Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Archive 5

Things to do

~~Remove categories.~~
Add spell checker. (waiting for next release of WinFX)
~~Ability to create list from searching the database dump.~~ (done - see User:Bluemoose/DataBaseSearchTool)
Disambiguation tools
~~HTML entities to unicode~~ ~~No point in duplicating User:Curpsbot-unicodify~~ done anyway.
Integrate the diff engine - long term goal (probably difficult).
Make compatible with other wikimedia projects/languages - long term goal (not very difficult, but too much complication for now)

What does remove categories mean? Do you mean, remove deleted categories from a page? In addition, what is a "database dump"? I am currently working on a spell checker, though. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 23:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I mean about categories, the database dump can be found here, it is the entire wikipedia database in XML format. How are you going about the spell checker? I have a plan to implement one fairly simply, but am waiting on Microsoft to release the next beta of WinFX. Martin 09:43, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I started a script to fix misspellings with navigation popups autoedits, but haven't worked on it in a while. I recently was thinking I could change the script to make an array of words from Wikipedia:Lists of common misspellings/For machines and correct them using the AWB - I just need more C# training. Why are you waiting for the next WinFX beta? I know it's the new Vista programming API, but how will that help you spell check? — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 20:48, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Because it has an extension to allow spell checking in textboxes and richtextboxes, so it would be really simple, and a lot better as it suggests the correct spelling just like a word processor does, which would be really cool. Martin 22:15, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Wow... there goes my project. (Does it have an "add" function to add words such as Wikipedia to the dictionary?) Even if you do get your hands on a copy of WinFX beta, how will you extend its benefits to all users? Microsoft is usually very protective. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 22:22, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

WinFX will be freely available, in the same way .NET is, I already have a beta, but AFAIK they havent released the beta with this functionality yet. I can't remember when it will be released properly, but I'll certainly be ready! Martin 22:27, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Check out how to use Word's spellchecker from a C# application - without WinFX. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 22:29, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Word must be installed on your computer for the above to work - what a pity. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 22:30, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Or maybe we should wait for WinFX - read about how much easier that option is - and it doesn't require Word. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 22:31, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

In the website above, people left comments about testing the spellchecker - it seems as if it is already out. — MATHWIZ2020 ^{TALK | CONTRIBS} 22:33, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

I have already made it interact with word, but is not very satisfactory. I dont think the public beta has the spell checker, but I'll have another look. thanks Martin 22:46, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

You are not enabled to use this

Why does it display that message? F e tofs ^Hello! 22:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S:Yes, I registered.

Download the latest version, 1.89, and see if that works. --M @th wiz 2020 22:56, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It worked with the same version I was using before. Strange. 00:45, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S: I will keep myself logged out to prevent it from stop working again :)

Spam protection?

While editing with the AWB, after I clicked save, I received some notice about "spam protection" but the AWB navigated to the next page on the list before I could read the page. When I went to my contribs, the edit I just made had not been saved. Does anyone know what happened? My best guess is that the MediaWiki software blocked my edit, possibly because I was editing too quickly. Any other guesses? --M @th wiz 2020 22:54, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

And four edits per minute maximum is, in my opinion, not enough to get me blocked out by MediaWiki. --M @th wiz 2020 22:55, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the devs are testing out some anti-spam measure. Martin 23:25, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Skip articles with no changes

I found that if the AWB is out of focus when it finds an article with no changes, it will remove the article from the list in the bottom right but the browser will not navigate to the next article on the list - to do so, I have to select start again. Is this problem similar to the one with the save button and, if so, can you fix it using the invoke member script? Thanks. --M @th wiz 2020 23:03, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

It wasnt a focus issue, thankfully (to you) that was completely elimated. It was because of the measures to stop links being clicked in the browser, I have fixed it now, will upload soon, along with other minor tweaks and fixes. Martin 23:36, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

External images

I'm sorry to be writing here so much, but I found that a lot of people write: [[Image:http://www.something.com/image.jpg]] (or the same thing with one bracket on each side). Could you add regexs to the bad link repair section that removes the "image:"? (I would write this could, actually, before the bad link repair so that the AWB could remove the double brackets in the bad link repair section, if necessary.) Thanks! --M @th wiz 2020 23:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Windows 98 ... again

Hi again AWB team. I'm just messaging in the hope of getting a progress report into the development of AWB on Windows 98. I was told a months or so ago that oyu'd work on it - any news? --Cel es tianpower ^háblame 23:34, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, no success. Martin 11:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Typo fixing

I am fixing various typos in Wikipedia, and ironically saw a particular one I'd like to tell you: "AutoWikiBrower" (In the top part of the window)

P.S: You can attribute this comment to User:Fetofs.

You Are Not Able To Use This

Could it be my user name (,!) that's causing the problem? (I can see that I'm logged in btw)

—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-14 04:42Z

I still have this issue with 1.9.3.0 and get this error when it tries to send email "'Error Report Not Sent Due To Another Error"

-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 22:35, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Ha! I find that error message extremely amusing. Did it actually say "due to another error" or did it give an error number/summary? --M @th wiz 2020 22:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

That was the exact message :D -- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 01:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

No, thats what it would have said, it had another error when trying to email me the details of the problem. This is highly frustrating as there is no way to determine what causes this problem without being able to reproduce it, or even get a few details from the error report. Martin 23:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

How does it send the e-mail? Using Special:Emailuser? If not, have the AWB visit that page and submit. --M @th wiz 2020 23:03, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It sent the email programtically, it worked pretty well for me, oh well, I think I have finally fixed this issue now anyway. Martin 23:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Issue Resolved (not able to use this error) as of 1.9.4.0 Thank you very much!

—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-16 01:47Z

Version 1.91 download problem

The newest version as per the version history on WP:AWB seems to be 1.91. I have just downloaded it and if I run that it says it is version 1.8.8.1 (in the about box). Oh my! There is a newer version and I can't get that (this is torture :-). Using my older version (1.9.0) in the mean time.... --Adrian Buehlmann 08:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I have the same issue. —-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-14 08:14Z

ObAOL: me, too!!! Unfortunately, my system won't allow me to run it outside the ZIP (WTF? I get an error and end up reporting it to MS) and I overwrote version 1.9.0 with the "newer" version

. Wasn't it lucky I still had the unzipped copy I had tried—and failed—to run? FWIW this is the "error signature" which Windows was kind enough to allow me:

EventType : clr20r3 P1 : autowikibrowser.exe P2 : 1.9.0.0
P3 : 43efd52c P4 : autowikibrowser P5 : 1.9.0.0 P6 : 43efd52c
P7 : 1b P8 : 44 P9 : system.security.security

which is all that I could manage to extract from the stupid error-trapping system. Where's Dr Watson when you need him? —Phil | Talk 10:11, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Yep, same problem for me. It's showing as 1.8.8.1. — FireFox • T • 10:29, 14 February 2006

