Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser/User manual

This is the user manual for AutoWikiBrowser.

This documentation is not complete; please help expand it.

Please note, this documentation may be out of date, ie features changed, and also may contain features not currently in the release versions of AWB.

Basic Procedure
The basic procedure for using AutoWikiBrowser (AWB) is as follows:
 * 1) Make AWB log in as a user
 * 2) Make a list of pages to modify
 * 3) Set the options (specify what to do to each page)
 * 4) Start the process (AWB takes you through each page, previewing the planned changes, and letting you make further changes, such as adding a template)

Login

 * AWB uses the Internet Explorer engine, and uses the IE login. If you have different accounts, you'll have to log out of Wikipedia in IE and log back in as your other account. If you want to run AWB and do manual edits at the same time using 2 different accounts, use IE for your bot and do your manual edits in another browser like Firefox or Opera.

Make list

 * Make from:
 * Note: Make lists from multiple pages by separating them with a pipe symbol, e.g. from a category, entering "Cats|Dogs|Fish" will get all the entries in Category:Cats, Category:Dogs and Category:Fish.
 * Category — Gets a list of sub categories and articles from the category.
 * Category (recursive) - Gets a list of articles from the category and any and all sub categories
 * What links here — Gets a list from the "what links here" of an article. To get the "what links here" of the articles "Cat" and "Dog" in one go, type "Cat|Dog".
 * Option: Inclusion only — same as What links here, but only gets pages that link by inclusion (i.e., )
 * What transcludes page — Gets all the articles which transclude this page
 * Links on page — Gets all the wiki-links from the given page, all namespaces.
 * Images on page — Gets a list of all the images on a page
 * Transclusions on page — Gets a list of all the transcluded templates/pages on the given page
 * Text file — Gets a list from a text file (the articles in the text should be wiki linked ).
 * Google search — Gets a list from a google search of the wiki.
 * User contribs — Gets articles edited by a specific user
 * Special page — Enter "Lonelypages" to get a list from Special:Lonelypages, you can also enter "Lonelypages&limit=500&offset=500" to get more or from an offset. If no limit specified, the limit will be 1000.
 * Image file links — Gets a list of articles that use the given image.
 * Database dump — Opens the Dump Scannner program to scan the database dump (which needs to be downloaded, ~1.8 GB). See Database download
 * My Watchlist — Imports your watchlist (using the account you are logged into Internet Explorer with).
 * Wiki search — that gets list of pages from wiki's internal search engine. Typically, Google search results are better but Google rescans Wikipedia only around once per month, and cannot search for specific wikisyntax.
 * Redirects — Gets a list of what redirects to the given page


 * Make list — Makes list based upon given options
 * Stop — Stops any current list making. Disabled when not list making, enabled when making lists
 * Remove selected — Removes selected item from list.
 * Save List — Save the current list to a text file. Three formats are supported: wikitext (default), useful for publishing lists on wikis); and plain text, useful for exporting lists to other tools, and also the very standard CSV.
 * Remove duplicates — Allows you to filter duplicates from the list without having to open the filter box
 * Filter — Allows you to filter the list by a selected list of namespaces, inclusion of selected words. Can also exclude items that exist in another list and remove duplicates.
 * Clear — Clears entire list.
 * Add — Adds item in the text box to list.

