Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser

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AutoWikiBrowser 5.0.2.0

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Changelog · Custom modules · Projects that used AWB · Settings · style.css · User talk templates · Userbox · IRC channel
Developer discussion · IW order · Mono & Wine · Plugins · Sandbox · Typos · WikiFunctions.dll · SVN snapshots · Usage stats
AutoWikiBrowser is not an automatic bot — edits made using this software are the responsibility of the editor using it. Although AWB does have an automatic mode enabled for some bot accounts, it normally just assists a human.
AutoWikiBrowser
AutoWikiBrowser's slogan: The semi-automated Wikipedia editor
Developer(s) AutoWikiBrowser team
(see below for AWB Developers)
Stable release 5.0.2.0  (April 7, 2010; 13 days ago (2010-04-07)) [+/−]
Preview release SVN  (SVN) [+/−]
Written in C#
Operating system Microsoft Windows
Available in English
Type Wikipedia editor
License GPL
Website sourceforge (if that release is broken, try here)
Shortcuts:
WP:AWB
WP:AUTOWB
AWB Developers

AWB was created by:

AutoWikiBrowser, sometimes abbreviated to AWB, is a semi-automated MediaWiki editor for Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 (AWB also functions reasonably well under Wine on Linux but this is not officially supported) designed to make tedious repetitive tasks quicker and easier. It is essentially a browser that automatically opens up a new page when the last is saved. When set to do so, it suggests some changes (typically formatting) that are generally meant to be incidental to the main change.

At present, AutoWikiBrowser can create a list of pages from single or multiple categories, "what links here", the wiki links on a page, a text file, a Google search, a user's watchlist, or a user's contributions.

AWB also comes with an integrated program to scan Wikipedia database dumps. The edit box of AutoWikiBrowser supports the Microsoft Text Services Framework for use with speech recognition/handwriting applications.

The sources are available under the GPL (see Getting the sources below). It is written in C# using Microsoft Visual C# Express Edition/Visual Studio, available at Microsoft downloads. There is an AWB IRC channel at irc.freenode.net — #AutoWikiBrowser.

Examples of AWB-assisted work are noted on the projects page, which also lists projects that currently need AWB help.

Usergroup No. of Approved
Admins All (1,716)
Bots 171
Users 2715

Contents

[edit] Rules of use

  1. Check every edit before you save it. Make sure you understand the text and have NOT changed the meaning.
  2. Don't edit too quickly; consider opening a bot account if you are regularly making more than a few edits a minute.
  3. Don't do anything controversial with it. If there is a chance that the edits you are considering might be controversial, consider soliciting comment at the village pump or appropriate WikiProject before proceeding.
  4. Avoid making insignificant or inconsequential edits such as only adding or removing some white space, moving a stub tag, converting some HTML to Unicode, removing underscores from links (unless they are bad links), or something equally trivial. This is because it wastes resources and clogs up watch lists.
  5. Abide by all Wikipedia guidelines, policies and common practices.
Repeated abuse of these rules could result, without warning, in your software being disabled.

[edit] Versions

[edit] Using this software

[edit] (1) Register

Add your name to the requests for registration if you would like to use the software. For security reasons, only registered users (see the list on the check page) are able to use AutoWikiBrowser on the en.wikipedia.

Anyone can be registered, but only if an admin approves your registration by placing your name on the check page. As a general rule, only users with more than 500 mainspace edits will be registered. You will probably not be contacted when your registration has been approved, so check the page periodically for your name.

[edit] (2) Download

Download it here. AWB comes in a zip file and it is recommended that it is unzipped to a new directory, rather than running, for example, straight from the desktop. AWB is not installed on the PC and runs only as a file: AutoWikiBrowser.exe.

If you want to run the latest SVN version, see here.

AutoWikiBrowser requires Microsoft Windows 2000/XP or newer (Unicode doesn't work properly on Windows 98/Me). It also requires Version 2 of the .NET framework (users of Windows 2000 and Windows XP must download .NET framework; it is included in Windows Vista and Windows 7).