Well that was bizarre, I have uploaded 1.92 now, it seems to work. I dont even have copies of old version so I have no idea where 1.881 cam from. Martin 10:39, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Disk crash of your internet server provider, followed by a restore with an outdated version from a backup :-)? That's why we use distinct file names for each version of a product release at my work. Something like AutoWikiBrowser-1.92.zip. --Adrian Buehlmann 10:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, please do this. It might even be a caching problem: I have no way of forcing a cache refresh (that I know of) since that URL is obviously not a valid HTML page and I can't persuade IE to stick with it long enough to allow a Ctrl-F5 (it simply reverts to the blank page)

. It's easy enough to rename the file when saving, it's retrieving it that's the problem. What's new in 1.92 BTW? There's no notice of it on WP:AWB. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 11:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I guess it isnt to much bother to do this (I will from 1.93 +). 1.92 only has some minor tweaks to regexes, I only uploaded it because I wanted to over write that wierd old version. thanks Martin 11:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Feature request: load/save settings from/to named files

Since I can't run AWB outside the ZIP file, I can't actually get to the settings file. This means, among other things, that things like this are of no use to me. I would like AWB to provide a dialog to allow me to choose one of several settings files, please. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 10:15, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

You can't run AWB outside the ZIP file? Strange. Is this a security restriction imposed by your employer which provides your Windows box? I can extract the exe from the zip file and save that in a folder, with the settings file saved to the same folder. I can then copy the settings files to different names and copy them back to the standard name. So I have several settings files. To my knowledge, if I doubleclick onto something inside a zip-archive, winzip (or whatever you use) extracts that file to a temp folder and opens/runs it from there. If you can do that, then I guess you should be able to run exe's from the temp folder. Puzzled. --Adrian Buehlmann 10:38, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

It's totally bizarre, I have no idea what is causing it, and I would be very surprised if our admin people had imposed this. If I extract the executable from the ZIP file and attempt to execute it, I simply get the error I reported above. I can run it from inside the ZIP file perfectly well, except that it cannot—obviously—see the XML settings file. In any case, wouldn't it be much more convenient if you could pick a file from a dialogue, rather than all that messy copying (which runs the obvious risk of copying in the wrong direction, overwriting stuff and the usual garbage)? HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 13:48, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

No problem with the save under a name. But you should definitely nail down your bizarre run from a zip file problem. --Adrian Buehlmann 15:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

"You have new messages"

Yesterday when I was delivering Esperanza news using AWB, I noticed when you had a new message, it comes up with a message box saying something along the lines of "You have a new message. Please answer it before continuing." This confused me, seeing as when I went to look at the message in my other browser, there wasn't one. Then I realised that the page in question that I was trying to save (User talk:SWD316) had a fake "You have new messages" banner at the top. Because AWB thought I had new messages, it refused to save so I had to deliver that message manually. It's not a huge deal, but I was wondering if you could stop the browser from preventing you to save a page if you have new messages (...or not). Is it just an issue with stopping people putting fake messages at the top of their userpage/talk pages? — FireFox • T • 11:00, 14 February 2006

It will distinguish between real and fake messages in next version. thanks Martin 11:30, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The point of this feature is, if you're making controversial edits, an admin can remove you from the checkpage and leave you a message. The AWB then stops, and, when you restart the AWB, it will see you are not enabled and not let you edit. (This precaution is due to the controversy surrounding User:Bobblewik's date removing script.) --M @th wiz 2020 23:05, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Version 1.92 not working?

I downloaded the new version 1.92, but somehow am unable to connect properly. I'm sure it's the right version, I'm listed and I definitely am logged in at IE, but it still gives me the usual "Not enabled" message. I hope v1.93 will solve my troubles. It also made me think whether, seeing as from now on, you intend to label the versions differently, it might make sense to provide the second-newest edition as well. E.g. in my case v1.91 might work, but I can't get it (and my old version is far outdated, didn't use AWB for two weeks or so) -- Genesis 13:59, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem stays with v1.93. The tool says I'm using IE 6.0.2800.1106, Windows version 5.1 and .NET 2.0.50727.42. I am using Windows XP and my standard browser is Firefox 1.5.0.1. I'm using a router to connect to the internet -- Genesis 18:20, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Did it ask you if you wanted to send an error report. Martin 19:02, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Nope. It says "This version is not enabled, please download the newest version. If you have the newest version, check that Wikipedia is online." -- Genesis 20:57, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I thought you meant that it said you weren't registered. The servers have been intermitant recently, it's possible that that is the reason, try again when they are properly online. Martin 22:23, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

For me they are quite stable now, but I still get the same error (now with v1.94). Am I the only one having this problem? It worked well when I was using v1.8x (1.82 or something, not sure). Did you change anything at the login process? Or might there have been any changes with Wikipedia? -- Genesis 15:20, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Error message has changed for v1.95. Now it's "Check page failed to load" -- Genesis 14:30, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

For some reason it's just not loading the page properly for you, I don't know why. Martin 15:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

The weird thing is that it did work at older versions... I can't understand why it won't work anymore, all of a sudden -- Genesis 15:55, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Thought I'd mention that, somehow, AWB is working again. I believe it to be connected to other problems when trying to access login pages, as both were solved by a change of my Internet Security tool. - Genesis 23:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Archiving??

Is it not about time to clear up some of the resolved issues and put them in an archive? This page is really getting long. Thanks. Eagle (talk) (desk) 21:13, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S. if not I won't care either way, this is just an observation.

Archive: Not that it's really votable, but yup, definately! The page size now exceeds the reasonable 50kb size and it takes some time to load on my PDA now. :( --Dan ^(Talk)|@ 22:25, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Using the AWB framework for trivial edits

I had a discussion with FireFox on this matter. I believe AWB is a great tool, but one should not use it for edits of this kind. Such edits just clog one's watchlist, without providing any tangible benefit.

Another idea would be to provide a specific edit summary when changing something, just saying "cleanup" is too generic I think. Comments? Oleg Alexandrov (talk) 21:16, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, the edit summaries are editable by the person using AWB. It is up to them to accurately describe what they are doing. For example, this is my bot account's explanation of what it is doing. --Syrthiss 21:24, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

This is exactly why it says "Avoid making extremely minor edits such as adding or removing a single space or replacing an underscore in a template call with a space." as a rule for using this software. Martin 22:22, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Article skipping...

Noticed that AWB isn't opening articles with certain characters - examples are Jason "Jay Dawg" Arsenault and The Body Soul & Spirit Expo. I was working my way through a list and it told me that both of those articles were redlinks. --Syrthiss 00:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Fixed in 1.95, thanks. Martin 23:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

UI tweak

About the dialog window for setting up "Find & Replace":

There should be spaces in the window title, which is currently FindandReplace.
The contents should auto-resize with the window. I wanted to make it bigger to work on a long regex, but the list control stays the same size.
It should be possible to re-order the items in the list. I am assuming here, based on the sample Adrian gave for migrating {{journal reference}}, that the list is traversed top-to-bottom and each regex applied to the whole article in turn. in this case, it would be helpful if it were possible to:
1. insert a new row in the middle of the list;
2. move existing rows up and down.

HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 15:04, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

First two done, may get around to third at some point. Martin 23:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I looked at it and I thought "you cunning bugger, you've connived around the problem by simply taking away the maximise button". Then I thought to actually try it, and it works! Yay! —Phil | Talk 15:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Alpha sort interwiki links

Even though I have this marked as on in the menu, it doesn't seem to activate unless I have the "general fixes" switched on as well, and I don't necessarily want to fiddle about with adding/removing odd lines. Is it possible that we could have finer-grained control over these rather nice features, please? HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 15:39, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I never quite figured out what this meant. Doesn't AWB sort interwikis by default (or at least, I know it used to, but it could have change without me noticing)? --M @th wiz 2020 22:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, previously it did it automatically. It would be difficult to seperate out all the different processes, as some rely on others having been done, otherwise it is difficult to handle every possible situation. Martin 22:43, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

"Remove from list" works differently now

Apropos of above, I also noticed that AWB had trouble with an article ("If This Goes On—"). What I used to be able to do was to remove the name from the list into the edit box, adjust the title and re-add the name back into the list. However when you remove the name, it no longer goes into the box: I had to hunt the article down and add it by hand. Cold we have this back, please? HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 17:51, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

It works better now (1.95). thanks Martin 23:48, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Server Error

Wikipedia just had a brief period where the servers were unavailable. I was using AWB at the time and when it tried to load an article it got the error page. It looked like it just kept trying to load the page over and over. The only way I could get it to stop was to exit the app. I would have liked to have been able to save my progress, but it didn't seem like I could interupt it & I didn't want to let it keep trying to re-load the article if the servers were having troubles. -- JLaTondre 02:45, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

What links here (inclusion)

Make list: Make from: What links here. In case of templates, it would be good if we could pickup only lines with "(inclusion)". A new option "What links here (inclusion)"? This would be very helpful for template orphaning. Phil also made a request on wikitech-l [1]. --Adrian Buehlmann 19:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Do you have an example of a template with both inclusion and non inclusion, so I can test if it works. thanks Martin 21:00, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Dont worry, found one, it seems to work fine. Martin 21:04, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

What links here: Redirects

Could you add another check-button to "What links here", making it possible to only add pages that link to the page via a redirect? It would make cleaning up pages like White Wolf, Inc. easier, I think. -- Genesis 12:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Ok, that's a good idea. I assume you are able to run the program properly now? Martin 12:59, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Nope ^_^ That was just a thing I had thought about earlier. -- Genesis 14:16, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Server errors and lost edits

AWB 1.9.6.0. I have loaded some regexes and AWB shows me a non-empty diff. Now I go and make some additional edits in the edit window on the lower right. Then I click on "Show changes" in order to update the diff. At the moment - don't ask me why - I mostly get an error from the server (this must be a server issue) for example I get a html page with an error message containing:

Request: POST http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1421_hypothesis&action=submit from 0.0.0.0 via srv10.wikimedia.org (squid/2.5 STABLE12) to en.wikipedia.org ([unknown])

Error: ERR_ZERO_SIZE_OBJECT, errno [No Error] at Fri, 17 Feb 2006 16.10:09 GMT

My problem now is: I'm stuck in this state. I can click "Preview" or "Show changes", but nothing happens. I can click on "Start the process" and AWB redoes the regexes, but my edits are thrown away then. BTW can it be that I get more server errors if I work with AWB compared to normal editing with Firefox? I know this is an odd question, but at the moment I feel I have a lot more server errors when working with AWB compared to normal editing with Firefox. Strange world. --Adrian Buehlmann 16:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Before you click "start", go to the edit window: right-click →"select all" & right-click →"copy"; optionally paste it into Notepad for safety. Click "start", go to the edit window: right-click →"select all" & right-click →"paste". HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 16:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia Servers don't run that stable right now. I'm using Firefox, too, and I experience errors and timeouts quite often when applying edits. Sometimes the servers are more stable, sometimes less. Maybe you just edited in one of those less stable periods. But maybe a back-button for AWB would be good. I just don't know how much trouble this could cause with the way the programm works (as it gets confused when you click in the browser window) -- Genesis 16:40, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

To answer the question about AWB vs Firefox, AWB is built using the IE framework, so however many errors AWB receives should be how many IE receives which may or may not be more than Firefox (I can't answer whether or not IE has more errors since I use only Firefox). --M @th wiz 2020 22:25, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to all for responding and especially to Martin for constantly improving AWB at such a remarkable pace. To the issue: I had some rough idea, but I don't know if it is worthy. How about (yet :-) another button "repeat" near that (very good!) "stop" button? I was thinking along the line that if AWB is stuck (however that may be caused) it might be possible for AWB to remember the name of the last article, the last action done (preview, diff or save) and the content for that article that was used on that last action. The user could then "help" AWB to detect that the last action failed (usually caused on the server side) and simply repeat that last action — without loosing any input the user might have done on that last action. It is probably difficult to detect for AWB and it might make matters simpler if AWB could get input from the user as the user sees immediately whether there was a server problem (thanks to the browser window). Just some rough brainstorming. BTW AWB has become a very strong tool now which makes things possible I would have never dreamt of before. Thanks again. --Adrian Buehlmann 09:36, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

pages describing character sets

It seems auto-wiki browser doesn't check for nowiki tags before changing and removes underscores from the second part of a piped link even when it would leave the link text totally blank. This can be damaging to pages describing character sets e.g. [2] Plugwash 16:37, 17 February 2006 (UTC) (later correction in bold)

That second problem is already known; the first one is not something I've encountered, thankfully. Unfortunately, it would appear that the intrepid user failed to check his changes: bad user, no biscuit! —Phil | Talk 16:52, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah i contacted the user too, but frankly i think that if you are going to promote a semi-automated tool to wikipedians its actions had better be well debugged! Plugwash 17:04, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

That's right, which is why it hasn't been deliberately promoted anywhere, and there is bold text next to the download link saying it is in development ;) Martin 17:11, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Minor requests

I just noticed these minor things while I was updating the user manual. They're petty and most people might not care, so you don't have to change them.

On General menu, change "WordWrap" to "Word wrap".
On General menu, change "Show preview instead of diff" to "Show preview instead of changes" (because "diff" button has since been renamed "show changes").
Don't begin file and help menus with a horizontal line (click on them to see what I mean).
On About menu, make a link to the online user manual.
Don't make the About box fade if the mouse isn't moved for three seconds - it sometimes gets annoying.
Make "stop" button same width as all other buttons.