Set options

 * Apply general fixes (Including, but not limited to)
 * Fixes common mistakes in "see also" and "external links" sections, removes excess white space.
 * Sorts interwiki links alphabetically (individually selectable in menu), and puts them at the bottom of the page with stubs.
 * Unicodifies interwiki links.
 * Removes duplicate interwikis and categories.
 * Puts categories after article body, followed by interwiki links and stub templates. Recognises some comments as cat and interwiki headers.
 * Adds bullet points to external links after the ==External links==.
 * Replaces italic and bold html markup with wiki markup.
 * Repairs bad links.
 * Simplifies links like Dog to Dog.
 * Simplifies links like Dogs to Dogs.
 * Adds bold text to the first occurrence of the title of the article (if there is no other bold text).
 * De-links self referencing wiki-links.
 * Change Main Article: xxx to use
 * Remove empty and –, and for the wikilinks, caters for categories and images too
 * Correct numerous incorrect degrees symbols
 * Auto tag — Appends,  and  tags when appropriate. Removes stub tags from long articles. Adds the date parameter to the by-date sorted templates.
 * Unicodify whole Article — Replaces wiki like &amp;deg; with its unicode equivalent, °. Note that for symbols which could be easily confused with others, the conversion is not applied (for example: &amp;prime; &amp;Prime; and &amp;times; which map to &prime;, &Prime;, and &times; and could be confused with symbols like ', ", and x.)
 * Skip Articles — Skip if no
 * Unicodification
 * Tag changed
 * Skip if no header error fixed
 * Titled boldened
 * External link bulleted
 * Bad link fixed
 * Defaultsort added


 * Find and replace — Enables multiple find and replacement. Can specify case sensitivity and Perl-style regular expression patterns. The keyword %%title%% represents the article title. For information on setting options such as multi or single line see here. See here for substitution syntax.
 * Advanced find and replace (Replace special) — See MWB Replace Special.
 * Template substitution (subst:) — substitutes templates you chose. This is a more convenient and reliable way than simply entering regexes in Find and replace — AWB will automatically generate regexes.
 * Enable RegexTypoFix — Turns on RegExTypoFix — which automatically fixes >1000 common typos. Please read and understand the RegExTypoFix before using. The typos can be modified on AutoWikiBrowser/Typos.
 * Skip article when no typo fixed — Will skip articles that have no typo to be fixed


 * General article skip options
 * Skip if contains/doesn't contain — Skips articles that do or do not contain the given string/regex.
 * Case Sensitive
 * Are Regexes (Regular expressions)
 * Skip if blocked by Spam Filter - Skip page if not allowed to save article due to being blocked by the spam filter
 * Skip if Inuse - Skips the page if it contains the inuse tag
 * Skip articles with no changes — Skips article that it doesn't automatically change (i.e. make a "general fix", find and replace etc.).
 * Skip non-existing pages — Causes AWB to automatically skip pages that don't exist. Cannot be selected at same time as Skip existing pages.
 * Skip existing pages — Causes AWB to automatically skip pages that exist. Cannot be selected at same time as Skip non-existing pages.

More...

 * Append/Prepend text — Appends/Prepend the given text to the bottom of the page.
 * Images — Replace/Remove/Comment out Images
 * Categories — Add/Remove/Replace categories (replace only available when making a list from a category), enter the new category name minus the Category: prefix. When entering a category for "Add new category" use the keyword %%key%% to insert the reversed human name key, e.g. entering "Economists | %%key%%" might insert " ".

Disambiguation
This feature is intended for quick user-supervised fixing of links to disambiguation pages.
 * Enable Disambiguation
 * Link to Disambiguate — title of disambiguation page to be delinked. You can use several names delimited by pipe characters, e.g. Matrix|Matricies|Matrices.
 * Load Links — loads all links to the aforementioned page(s) into "Variants" edit box (see below).
 * Variants — all possible variants to disambiguate to (the list can be edited to add or remove links). Don't forget to decapitalize links when needed (e.g. matrix (mathematics) should be lowercase, but not Matrix (TV series)).
 * Skip article when no disambiguation made — ignores the article when it doesn't require disambiguation or user pressed "Cancel" in disambiguation dialog.

Disambiguation dialog
Once the disambiguation feature has been enabled using the above process and an article list loaded using "What links here" in the "Make list" section, the dialog box shown in the image will appear when an article has been loaded and a link to disambiguate found. In the image shown, two links in the page have been found to disambiguate. For each link:
 * Left box — contains the link in bold and some of the surrounding text.
 * Selection box — select the change wanting to be made from the following options:
 * [no change] — default.
 * [unlink] — remove the link.
 * dn — adds next to the link. Should be used when the correct disambiguation cannot be determined.
 * Variants — as specified in the "Variants" box in the "Disambiguation" tab.

