) 12:45, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Is there anyway to have the find and replace ignore certain phrases? For example, I'm going through and cleaning up contractions, in accordance to the "copy edit guidelines". In a lot of The Simpson's episodes, it mentions a book called "I Can't Believe It's a Bigger and Better Updated Unofficial Simpsons Guide", so it tags on and changes can't to can not, and it's to is not, since that is how i have it set. Is there anyway to make it ignore that title as a whole, but still change other times can't and it's show up?

as the changes are done in order, wouldn't it work to just make the last find and replace in your list to (a) find the expanded 'over-corrected' version of the title and (b) replace it with the desired version? Kahuroa 10:45, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Greetings, AWBers. I've got a bit of a pickle that I hope you can help me with. Recently,

Hi. It should work if you use the special page function and copy completely the URL (after "Special:") to the text box in AWB. Make a list of the first 5000, and then click "next 5000" and copy the new url. —METS501 (talk) 21:21, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, excellent! Thanks you. --Rkitko ^(talk) 02:36, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Hello. I tried AWB's "general fixes" option, but AWB does indistinct sorting for interwiki tag. Does not AWB's sort alphabetically? --Nightshadow28 12:49, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

It sorts according to the interwiki sort order. I think on en.wiki we use InterwikiLocalAlpha. —METS501 (talk) 12:53, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for speedy response. I see. I am a little strange feeling, but I understood its reason. Thanks! --Nightshadow28 13:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

• simple link fix don't work for me if I check that option, [[Iwan Pietrowicz Pawłow| can't be matched in *[[1849]] – [[Iwan Pietrowicz Pawłow|Iwan Pawłow]],

• how to use \r\n ? \n doesn't work, AWB places it as text string, I read something about \s*\n but don't know if it should be on the "find" or/and "replace with" side, and I'm not sure if it works as previously \r\n? --84.234.42.68 23:49, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

"Ignore templates, refs..." option ignores all kinds of links by design. If you intend to use "\n" in find and replace you have to check the "Regex" option. Jogers (talk) 14:59, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

it is checked like it was when using \r\n (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#.5Cr_bug_in_regex_mode) --84.234.42.68 23:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Use AWB to perform the task that is being discussed here? (Scroll down to the bottom of this conversation) We are wondering if I can use AWB to deliver a weekly message/notification about the Collaboration of the Week or something. I don't know how I would go about doing this, as I mainly use AWB for DAB/find and replace and general editing. Thoughts, suggestions, comments ..all appreciated :) Thanks! --Naha|^(talk) 17:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I posted about this some months ago but it still seems a problem for me. Because of my internet connection, I need to go through the secure server to remain signed in to Wikipedia. The regular http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... address will, within a few pages, say that I am signed out. I'm unclear about the root cause of this, whether my IP changes or what, but the effect is that loading pages in AutoWikiBrowser quickly fails by saying I'm not logged in. Of course, the only way AWB knows how to present a log in page is through the above address. What I need is a way to sign in through https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/ and for AWB to access the pages through the secure server.

I'm glum about the possibilities of AWB being able to do this. I expect/predict the AWB way of accessing pages is probably wired deep into the program and altering it to serve a minority such as myself is unlikely to happen. I'm not using proxies (at least not that I know) and I swear my IP seems stable within any given session.

Because it's unlikely for AWB to change for me and my situation, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or workarounds for me to employ to be able to work with AWB. It used to work fairly well for long periods of time, sometimes processing hundreds of pages and allowing me to make changes and corrections to many of them before it said I was logged out. Currently AWB is unusable for me and I really like it so I'm frustrated. Any suggestions? Pig^man 18:17, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#en-interwiki_links it is mentioned that the practice of putting

<!--[[en:Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser]]-->

Is being seen...

This could trip up the interwiki sorting.

using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Text;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using System.Collections;
using System.Xml;
using System.Diagnostics;
using System.Threading;
using DotNetWikiBot;

class MyBot : Bot
{
    static Regex inBrackets = new Regex("(\\([A-Za-z ]*\\))", RegexOptions.Compiled);
    public static void Main()
    {
        Site enWP = new Site("http://en.wikipedia.org", "Reedy_Boy", "*****");
        PageList pl = new PageList(enWP);
        pl.FillFromAllPageLinks("User:Reedy Boy/American footballers");

        foreach (Page p in pl)
        {
            string newTitle = p.title.Replace(inBrackets.Match(p.title).Captures[0].Value, "(American football)");
            Page p2 = new Page(enWP, newTitle);
            p.Load();
            if (!p.IsRedirect())
                p.RenameTo(newTitle, "Renaming page due to bad disambiguation");
        }
    }
}

\[\[([A-Z][a-z]*?(?:\s[A-Z][a-z]*?)?)\,\s([A-Z][a-z]*?(?:\s[A-Z][a-z]*?)?)\|\1\]\]\,\s\[\[\2\]\]

cLBracket = "\["
cRBracket = "\]"
cPipe = "\|"
cUpper = "[A-Z]"
cLower = "[a-z]"
cLazyMatch = "*?"
cComma = "\,"
cSpace = "\s"
cBackRef1 = "\1"
cBackRef2 = "\2"

StartWiki = lcLBracket + lcLBracket
EndWiki = lcRBracket + lcRBracket
PlaceWord = lcUpper + lcLower + lcLazyMatch
City = PlaceWord + "(?:" + cSpace + PlaceWord + ")?"
State = City

lcFirstLink ;
	= StartWiki ;
	+ "(" + City + ")" ;
	+ cComma + cSpace ;
	+ "(" + State + ")";
	+ cPipe ;
	+ cBackRef1 ;
	+ EndWiki
	
lcSecondLink ;
	= StartWiki ;
	+ cBackRef2 ;
	+ EndWiki

lcRegExp ;
	= lcFirstLink ;
	+ cComma + cSpace ;
	+ lcSecondLink