Thanks again! --M @th wiz 2020 23:02, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Or, instead of making the "stop" button the full width, maybe add a "pause" button next to it that pauses the counter during bot mode. Since Wikipedians must monitor (or at least should monitor) their bots, they might notice changes that need to be made. By pausing the bot counter, they can make the changes and then click "pause" again (maybe have the text change to "unpause" once clicked?) to restart the timer. This is more efficient than stopping and starting since then any edits made to the edit box are undone and must be remade. --M @th wiz 2020 23:38, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

Mozilla?

Please.... Plus, why not make this project an open source? FWBOarticle

Please see Wikipedia talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Archive#Open Source. --M @th wiz 2020 21:52, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

thanx FWBOarticle

External links

I recently saw an AWB edit that changed childrens to children's in an external link ([3]) which broke the link. I realise that this is the responsibility of the user and so on, but would it be possible to stop the program making these types of changes to hyperlinks? Thanks. --Cherry blossom tree 00:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

That was my mistake, didn't look closely enough at the diffs... But yes, it would help to have an option to turn off the 'find and replace' feature for "http://" entities in external links. -- Marcika 01:47, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

I think the user was doing a typo fix for children's. --M @th wiz 2020 03:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. I was just suggesting that if it's possible to stop the program suggesting putting apostrophes into links then it might be a good idea to stop mistakes like this happening again.--Cherry blossom tree 23:48, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Memory usage

I dunno of this is just an unfortunate "feature" caused by using .NET, but AWB seems to be a major memory hog. It just never release any memory, after editing 500+ pages with it I literaly run out of system memory and is forced to shut it down and start it back up because my system starts glitching on acount of insifficient memory (I have 1Gb RAM and 2Gb swap file space). How about doing some explicit garbage collection, or whatever it is called in .NET, once in a while. --Sherool (talk) 02:16, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Also it doesn't respect Internet Explorers cache settings. I have set IE to use no more than 20Mb for temp files (becuse the darn thing gets unstable after the cache grows beyond a scertain size and then takes forever to clean out), but after running AWB for a while my C drive filled up with over a 100 Mb of cache files, not a huge problem, but slightly anoying. Would be nice if AWB could be set up to use the general IE settings, or at least allow such things to be configured internaly for the IE object used by AWB. --Sherool (talk) 02:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Hhhhmmm, maybe there is a memory leek, I haven't experienced this though, sounds odd. As for the IE ignoring your cache settings, I can't remember if it allows me to programmatically change things like that, I'll look into it. Martin 11:10, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The problem is the IE control, it doesn't seem to free up the memory it uses. Martin 15:51, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Archive feature?

You know what would be nice (if you have a spare evening with nothing to do that is)? A feature in AWB that would help archive talk pages. You'd specify how many days old a section must have been without comment before moving it to an archive page. Another bot is already doing this at the VP. Broken Segue 03:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

CrypticBot has a very nice tutorial on how it archives pages at User:Crypticbot#Archival. --M @th wiz 2020 19:13, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Reparse button?

When I'm editing using the AWB, a lot of times, I make a change and then want to reparse the article based on the change I just made. For example, if "alpha sort interwikis" is selected, and I add a new interwiki link but don't want to sort it manually, I would like to have a "reparse" button that takes the text in the edit box, including my new interwiki link, and puts it through the parsing process once again. Thanks! --M @th wiz 2020 19:26, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Poll: Should the AWB become open source?

If the motion passes, the AutoWikiBrowser will move to a page on SourceForge where any developer will be able to view the source code and edit it
Please only include your name or signature in the voting area. Keep all comments and discussions in the "Discussion" section, to conform with standards.
This poll will end after 1 week (00:00, 27 February 2006 (UTC)).

Yes

--M @th wiz 2020 00:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
--PS2pcGAMER (talk) 00:50, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-20 00:59Z
Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 05:57, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Rhobite 06:46, 20 February 2006 (UTC) (but of course it's Martin's decision)
Sure. Thank you Martin! --Adrian Buehlmann 08:27, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Genesis 11:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
--Syrthiss 14:22, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

No

Discussion

Pros:

It will free up a lot of Martin's time, since editing AWB is virtually taking over his life
Anyone will be able to add new features, thereby increasing AWB's growth exponentially

Cons:

Vandals will be able to edit the code and use it maliciously
Any vandal smart enough to do so, though, is smart enough to make his/her own program from scratch
Having too many people working on it may lead to confusion, with some people accidentally removing important pieces of code, etc.

Any more comments? --M @th wiz 2020 00:00, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

This is something Martin already has decided, I thought. So what's this poll good for? I think this is up to him. --Adrian Buehlmann 00:07, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

The reason I brought this up is because Martin sent me an e-mail earlier today. Since I don't think he would mind anyone reading it, here it is:

I know this has been discussed already but due to constant bug fixing and feature requests, maintaining AWB has turned into a thankless fulltime job, which I just dont really have the time for. Therefore I am proposing that AWB is made opensource, I know there were reaons to keep it closed, but on reflection, if someone was to try to use AWB for vandalism, they would have to know how to change the source code, which 99% of people would have no idea how to do, and someone who could work out how to download change and recompile it could probably make there own vandalbot anyway (as someone else said on the talk page). Also the pywikibot is open source, and doesnt even require users to "register".

I registered a project at sourceforge a while ago, at http://sourceforge.net/projects/autowikibrowser but at present it doesnt have any files uploaded yet.

Anyway, what are your thoughts? I dont want to abandon the project, but it is eating up way too much of my time.

After reading that, I replied to the e-mail and opened this poll to see what other editors think. I have to admit though, I am the source of some of those feature requests, so I am sorry for however much of Martin's time I have taken up. But, who knows, maybe it will benefit from open source. --M @th wiz 2020 00:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

You are doing a great job there, Martin. It definitely is thanked for (though people forget to tell you)! I wish I could help with the project, but I know nothing about .net and doubt I could learn it fast enough to be of much help. -- Genesis 11:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for this Mathwiz2020. I think it is worth mentioning that I have no idea how to set up the sourceforge project (other than what I have done already) so if anyone here knows how it all works it would be most appreciated, as I really don't have time for that either, it seems quite complicated to an open source newbie! Martin 11:31, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd hardly say its thankless (there are many thanks on this page and the archive), but I'd definitely agree its highly demanding. :) The other option is to freeze development where it is currently, with only minor changes as bugs are found. --Syrthiss 14:24, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Good news for all proponents of open source (which, as of now, appears to be everyone). SourceForge has two "levels" on projects: admins and developers. Developers can view and edit the source, and admins, (here's the main part), can choose who is a developer. In other words, vandals won't have access to the source!