If the software doesn't work, it probably means that you're not registered or that you don't have the correct .NET framework installed.

AWB partially works with Wine.[1] It can also be started (although with some strange errors), on Mono. See Mono and Wine.

[edit] (3) Get started

See also: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual
  1. Select "Make from Category" then enter a category name.
  2. Click "Make list", let the list load up.
  3. Set any options, such as find and replace, edit summary, etc.
  4. Click "Start!", it will load up the page, automatically make any changes and then go to the diff.
  5. Change anything in the page you want in the Edit box on the lower right, not the normal website textbox in the browser, then click "Save" or "Skip / Ignore", the next page will load up automatically.

[edit] Having problems?

  • Occasionally it stalls when loading. This might well be because you have navigated to a different window: AWB needs to remain in the foreground while loading up a new page. Just click "start" again to give it a nudge.
  • It uses the Internet Explorer core, so if you have problems, make sure your IE is working. Make sure you have logged into Wikipedia using IE. If you have altered any settings regarding scripts, first use Tools > Internet Options > 'Advanced' tab > Click on 'Restore Defaults' and then try AWB again.
    • If you have made changes to monobook.css (or whatever your theme is) that require CSS 2 or 3, they may not appear properly in IE and thus in AWB.
  • If you are having problems creating a list from "what links here" try clearing your Internet Explorer cache.
  • A buggy monobook.js can often cause IE to display blank pages or crash AWB. This javascript problem can be avoided by disabling Active Scripting in IE INTERNET OPTIONS — SECURITY — CUSTOM LEVEL.
  • "The application failed to initialize properly..." -> get .NET 2.0 (linked above).

Refer to the FAQ for more information, including problems with other software and Wikipedia skins.

[edit] User manual

Main page: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual

[edit] Database scanner

See also: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Database Scanner

AWB includes a database scanner which can be used to create lists of pages to be checked, without causing extra unnecessary load on the WikiMedia Servers.

Database dumps are created from time to time (more info here) and are available for free download. As the page states, the best/most useful dump is the pages-articles.xml.bz2. Visiting the database dump progress site, allows you to view the status of the current dump, and be able to easily browse to the downloads in it.

Upon downloading, the archives need to be uncompressed, this will turn it from a ~4.9GB bz2 archive, into an xml database dump around 21GB.

A scannable .xml file can also be generated by visiting Special:Export.

[edit] API

  • AWB ships with WikiFunctions.dll, which can be referenced by other standalone projects. The DLL includes a wiki-ready web browser control, a simple page editor, a listmaker, and other tools and components.
  • User:Kingboyk has made available WikiFunctions2.dll which currently offers wiki-logging features for bots.

[edit] Plugins

Main page: Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Plugins

AWB is able to load and use fully customised plugins. These plugins can process page text and extend the user interface, and are in the form of libraries (.dll files) which can be made in any .NET language such as C# or Visual Basic .NET. When AWB loads, it automatically checks to see if there are any plugins in the folder it was executed from. Any plugins found are loaded and initialised without further intervention by the user.

[edit] Tips and tricks

  • To find and replace a word of upper and lower case, do a regular expression find and replace; for example, find: "\b([Tt])hier\b" and replace with: "$1heir". The "[Tt]" matches upper or lower case "t", the "$1" references whatever "[Tt]" matches. The "\b" indicates a word boundary; this prevents words like "clothier" from matching. The "(..)" marks the section or 'clause' that the "$1" is to replace.
  • To speed up a task, if you are correcting the above typo, set it to "Skip if doesn't contain" the typo(s) that is being corrected.
  • See Regular Expressions in .NET for a breakdown of .NET regular expression syntax.
  • Turning off "Show pictures" in Internet Explorer options can speed up page loading times especially when the Wikipedia servers are responding slowly. Also, editors who do not normally use Internet Explorer yet use a custom monobook.js javascript (godmode-light, popups, etc...) for other browsers may see better page load performance by disabling "Active Scripting" in Internet Explorer security settings. NOTE: Those who manually update Windows will need to enable Active Scripting when manually checking for updates. The Windows update page will mention this if it is disabled. You can create a custom security level such that Active Scripting is disabled for Wikipedia, but not for other websites.
  • See Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/Settings for a list of useful settings you can use with AWB.
  • AWB may have keywords that can be used in the textboxes/find-and-replace dialog. Currently, there is %%title%%, which represents the title of the current page (e.g. "John Smith"), and %%key%%, which will give you the human name category key for the current page (e.g. "Smith, John"). Other keywords can be implemented on request.