The following options are along the bottom of the box:
 * Right box — editable box that displays what has been changed. Default change creates (or alters) a piped link. In the image,  is changed to.
 *  Unpipe — unpipes the link. This would change  to.
 * Reset — clears the changes made for that link.
 * Undo — reverts all manual changes to the right box, including unpiping. This is equivalent to reselecting the current item in the selection box.
 * Open in browser — opens the article in your default web browser
 * Reset all — clears all the changes made.
 * Undo all — reverts all manual changes to the right box for each link, including unpiping. This is equivalent to reselecting the current item in the selection box for each link.
 * Abort — stops the editing process (like the 'Stop' button).
 * Cancel — closes the disambiguation dialog, making no changes, and loads the diff (to show other changes made e.g. general fixes).
 * Done — makes the changes in the dialog and loads the diff. Other changes can then be made before saving the page.

AutoSave

 * Auto-mode — Will make saves automatically at given interval, only for accounts registered in the Bots section of the checkpage.
 * Delay — The delay in seconds before saving the page after loading, (normally loading takes about an extra 8 seconds or 3 seconds with quick save enabled).
 * Quick save — When using auto-mode, avoids loading diff to save time/bandwidth/server load.
 * Suppress "using AWB" — Stops addition of "using AWB" to the edit summary, as registered bots do not need this.

Nudging

 * Resave (nudge) after x minutes if stuck — Allows you to re-attempting save after a set number of minutes if AWB sticks
 * Reset Counter — Reset AWB Nudge Counter
 * Skip article if first nudge doesn't help — If the first nudge hasn't allowed AWB to continue/save, AWB will skip the article

Auto Shutdown

 * Auto Shutdown? - When the bot job is finished, automatically shutdown/standby/hibernate/restart the computer

Start

 * Summary — The edit summary, either select one from the drop down, or enter your own text.
 * Lock Summary — Allows the user to select to 'lock' the edit summary, so that it cannot be accidentally changed
 * Minor — Sets the edit as a 'minor edit'


 * Article statistics — Various statistics, such as number of characters and images.
 * Alerts — Displays alerts when, for example, the article is uncategorized, is long but tagged as a stub, etc.
 * Start the process — Starts the process when you have a list of articles. (Shortcut key — control + S)
 * Stop everything — Stops the editing process. (Shortcut key — escape)
 * False — Adds article to a list of false positives, in a file called "False positives.txt"
 * Preview — Changes the view to preview (and updates any extra changes you made).
 * Show changes — Changes the view to the diff (and updates any extra changes you made).
 * Move — Allows you to move a page to another location. Upon pressing this button, a windows appears asking for the new location, and a summary of the change, which is then confirmed by pressing move again.
 * Delete — Allows you to delete a page. Upon pressing this button, a windows appears asking for a summary of the change, which is then confirmed by pressing delete again.
 * Ignore — Moves on to the next page without saving anything. (Shortcut key — control + D)
 * Save — Saves the page, including any extra changes you made, then moves on to next article. (Shortcut key — control + S)
 * Find
 * Regex
 * Case sensitive
 * Find

Edit box
A text box used for manual editing of the current article text.

History
Allows the user to view the current page's history without having to open a separate web browser.

Diffs between articles can also be viewed in the history area.