The process will go something like this: Wikipedian 123W creates SourceForge account 123S and posts a message at the AWB forum on SourceForge asking to become a devloper. The message will be signed 123S. Then, Wikipedian will leave a message at a page TBD on Wikipedia saying that 123W is 123S and will sign it as 123W. That way, the admins of the project can make sure that 123S is really 123W and not a vandal/impostor. Then, an admin grants 123S developer privileges and he/she can access, view, and edit the source code. Currently, Martin, Adrian, and I are the admins and there are no developers. Once Adrian figures out how to work the CVS (anybody else know how?) we'll get the project up and running (assuming that the results of this poll continue for the next six days). --M @th wiz 2020 23:43, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I've had an account with sourceforge for ~7 years. Anyone can see the source code. That's the nature of sourceforge. Developers can "check out" and also upload code instead of just downloading it like normal users.

(because of this, it may be wise to possibly remove some features before initially submitting the code)

One admin will usually be in charge of taking care of the web site/forum/mailing-list with (hopefully) someone somewhat familiar with it for a backup in case the main site/forum person has to be away for an extended period. Another admin will often be the policy person ie "these are the features we are working on for versions x, y, and major version z" (avoid feature creep/bloat) and tries to keep people from deviating from that goal. Multiple redundant admins work well as long as everyone sticks to the agreed plan.

IMO, and from experience, direct access for developers shouldn't be that different from becoming an admin on a wiki site. At first, new code is are handed off to admins or developers until the admins are comfortable with letting that person do the direct updates themselves.

The difficult part isn't so much getting files into CVS and updating them, it's more getting everyone on the same roadmap and working to the same end rather than a bunch of people all working on their pet features. This is why it's best to not give developer access to people until some time has passed, they can get administrators to upload new code. Also, this is what most often makes or breaks projects, people understanding what features they are working on towards version X and sticking with it. The worst possible scenario is when coders ignore each other and keep trying to re-invent incompatible wheels.

BTW: CVS has a very steep learning curve but it's pretty much like how wikipedia works. Diff views, history, rollbacks, and other similar features are all included but the geekyness is 10x.

Before any code is uploaded I would suggest an IRC conference on freenode.net with all admins/Martin present because starting a project off on the right foot is 90% of what makes a project work.

—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-21 04:46Z

Out of interest, who here is actually interested in helping develop it? I am pretty sure that most understand the goal of this program, although setting that out as clearly as possible can do no harm. Also, I can not emphasise this enough: This program has only been in existence for a short period of time, it is very much still in development. In fact, I set its development status to alpha on sourceforge, as I don't think it could even be called beta until all known bugs have been fixed. Martin 10:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd really like to help, but, as I said, I know nothing about .net and thus am unsure how to. If there are tasks that require no or only basic knowledge, I'd be happy to participate. -- Genesis 15:41, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

PS: I forgot to mention that I DO know a bit about programming routines, as I got computer science (or whatever it's called in english) as a subject and am doing a bit of PHP programming. So I might be able to help anyway, dunno... Genesis 22:16, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

As you can tell, I'm new to SourceForge. I guess I misread the help file. Adrian is working on CVS but that's we've figured out so far. After thinking about debates such as the edit summary one below, I'm starting to see your point (I'm addressing That Guy right now). If everyone's a developer, then person X might change the edit summary, and person Y will change it back, on and on just like an article edit war. We should start with few but trusted developers and then slowly grow as we can trust more.

I'm also new to IRC so if we do have a chat someone will have to instruct me as to what to do. Does anyone else here have programming skills that they can use to help program? Martin knows a lot and I know some, but I, for example, and clueless when it comes to the design of the program and the event handlers (i.e., clicking on this button does this). I also don't know the difference between a void and whatever else there is, public and private, etc. (although I used to, and I can probably look this up quickly). Other than that, I'm pretty proficient. I don't know what Adrian's skills are, but, as I said, he's currently working on this CVS stuff. --M @th wiz 20 20 21:17, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

After reading IRC, I've downloaded ChatZilla. I hope it works! --M @th wiz 20 20 21:26, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'd be interested in tinkering around with the code, but I don't have enough free time to do anything major. I'm experienced at .NET development. Rhobite 22:42, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! --M @th wiz 20 20 22:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Edit box CTRL and load text file

I am very thankful for this application and many more editors benefit from those who use it. I would respectfully ask that, if possible, a few features get added because Martin is very familiar with the code. If not, I understand completely but it doesn't hurt to ask :)

Keyboard shortcuts enabled for the edit box (Alt-C/X/V/etc...) to make it easier to use an external spell checking application.
Enable "Make From Text File" for importing article names. I have a huge list of Ancient Egypt articles I would like to load at once for example. Being able to use a list makes it less likely to lose place because of people getting lost moving up and down deep category trees. Preferably, I'd like it to accept a format where all names surrounded by quotes ("foo") will be imported. (struck out because it already works)

Thank you again Bluemoose for this excellent contribution to Wikipedia.

—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-20 01:16Z

Maybe we should move this to a separate topic (not the poll), but I'll answer some of your requests here anyways. (1) Do you mean cntrl+c, not alt+c? I've noticed that that is missing, too, but you can still use the context menu. I'm not sure if C# allows shortcuts like that but Martin might know. (2) There's already an option for "make list from text file", it's just that the titles must be surrounded in [[Title]], not "Title". Just take your text file, copy it, paste it into Microsoft Word (even though I hate Microsoft, I don't know of any other program that does this), and do a find-and-replace (cntrl+f) with "wildcards" (ie, regex) enabled to replace (newline)" with [[ and "(newline) with ]] (I don't know what newline is, but it's accessible from the submenu if wildcards are enabled). --M @th wiz 2020 01:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I did mean ctrl. I'm used to using ctrl-a and then ctrl-c to copy text to an external editor like jedit and do my spell checks there. As far as the second issue, I didn't realize that the "make list" button did double-duty as "load list". The entry box above was greyed out so I (oops) assumed that the feature wasn't enabled.

As far as the text list, now that I realize how to use it, I can do replacements with ultraedit or jedit to convert lists that I already use for CDVL and the Category tree tool tool on the Wikimedia tool server.

Thanks for the information! —-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-20 03:10Z

Edit summaries

Edit summaries are for summarizing edits, not for promoting software (even if it is free and open-source, and even if it was capable of running on my Mac).

As I scan my watchlist, every time I reach an edit summary that starts with "AWB assisted ...", I have to pause and read through it to discover what the summary of the actual edit is; and usually it is something trivial. If you must promote your software in the edit summary, at the very least put the summary first, followed by "... using AWB", or "... [AWB]", or some such.

Relevant discussion regarding another such tool is at Wikipedia talk:tools/Navigation popups#Misusing edit summaries. Making a similar change to popups was an improvement. —Michael Z. 2006-02-20 05:13 Z

I look at it as "full disclosure", rather than as "promotion". People would equally, if not more so, complain about "semi-automated" edits being used, unflagged. The portion after the link is up to the user using the software, and obviously should indeed be a useful edit summary, as per the usual standards for such. (And BTW, don't you mean, if your Mac were capable...?) Alai 05:32, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

It's a decent Mac, so I don't think it is fully to blame.