[edit] Getting the sources

AutoWikiBrowser is licensed under the GPL (see the license file).

[edit] Download source

To get the sources, you need read access to the SourceForge SVN server with a SVN client program.

[edit] TortoiseSVN

If you would like to use the latest source release, TortoiseSVN is recommended software, and a quick guide for which is included below.

After installing TortoiseSVN, create a folder AWB (or whatever name you prefer) and right click in the folder, and select "SVN Checkout...". In the dialog window that appears (titled "Checkout") enter https://autowikibrowser.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/autowikibrowser/AWB for the field URL of Repository. Check that the directory beneath is correct. You should then get the sources from the SourceForge SVN server. This is a ~150 MB download. When new sources become available execute "SVN Update" from the context menu of your AWB folder. You are not automatically notified of new versions; if you use AWB on a regular basis, and want to use the source version, check this daily, and build a new release version if there are changes. That way you are up to date with all bug fixes and new features.

Please note that you cannot commit sources back to the SourceForge server by using this method (this is called "anonymous access" or "anon access" for short). You would need to be registered as a project developer for this.

When you execute a "SVN Update", the software will download a change list then check the files that are present in the AWB folder, before downloading any new or updated files that may be needed.

[edit] Command line

If you have command line SVN installed on your pc, it is as simple as typing svn co https://autowikibrowser.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/autowikibrowser/AWB

That would put it in a folder called autowikibrowser in the default location. If you wanted to specify a location to copy it to, you would append the command with the location, e.g. svn co https://autowikibrowser.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/autowikibrowser/AWB d:\pathtofile

[edit] Full repository

https://autowikibrowser.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/autowikibrowser/AWB just gives you the AutoWikiBrowser project itself. The root https://autowikibrowser.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/autowikibrowser is where tags, branches, and the Usage Stats and TypoScan project files are. Most people will not want/need those.

[edit] Compile source

If you would like to use the sources to run the latest source version, you will need to compile these yourself. You will need a copy of Microsoft Visual C# Express Edition, or a more complete version of the Visual Studio 2008 suite, such as Professional, or a third-party C# IDE such as SharpDevelop (free).

[edit] Visual Studio

Browse to the second AWB folder, and run the Visual Studio Solution. When the IDE has loaded, select release rather than debug (next to the green forward arrow). On the solution explorer on the right hand side, right click on the solution, and select build solution. Visual Studio will now turn the source files into the required files to run AWB and IRC monitor. Back in the AWB folder, browse to bin\release, and copy AutoWikiBrowser.exe and WikiFunctions.dll from the folder to where you run AWB from.

[edit] SharpDevelop

Open the "AutoWikiBrowser no plugins" solution file. Right click on the AutoWikiBrowser project on the left hand side and set it as the startup project. Press F8 to build AWB. The AWB executable will be placed in ...\AWB\AWB\bin\ then a subfolder depending on whether you build a release or debug build (release recommended if you just want to use the latest version of AWB).

[edit] Changes to AWB code

You can view all SVN changes in the SVN Revision Log.

[edit] Snapshots

If you would like to use more up to date SVN versions, but are unable to build your own versions, User:Reedy (an AWB Developer), uploads periodic SVN release snapshots here.


[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Wine Application Database Entry for AWB

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser"