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Before you post

Frequently asked questions

• When I start it up I get one of the following errors:
  • "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application.", or
  • "To run this application, you must first install one of the following versions of the .NET Framework..."

  This error means your computer does not have the .NET framework version 2 installed properly. You can choose from various versions for download here, or you can run Microsoft Update and select version 2 of the .Net framework from the "Optional Updates" section, if you want the choice made for you.

• Does AWB run on Linux or Mac?

AWB runs reasonably under Wine. See details here

AWB might also run under Mono. See here for a status report of AWB vs Mono v2.6.

A native version, PyAutoWikiBrowser (screenshots here), based on Python, is being developed separately for Unix-like systems.

• Does AWB work on other projects/languages?

  Many WikiMedia projects and languages are supported, see the "User and project preferences" option in the general menu. Other languages will be added on request, though at the moment the interface is always in English. You are also able to use AWB with third-party wikis: Options > Preferences > Site, you can change the wiki there. The wiki must support the Bot API required by AWB. This means that it should have latest HEAD version of MediaWiki or something close to that. The wmf-deployment branch is also recommended, as this is what is currently live on WMF sites.

• What interwiki link order does AWB use?

  The software reads the interwiki sort order from Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/IW, which is generally mirrored to reflect the order at m:Interwiki sorting order.

• AWB puts stubs after categories, though categories are always rendered the last by MediaWiki?

  According to WP:STUB#Categorizing stubs, By convention this is placed at the end of the article, after the External links section, any navigation templates, and the category tags, so that the stub category will appear last. If your wiki uses other order, please let us know here.

• I don't like or use Internet Explorer; please use Firefox instead.

  AWB does not use Internet Explorer per se. It does, however, use the same web browser control (MSHTML) as Internet Explorer; the equivalent Firefox component does not provide the needed functionality.

• How do I open the page in another browser if I can't use the one in AWB?

  Right click on the edit box in the bottom right side of your screen. Select "Open page in browser".

• How do I edit a page that doesn't exist?

  Uncheck "Ignore non existing pages" in the "Skip articles" box.

• How do I skip certain articles?

  Use the "Skip if contains" and "Skip if doesn't contain" on the "Skip" tab

• Can't you leave up a "stable" version, so I don't have to download new versions?

  It is important to keep people up to date with the latest versions, because their use of the software doesn't just affect them, but the whole of Wikipedia. As any bugs that remain will be trivial; hopefully releases won't be too frequent.

• How can I stop AWB clicking when it changes pages?

  This is a Windows sound theme setting. This page explains how to turn off the clicking sound.

  Alternatively, delete the following key from the Windows registry:

  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\AppEvents\Schemes\Apps\Explorer\Navigating\.Current

• AWB randomly crashes upon page load on my system, and I always use a browser other than Internet Explorer when using Wikipedia.'

  You may have installed custom scripts incompatible with IE. Wrap the contents of your monobook.js into conditional:

               //Detect IE5.5+
               if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE")==-1)
               {
                   // Previous contents go here
                   ....
               }

• I get Just In Time Debugger Messages when loading AWB/loading pages

  In Internet Explorer, go to Tools --> Options --> Advanced. Make sure 'Disable Script Debugging (Internet Explorer)' and 'Disable Script Debugging (Other)' Are both checked. Press apply and close.

• When I do a clean install of AutoWikiBrowser the application seems to find old setting data somewhere. I'd like to do a really clean install. Any ideas?

  Clean up your registry and remove the folder "C:\Documents and Settings\user name\Local Settings\Application Data\AutoWikiBrowser" (Windows XP) or "C:\Users\user name\AppData\Local\AutoWikiBrowser\" (Windows 7). Note that the application data folder may be hidden.

Discussion

Examples in documentation (or lack thereof)

After attempting to use the documentation for the umphteenth time to figure out how to perform what should ultimately be a simple operation (non-subst replacement of one template for another) and failing miserably, I finally had the stroke of genius that my difficulty lies mainly in the fact that AWB's on-wiki documentation only documents, it doesn't seem to make the slightest attempt to show how to actually do anything. If I actually knew how to properly use AWB, I would, of course, add examples myself, but as I pointed out above, I'm pretty clueless, so I'm posting here in the hope that someone who *does* know can start posting some sample uses, and maybe in the meantime, someone else (or the same someone, doesn't really matter ;) ) can tell me how I can do such replacement.

For anyone willing to provide help directly with my replacement problem, I am wanting to replace calls of {{AnimeManga}} with {{Navigation}} on Yu-Gi-Oh! Wikia. Typical usage is a |name= parameter which *should* be equal to {{PAGENAME}} (which should be simply removed if it is equal), an optional |name2= parameter which should be converted to an unnamed parameter if used, and an optional |Other= parameter which should be preserved if used. Parameters and closing brackets may be on separate or the same line, and whitespace may or may not be present around pipes and equals signs or after opening brackets/before closing brackets (it can be preserved or not, depending on which makes for an easier-to-write regex) (basically, par-for-the-course for template calls). I already attempted some replacements using the template substitute function, and you can see how that turned out... 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 00:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Template substitution is not template renaming. What you want to do with that and the parameter updating is certainly doable but not trivial and would need to use advanced find & replace or a custom module. Rjwilmsi 11:19, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I understand that they are different; I just didn't think enough on what the result of substitution would be. As for the replace request itself, all I really need is to see the setup someone else has used to perform a similar task (someone has used AWB on Wikipedia at some point to replace templates, I'm sure; it would just be a case of finding an example). In the meantime, I believe most of the necessary replaces would actually be quite a bit simpler than the picture I paint above; ultimately, I could get away with a search-and-replace to do the following replacement automatically, and could handle any deviating cases by hand:

{{AnimeManga
|name=%%pagename%%
}}

replaced with

{{Navigation}}

This, at least, would be far simpler, wouldn't it? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 01:47, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

*nudge* 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 07:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

So you put that in a find and replace, regex enabled, using \s instead of the newlines and \| to escape the pipe. Rjwilmsi 10:26, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Aah, that sounds easy enough then. Thanks for your help! =) 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 18:43, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

All right, I tried {{AnimeManga\s\|name=%%pagename%%\s}} replaced with {{Navigation}}, first with only "Enabled" checked, and then with "MultiLine" checked as well, but both times, AWB didn't find any changes to make (specifically, on the page wikia:yugioh:Card Appearances:Ambulance Rescueroid) - am I still doing something wrong, then? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 19:09, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Did you also check off the Regex box? —Ost (talk) 19:58, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Nope, that did it. Leave it to me to overlook the obvious. =) 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 20:53, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Just for the record, based on my own experimentation, this regex should be completely whitespace-insensitive (for both spaces and newlines): {{\s*?AnimeManga\s*?\|\s*?name\s*?=\s*?%%pagename%%\s*?}} - having this confirmed by someone who actually *knows* something of regexes would be nice, though (and if there's a shorter method, it'd be nice knowing that, too =) ). 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 19:33, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

*nudge* Also, if anyone is willing to put up with me asking random regex-related questions on their user talk page so I don't have to clog up this page with questions that aren't directly related to AWB (or if someone could simply point me to a page dedicated to regex assistance), I'd appreciate a heads-up. =) 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 06:39, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Going back to my original request, it should be able to be handled by these replaces:

• {{\s*?AnimeManga\s*?\|\s*?name\s*?=\s*?%%pagename%%\s*?}} replaced with {{Navigation}}
• {{\s*?AnimeManga\s*?\|\s*?name\s*?=\s*?%%pagename%%\s*?\|\s*?name2\s*?=\s*?%%pagename%%\s*?\|\s*?Other\s*?=\s*?(.*?)\s*?}} replaced with {{Navigation|Other=$1}}
• {{\s*?AnimeManga\s*?\|\s*?name\s*?=\s*?%%pagename%%\s*?\|\s*?name2\s*?=\s*?(.*?)\s*?\|\s*?Other\s*?=\s*?(.*?)\s*?}} replaced with {{Navigation|$1|Other=$2}}
• {{\s*?AnimeManga\s*?\|\s*?name\s*?=\s*?%%pagename%%\s*?\|\s*?name2\s*?=\s*?%%pagename%%\s*?}} replaced with {{Navigation}}
• {{\s*?AnimeManga\s*?\|\s*?name\s*?=\s*?%%pagename%%\s*?\|\s*?name2\s*?=\s*?(.*?)\s*?}} replaced with {{Navigation|$1}}
• {{\s*?AnimeManga\s*?\|\s*?name\s*?=\s*?%%pagename%%\s*?\|\s*?Other\s*?=\s*?(.*?)\s*?}} replaced with {{Navigation|Other=$1}}