You make a good point about labelling semi-automated edits, but this information is secondary to the actual substance of an edit. The labelling would be just as effective if the link were at the end of an edit summary, without interfering with the watchlist's readability. —Michael Z. 2006-02-20 05:42 Z

I agree with Alai, there should always be a way to tell that an edit was assisted by software in some way. Edit summaries are intended for consumption by Wikipedia editors, not the general public. There is no reason to leave useful information out of an edit summary, and nothing in Wikipedia:Edit summary warns against noting a software-assisted edit.

Since it is up to the user to control AWB properly, and since it can perform multiple edits, there is a higher potential for problems than with Lupin's script. For that reason it's essential to note that AWB was used in the edit summary. Rhobite 05:48, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

(ec)I personally look forward to a version that works with a Linux .net clone, so's I don't have to boot up in the Wrong OS just to use AWB... Your suggestion about moving it to the end seems perfectly reasonable, esp. if people find that more informative and/or readable. Alai 05:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I have a bit problems seeing what the problem is that Michael has. But maybe this is part of the problem or I do not understand his concerns. What I can say, I do not care that much what the edit summary is, that AWB produces. I for one have had several occasions where I found it helpful to know that an edit was done using AWB. So it adds valuable info to the edit summary. I have also made some settings for AWB available to others and I must say I do feel a bit responsible for having done so, so occasionally I do take a closer look on an edit to assess whether everything is fine or whether I do need to issue a warning that there is a bug in the settings I have provided. So in fact, it is helpful to me that the AWB hint is at the beginning of the edit summary. I think Bluemoose might be in a similar position as he certainly feels responsible for having given us such a powerful tool and if we do damage with it to Wikipedia he will certainly stop it. So, as I see it - even if I do not understand Michael - he asked to move the AWB notice to the end of the edit summary. So if he is happy with that, I support that. I think this is not such a big thing to do. I for one can live with that. However, this is up to Bluemoose. --Adrian Buehlmann 08:21, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Edit summaries are most certainly not for "promotion", it is simply so it is clear how the edit was made, which is the same for people who make "popups assisted" (or what ever it says) edits. To say it is spamming your watchlist, or somehow makes it difficult to read your watchlist is just unbelievable. Martin 11:23, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Seeing this edit summary in my watchlist prompted me to use the software. I believe that this raises awareness of tools available for editing just like other open source tools available to us (like Lupin's popup tools). It is also valuable to know how these edits were made.--Adam ^(talk) 11:55, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

That is settled. The question is not whether to exlude the link, but whether to have it stand at the beginning or at the end. -- Genesis 12:16, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I have a weak preference for the begining. Because the 'begining' moves depending on the length of username, I don't see moving the boilerplate to the end as an improvement. And having it at the begining is consistent with most of the other tools: "reverted edits ...", "popup assisted...", "robot modifying...", "robot adding...". While I wouldn't object strongly if it moved to the end, I'm sure that someone out there will! :-) Ben Aveling 14:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I scan the edit summaries of my watchlist by following the un-linked parentheses "(" with my eye, to find the following edit summary, which may also be prefixed with an arrow and grey section heading. All of these can be recognized in a quick scan, without having to stop and read. Adding a blue link to the mix before the actual content of the edit summary, which I have to stop and read at every occurrence, slows this process down, especially since there are several different variations. Robots are a special case, and I usually ignore them, but user-supervised tools like popups and AWB seem to generate errors more often, so I'd rather see what an editor is using them for.

"Reverted edits ..." is not a link to a software page, but part of an edit summary. Popups has already changed "Popups-assisted ..." to a tag after the edit summary "... using Popups".

Finally, the edit summary is for summarizing the edit: it "makes Wikipedia work better by quickly explaining to other users what your change was about" (WP:ES). While identifying a tool may be useful to add to an edit summary, it in no way summarizes the substance of an edit, it is not fulfilling the required function of the edit summary, and it should be considered secondary. —Michael Z. 2006-02-20 16:25 Z

I agree that it should be kept the way it currently is with a link to the AWB page at the beginning of the edit summary then the chosen summary since that's the easiest to read and it's still very informative. Jtkiefer^{T | C | @} ---- 16:40, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

In response to Michael's comment above, he said that "Popups-assisted..." has been changed to "... using popups". I just did a reversion of my sandbox using popups [4] and the summary was "Popups-assisted reversion to version 36441023". Popups is still at the beginning. Plus, I find it helpful to have the "AWB-assisted" at the beginning so, when scanning my watchlist, recent changes, a page's history, etc., I know to double check that edit to make sure the user didn't let a mistake slip by. Users are supposed to double check all edits but some, unfortunately, don't, so double checking AWB edits allows me to alert those editors that they should be double checking. It is not advertising - in fact, I found the AWB based on such an edit summary, and I am very glad, because it has saved me lots of time on Wikipedia:Bad links. I think we should keep the edit summary as is. --M @th wiz 2020 21:15, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

I've only been seeing "... using popups" on my watchlist lately, and it has been stated at discussion there that the software was changed this way. Do you have an up-to-date version? Is this set in your user preferences for popups?

Not everyone's priority is checking AWB edits. Most editors are more interested in the substance of an edit, which is the intent of the edit summary. —Michael Z. 2006-02-21 17:28 Z

I don't see what's wrong with promoting Wikipedia software. I think most people, like Mathwiz2020 and me, find software like AWB and popups through edit summaries. ··gracefool |☺ 22:34, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

That's not an allowed purpose of an edit summary. It certainly isn't the main intent of an edit summary. I'm just asking for a minor modification to the tool's behaviour which will at least pay lip service to the convention, and be less disruptive of editors using Wikipedia, while still fulfilling your promotion aims. —Michael Z. 2006-02-21 17:33 Z

"fulfilling your promotion aims"? I explained already, it is nothing to do with promotion, it would be incredibly poor form not to say in the edit summary that the edit was made with a special tool. Why the hell would I want to promote it? Similarly, it is poor form to spam your concern about this on many peoples talk page and for you to mock the edit summary with your own "Safari assisted.." edit summary is just immature. When you say it is disruptive, I quite simply do not believe you. However, I wouldn't mind changing the summary so rather than saying "AWB assisted" it was shortened to something else. Martin 18:33, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, I don't really see that moving the note to the end of the sumary makes any difference, but I dont mind changing it. Martin 18:36, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I was responding to gracefool, who supports promoting software in the edit summary. It may be considered a valid use, but it is not supported by Wikipedia:Edit summaries and it is definitely a tertiary concern after 1) a summary of the edit, and 2) informing editors that the edit is semi-automated.

I did not "spam" anybody. I just informed a number of editors whose AWB edits appeared on my watchlist of my concerns, and invited them to comment here in support or opposition.

I left an edit summary demonstrating what your watchlist may start to look like if we set a precedent of not supporting the intent WP:ES by making a summary of the edit secondary—at least I left the page section in the summary, which AWB doesn't seem to do. Perhaps your are not at all interested in promoting AWB, although obviously you informed other editors with whom you are sharing your software somehow. But the watchlist's usability is going downhill as it gradually gets filled with edits which first announce themselves as made by robots, Popups, AWB, and other tools, and many of which only provide a boilerplate summary as an afterthought. And actual commercial spammers will eventually try to take advantage of every free opportunity they can, including the possibility of filling articles' edit histories with permanent links to their concerns.

There's no reason to sound hostile, or imply that I'm not being truthful. If you think I am fabricating this concern for some reason, then accuse me openly, otherwise please just discuss the issue respectfully. —Michael Z. 2006-02-21 19:07 Z

These are just silly word games, the fact is that 1) massive quantities of work have been done using AWB, and 2) If it didn't have an edit summary that mentioned it was made using a tool, then there would be a torrent of complaints saying that it should do. If it is agreed that the summary can be improved then I am all for it. Martin 19:25, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Martin completely in that there has to be some notice about the AWB or else people will complain. If you don't want to "advertise" with a big "AWB-assisted", then what alternative is there? I was reading on WP:AN the other day about a bot who linked in all edit summaries to his user's account so that there would be no problems. However, the bot got logged out and the only indication of who it was was by clicking on an ellipsis (...) that linked to the user page. Well, most people didn't know to click on the ellipsis because it wasn't obvious. The point here is that you must blatantly state what was used to avoid arguments.

Secondly, I don't see how watchlists are being "bogged down". My watchlist has (at most) one AWB'd page per day. And the reason why AWB doesn't leave the section links is because, in order to do so, you need to specifically choose to edit only one section. The AWB edits the whole page, but, even though changes might only be made to one section, it was still the page that was edited, not the link next to a section title.

Given these reasons, can you please just back off about the whole thing? Martin decided one day to help Wikipedia by creating a tool that can easily fix typos, correct bad links, help pages adhere to the MoS. Martin has devoted lots of his time to making this great resource, and fixing bugs, and fulfilling this feature request, and that, and it's getting to be too time-consuming for him. If you want to change the edit summary, why don't you go, create a program from scratch, and deal with hordes of other Wikipedians complaining about minor bugs each and every day and then complain to Martin about the edit summary! --M @th wiz 20 20 21:12, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Bah! Michael seems just to be jealous because he cannot run AWB on his box :-). Or is it a special form of botophobia? Stating that the edit summary of AWB is "disruptive to editors" is quite odd. Stop wikilawyering and let's get back to work please. We have bigger fires than that. --Adrian Buehlmann 22:52, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm just asking you to put your software link after the edit summary instead of before it, to conform closer to the word and spirit of Wikipedia's guideline, so please don't complain that I'm asking for something else. I'm not putting down Martin or his software, so don't gang up to call me names or try to insult me. What a hostile group. —Michael Z. 2006-02-21 23:47 Z

Well I don't mind changing it, but it may not be done in the very near future as the project is in a transition period at the moment as it moves on to sourceforge. Martin 00:02, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate that. When you change it, you could also consider making the link direct instead of going through the redirect WP:AWB, which make the link tool-tip clearer for those unfamiliar with AWB. Regards. —Michael Z. 2006-02-22 19:33 Z

I am happy the semi-automatic edit summaries indicate the software used to make them. It should maybe be set apart from the actual edit summary with punctuation? — Omegatron 07:12, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

suggestion

Perhaps an instance counter of sorts? If I am going through looking for misspellings of "February" (often spelled incorrectly as 'Febuary'), could there be a little box showing if there is more than one instance? Helpful so I know I should be proofing for multiple instances or not. JoeSmack ^Talk 06:42, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, every once in a while the list is populated with pages that, since been listed by google, have been deleted, bringing out the appropriate "if you want to make an article here, go ahead". When running it through, it will pause on it like there was something to find and replace there. Is there a way these can be skipped? I have a 'skip if doesn't contain: Febuary' type string out there, but it'll still stop on em. JoeSmack ^Talk 06:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Bug: AWB unicodify removes plus sign

I was looking at Context-free grammar and noticed an abundance of Unicode entities. When I tried unicodifying them, I discovered that AWB's tool removed a perfectly innocent "+" in the process. Unicodifying the following line:

:S &rarr; x | y | z | S + S | S - S | S * S | S/S | (S)

produces

:S → x | y | z | S   S | S - S | S * S | S/S | (S)
                  ^^^^^

which is obviously not appropriate. HTH HAND —Phil | Talk 14:54, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Bug: Category removal

In my first attempt at using the software I generated a list for Category:Jewish liberals which was recently deleted. That went fine, and after selecting Remove Category from the set options and setting my summary I start the process. The first one goes fine, I save. The article is removed from the list and the next lines up, but nothing happens and when I hit start the process again I get:

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

Exception Text

System.AccessViolationException: Attempted to read or write protected memory. This is often an indication that other memory is corrupt.

  ::at System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods.IHTMLDocument2.Open(String mimeExtension, Object name, Object features, Object replace)
  ::at System.Windows.Forms.HtmlDocument.OpenNew(Boolean replaceInHistory)
  ::at AutoWikiBrowser.MainForm.Start()
  ::at AutoWikiBrowser.MainForm.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)

Any idea what's up? Staxringold 23:16, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Hello? I can do single edits with this thing before it breaks apart, which isn't exactly useful... Staxringold 23:33, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Can you provide an example of an article that you are trying to remove the category from that doesnt work? Martin 23:44, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

That's the odd thing, it's not dependant on what I'm removing (I've since tried a find/replace with the same result). I generate a list of things (first I tried the Jewish liberals thing, then What Links Here for Avalokiteshvara. When I start the process for fixing, the first one works fine, but when I try to move onto the next item I get that error (and it doesn't move on). Staxringold 02:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

ok, what version are you using? thanks Martin 09:26, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Odd bug with "find" button

I'm finding that quite often when I move on to a new page, the "find" button switches itself off: I have to append a space to the find criteria and delete to reactivate the button. Whats with that? —Phil | Talk 10:29, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Problem 'You are not enabled to use this'

I have just attempted to run AWB from within my university network and after logging in it tells me I am not enabled even though I am in the list. The uni routes all traffic through a set of web proxies. Could this be the issue? -Localzuk ^(talk) 13:05, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

Hmm... Quitting and logging in again seems to have done it. -Localzuk ^(talk) 13:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It was probably a problem with your log-in cookie - logging out and in usually does fix this. --M @th wiz 20 20 21:02, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

AWB is open source

Yesterday I finally managed to push up some AWB sources to sourceforge. Martin made me an admin there and sent me the sources to upload them. I've used TortoiseCVS-1.8.25 on WindowsXP for this (first time install for me). To my great pleasure I noticed this morning (UTC+1) that they had finally appeared at http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/autowikibrowser/src/ (after a delay of several hours. Hrrmmm). Hooray! Please note that I haven't yet uploaded the other files needed to build. The public project page is at http://sourceforge.net/projects/autowikibrowser. The list of developers is at [5]. Thanks Martin! --Adrian Buehlmann 08:01, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It looks good. I tried checking out the files to my local CVS and it worked fine. It is strange that the files took so long to appear. Normally, that shouldn't happen but it could be because it was the initial start of the CVS for autowikibrowser.

—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-22 08:25Z

Thanks for checking. I'm a sourceforge newbie. What's the purpose of the directory http://cvs.sourceforge.net/viewcvs.py/autowikibrowser/AutoWikiBrowser/? Do we need that? Who created that? --Adrian Buehlmann 08:37, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

That's the default directory (module) you should be using instead of /src. That way, you can have seperate related projects in the future like autowiki-international, autowiki-beta, autowiki-stable or something similar where code is completely seperate for {whatever} reason. Specify the module name "AutoWikiBrowser" (case sensitive) in the future for committing and checking out code and it will keep things clean for developers.

—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-22 08:47Z

Should we move the code to autowikibrowser/AutoWikiBrowser/src then? It thought there might be other things like binaries, doc, whatever. This was my motivation to create an src dir. We might chat about this on IRC. I'm on #wikipedia right now (oh well, I'm a newbie on IRC too. Seems like Martin picked the wrong one as AWB sourceforge admin :-). --Adrian Buehlmann 09:35, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It's good for you to learn how to use it. Having several people available who can update CVS is always a good thing.

—-- That Guy, From That Show! ^(talk) 2006-02-22 09:56Z

We have an IRC channel now on #AutoWikiBrowser. --Adrian Buehlmann 10:10, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

request for someone who uses AWB

Could someone who uses AWB get rid of double links in Rapping? Thanks, --Urthogie 08:31, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Can we commit to a longer enabling time?

For each version of AWB, would it be possible to commit to its being enabled for at least X amount of time (or perhaps disabling the enabling by version altogether)? For those of us who are not helping to develop the program and just using it as necessary, the constant re-downloading is bothersome.

If enabling by version is to continue, could we commit to versions of the program being enabled for at least two weeks or a month? In light of the fact that most of the revisions are minor, I don't think that's much to ask. SchuminWeb (Talk) 17:16, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

If you are forced to upgrade, then the minimum number of new revisions you will upgrade by is 3-4, this is perfectly acceptable as there are often important fixes and improvements. Martin 21:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

1.96 (which is the version I upgraded from) and the current version were released four days apart. That is a really short period, and the changes were simple bug fixes, which most users could probably pass over until there is a big revision. Please consider changing to a method where users are notified of new versions being in place, but not completely shutting off access to older versions. Or, as I've mentioned before, you may want to consider something that will make the program update itself. SchuminWeb (Talk) 22:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes I have released more than one revision in a single day, but in such cases old versins are left active for substantial periods of time, often until there was a very important change. When you say "the changes were simple bug fixes" consider that I made the changes, so am in a considerably better postition to say how important they were. As for automatically updating itself, it is a good idea, but probably beyond the scope of a free piece of software used by just a small number of users, I will look into how it could be achieved though. Also remember that part of the reason it is so strict is that the program is being developed, if the versions were release versions, then they would no doubt be left enabled for much longer. thanks Martin 22:51, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Bluemoose - If you right click on the sandbox, choose CVS, and then "Make patch...", couldn't you theoretically just release a patch without a new version number? That way, users would only have to download the patch if they so wished. Then, the next time a major upgrade is made to the code, a complete version (not just a patch, but the program) would be made available (and required by the checkpage), including all patches, in case the user didn't install them earlier. --M @th wiz 20 20 01:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Interwiki?

Do you think it would be possible to make the browser usable for users of Wikis other than Wikipedia? It already supports most of the MediaWiki 1.5+ features, and I think it would be interesting to see how it would work if not based around Wikipedia, but around MediaWiki. --Lugiatm (talk • contribs) 21:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

It could be adapted, but that will only happen when it is much further developed. Martin 21:42, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Uninteded change

By most part the AWB assist did a fine job in catching formatting errors and spelling errors, then correcting them. However, there was an uninteded change that occured on the Ojibwe language page that should have not happened, and this type of formatting should have been more carefully screened. The problem was the <i>, which in most cases do mean italics and changing all instances of <i> to '' would have made sense, but in the Ojibwe language case, the <i> was used to mean the "i-character" and should not have been corrected to the incorrect ''. CJLippert 23:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Fixed, but will only be available when the open source project is running properly. Martin 00:11, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! CJLippert 01:31, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

How about selective application of "general fixes"?

I'm doing some image replacement, and a lot of the pages I hit turn out only contain "ghost links" to the image due to previos use in transcluded templates, so a null edit would clean it up, but if I have general fixes eneabled it will move stub tags and clear exessive whitespace and such, so I can't do "clean" null edits with it eneabled. However once in a while I run into a page where I would like to run the general fixes on, but in order to do so I have to go to the set options tab, turn it on and then click the "start" button all over again. Would be nice if I could just right click in the edit textarea and click "apply general fixes" or something like that without the hassle of swaping tabs, and re-starting the edit process. --Sherool (talk) 17:34, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I recently added a "re-parse" item to the textbox context menu, this runs all the selected functions again, it's not quite what you want because if you dont have general fixes enabled then it doesn't apply them (and if you did have it enabled it would auotmatically do it). I'll add a menu item to disable automatically applying anything. thanks Martin 17:49, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the "re-parse" item! I look forward to using it once we transition to SourceForge. --M @th wiz 20 20 20:50, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Regions (in the code)

Just out of curiosity, why do we have these (# something here ) in the source code?? I was looking at the code out of curiosity, as I do not know C# (I code in C++/CLI). Thanks if someone can give me an answear. P.S. Where should future code related questions go?? Eagle (talk) (desk) 23:31, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether future comments should go here or at SourceForge's forums. Martin, any comments? --M @th wiz 20 20 00:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Mathwiz... do you have any idea on the regions? This is really bugging me!!! :-)Eagle (talk) (desk) 00:28, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

They are used by the Visual C# IDE to group sections of code. They don't have any effect on the actual program. Rhobite 00:44, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Oh, now I know what you mean! Before, I didn't understand. Yeah, those just divide the code into sections for readability. You can click the + or - next to such a section to show or hide it from view. --M @th wiz 20 20 00:59, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, is there any way a C++/CLI coder can help??? Right now I feel useless, as I can read the code (outside a few syntax issues). Is there any use for me??? Eagle (talk) (desk) 22:06, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

P.S. Thanks for the explanation. I am going to begin using this in my code!!. (Different synatx I found out, #pragma region and #pragma endregion). I learned something new!!Eagle (talk) (desk) 23:43, 24 February 2006 (UTC)