If I'm not mistaken (since I wrote these off the top of my head, without any testing), this combination of replaces, used in this order, should match most possible uses of the template (although it requires the parameters to be used in a certain order; I could make it order-insensitive by something like tripling the number of replaces). Are there any regex tricks that would decrease the complexity or number of these replaces? 「ダイノガイ千？！」^{? · Talk⇒Dinoguy1000} 00:25, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

AWB taking typos from a different page

When I use AWB (version 5.0.2.0) Typos on runescape.wikia.com, it seems to take the list of Typos from the Wikipedia list of typos rather than the one on RuneScape Wiki, found here. How do I make it so it pulls the typos from the correct location? 24.41.55.233 (talk) 04:54, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Anyone? 24.41.55.233 (talk) 01:57, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

rev 6615 —Reedy 17:38, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

AWB and CHECKWIKI

I created a list that shows how AWB applies to WP:CHECKWIKI. Currently is available in User:Magioladitis/AWB_and_CHECKWIKI. It still needs work and probably update. Our aim should be to have one of Yes/Partial/Highlight/Alert to each entry on this list. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:09, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Provider

I often use the provider "Category (recursive)" on Commons for obtain only "Content" and "Category:" (after filter the result list). This execution is very expensive and long because the result list contains more "File:". Is there a provider or a procedure for reduce this kind of execution?--B3t (talk) 10:02, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Font too small in web control window

Okay, this is a really stupid question, I know, but I can't find the answer anywhere. The text in my web control window is really small, and I can't figure out how to change the font size. I have no problem changing the size in the edit window...—Chowbok ☠ 16:48, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Can't you change it like any other browser? Ctrl + Scroll.. Or whatever, and the other way to use +/-...? —Reedy 16:57, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

CTRL + scroll changes the size in the edit window, but I can't get it to affect the web control window. CTRL-+ and CTRL-- don't work anywhere.—Chowbok ☠ 17:07, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

AWB Problem

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/5348/awb.png

This happened and I can't seem to fix it. The bottom part of the window is cut off. Resizing the window, minimising, maximising then restoring; nothing! I've tried to remove every trace of the AWB, using search and delete (can't think of another way), but after re-downloading, it's the same. I've tried to change the screen resolution but only lower (can't go higher). In no can I get to the lower options. I'll show you the whole picture.

Restored (The not minimised or maximised window): http://img594.imageshack.us/i/awb2.png/

Maximised: http://img227.imageshack.us/i/awb3.png/

Can anybody help? 97.120.237.91 (talk) 06:26, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Are you on a netbook? AWB has a minimum required resolution. We might be able to work around this in a later release, though this is not sure. Rjwilmsi 08:29, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes I am using a netbook. What is the minimum resolution? 97.120.237.91 (talk) 09:03, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I know that 1024*768 is enough, though that may not be the minimum. Rjwilmsi 10:17, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm using 1024x600, so somewhere in between. Thanks. 97.120.237.91 (talk) 12:04, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

I think it doesn't run in netbooks anyway. Check WP:AWB/B. -- Magioladitis (talk) 12:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Typos

Where are typos stored on the computer? Also, are the typos of a wiki added to a list of typos or does it just use that wiki's typos and no others? 198.236.58.30 (talk) 22:10, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

For en-wiki typos are at WP:AWB/T. Other language wikis have their own typo list at the corresponding page. Other wikis outside of Wikipedia can also have their own list. Only one list can be used at once. Rjwilmsi 07:11, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

List comparer code available?

• what language is the list comparer written in? Is the code available? Tks • Ling.Nut 23:59, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

Here you are. -- Magioladitis (talk) 00:13, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi, is it possible have another form to compare two list, that compare unless the "descriptive title", examples:

foo

foo

foo (descriptive title)

foo

foo

foo (descriptive title)

Could be called "Light compare".--B3t (talk) 08:51, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Orphan tagging on airline destinations

Orphan tagging in airline destinations articles is discussed in Template_talk:Orphan#This_template_keeps_appearing_on_airline_destination_list_articles. -- Magioladitis (talk) 10:00, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Need another regex

{{blah blah Subject}} replace with {{blah blah}}{{Subject}}

Basically I want to isolate Subject and make it into a template, but still keep {{blah blah}} before it. Blah blah varies. --ZooFari 21:00, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

this should work;

Find: \{\{([A-Za-z ]+) Subject\}\}

Replace:{{$1}} {{Subject}}

97.120.227.149 (talk) 12:18, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Find and replace

How do you have your customised find and replace happen after the typos have been applied? 97.120.227.149 (talk) 12:18, 6 June 2010 (UTC)