Logging (View logs)
Common to both Successfully saved and Skipped: Skipped only
 * Save Log — Saves a copy of the relevant list view to a specified file
 * Clear — Removes all the items from the relevant list view
 * Add to article list — Adds the selected article(s) to the list maker

Logging to file

 * Log to XHTML —
 * Log to wiki code —
 * Log to MySQL —
 * Verbose logging —
 * Upload —
 * Folder —
 * Apply —
 * Upload to WPs —
 * Add to Watchlist —
 * Open in Browser —
 * Upload Location —
 * Category -
 * Current Job Name —
 * Maximum Lines — Maximum number of Lines in a Log
 * Status — Shows the number of log uploads, number of lines written to SQL/Wiki/XHTML log, and the number of lines since the last log upload

File

 * New setting file
 * Open settings — Loads settings from specified path.
 * Reset settings — Sets AWB settings back to the first run/program defaults.
 * Save settings — Saves the current settings to the file they were loaded from.
 * Save settings as... — Saves the current settings to a specified file.
 * Save as default — Saves the settings to the default.xml, these will then be loaded automatically when AWB is opened.
 * Log In — Takes you to the login page for the Wiki.
 * Profiles — Allows easy switching between user accounts (with the ability to save passwords)
 * Can also associate a settings file with a profile, then when the profile is logged into, the settings file is loaded
 * Log Out — Forces logout of the current user.
 * Exit — Quits the program.

List

 * Filter out non main space — Removes all non-main space articles.
 * Filter — Allows you to select which pages in the list box you wish to keep. E.g. Article, User, Talk...
 * Convert to talk pages — Changes list of article/template/userpage to their relevant Talk pages.
 * Convert from talk pages — Changes list of talk pages into their relevant article/template/userpage.
 * Sort alphabetically — Sorts list alphabetically.
 * Save list to text file — Saves list to text file (which can be used later on to create new list, as described above).
 * Launch Database Scanner — Launches the Database Scanner, see here.
 * Launch ListComparer — Allows you to make or open 2 lists, and AWB will tell you the entries that appear in both lists, the entries only in list 1 and the entries only in list 2.


 * Launch ListSplitter — Allows the user to make or open a list, and then split the list down into sections between 10 and 50,000. The current List Maker list (ie article list) can be transported to the listspliiter. When the lists have been split, they can then have these saved into individual text files. Or, it can also save to full AWB XML settings files based on the currently loaded settings.
 * For saving the required settings set any AWB or Plugin configuration options before running the ListSplitter, as it will pass the current configuration to the list splitter.

General

 * User project and preferences
 * Project
 * Project — Allows you to choose which wikimedia project (or even custom!) you would like to work on.
 * Language — Allows you to select which language of Wiki you would like to work on.
 * Other
 * Set text box font
 * Low Thread Priority — Sets CPU Thread priority to low, this means it will only use CPU if other processes don't need it.
 * Minimize to system tray — When AWB is minimized, having this option selected will close AWB into the notification area of Windows.
 * Flash — The AWB tray icon will flash when AWB is out of focus, and userinput is needed.
 * Bleep — AWB will cause a beep when AWB is out of focus, and userinput is needed.
 * Save Article List on saving settings — Allows the user to choose whether they want to save the current article list in with the settings.
 * Timeout Limit (seconds) — The timeout limit of the web browser. Min 30 seconds, max 120 seconds
 * Auto Save Edit Box? — Enables the option to periodically save the contents of the edit box to a text file
 * Auto Save Edit Box every x (seconds) — Period between saves of the edit box
 * To file: — Which file to save the edit box contents to. Currently this is in the AWB Directory. Default is 'Edit Box.txt'
 * Enable the Toolbar — Displays a simple toolbar below the menu strip, allows easily usage of basic start features. Includes:
 * Show or hide the panel — Shows and hides the main part of the AWB window at the bottom (Hidden Shortcut key of Ctrl+H — This works when the toolbar is enabled or disabled).
 * Expand the Edit Area — Hides the Make list box and the middle options tabsheet, to give an enlarged edit area along the bottom of the AWB window.
 * Start — Starts the Process, like Start.
 * Stop — Stops the Process, like Stop.
 * Save — Saves any page changes.
 * Ignore — Ignores any page changes, and moves onto next page.
 * Show preview — Shows in the browser window what the updated page would look like — like manual edit 'show preview' button.
 * Show changes — Shows the changes between the current revision, and your intended changes.
 * Articles — Number of Articles in the List Box.
 * Bypass redirects — Instead of editing pages that redirect to another page, AWB edits the page to which it redirects.
 * Do not automatically apply changes — No changes are made, instead you can use the "re-parse" option selectively.
 * On Load: — AWB will:
 * Show changes — Shows the changes between the current revision, and your intended changes.
 * Show preview — Shows in the browser window what the updated page would look like — like manual edit 'show preview' button.
 * Show edit page
 * Ignore bots and nobots
 * Mark all as minor — Marks all edits as minor.
 * Add all to watchlist — Adds all edited pages to user watchlist (This will override any preference options set).
 * Show timer — Shows timer in the lower right corner of the window so user can monitor interval between edits.
 * Sort interwiki links — Sorts the interwiki links in same order as pywiki bots (if "Apply general fixes" is selected).
 * Enable button to log false positives
 * Edit Summaries — Allows the user to edit the saved edit summaries for AWB.
 * Enlarge Edit Area — Hides the Make list box and the middle options tabsheet, to give an enlarged edit area along the bottom of the AWB window. Shortcut key = Ctrl + Shift + H
 * Refresh Status/Typos — Allows you to refresh the typo list if you have had AWB open a long time and want an updated typo list (only if RegexTypoFix is enabled!). Also reloads the checkpage to check enabled users and versions. The User talk templates page is also reloaded

Advanced

 * Make Module


 * Allows the user to make a simple 'module' or add on for AWB. The user is able to enter C or VB .NET code to enhance functionality of AWB — See AutoWikiBrowser/Plugins for more information
 * Test regex — Displays interface for testing searching and/or replacing text with regular expressions.
 * Run updater — Allows the user to manually run the updater

Plugins

 * Only displayed if a plugin module is loaded. If it is loaded, any selectable options for the plugin will be displayed here

Help

 * Help — Shows an integrated web browser to display this page. Includes a page contents on the left hand side.
 * About... — Shows about box showing creators, maintainers, version of AWB, IE Version, Windows Version, .NET version, and a disclaimer.

Web Control context Menu
The web control context menu is the menu that appears when you right-click on the web control.
 * Standard Internet Explorer right click menu

Edit box context menu
The edit box context menu is the menu that appears when you right-click inside the edit box.
 * WordWrap — Wraps the text in the edit box at bottom-right.
 * Undo — Negates the last action.
 * Cut — Cuts the selected text.
 * Copy — Copies the selected text to the clipboard.
 * Paste — Pastes text from the clipboard to the selected area.
 * Paste more — Enter text into the textboxes, then double click one to paste its contents.
 * Select all — Selects all the text in the edit box.
 * Go to line — Enter the line number and hit return.
 * Insert... — can:
 * Guess birth/death cats — Guesses the birth and death years of the article's subject and inserts the appropriate categories. (For biographical articles only.)
 * Meta-data template — inserts the persondata template. (For biographical articles only.)
 * Human name category key


 * Insert tag — Inserts the tag selected from the submenu to the selected area of the article. If stub is selected, the user can optionally change the type of stub by typing into the box.
 * Convert list to
 * * List — (Bullet pointed list)
 * # List — (Numbered list)


 * Unicodify selected — Converts any HTML entities or URL encoded characters in the selected text to unicode.
 * Bypass all redirects — replaces all links to redirects with direct links. This feature shouldn't be used in most cases, therefore it's restricted to admins only.
 * Fix all excess whitespace
 * Re-parse — Re-applies all the functions (general fixes, re-categorisation...).
 * Open page in browser — Opens the article in the default browser.
 * Open talk page in browser — Opens the talk page for the page/article in the default browser.
 * Open page history in browser — Opens the article history in the default browser.
 * Open text selection in browser — Allows the selected text to be opened as an article, as if it were a wikilink
 * Replace text with last edit

History context menu

 * Open history in Browser — Opens the history for the current page in the default web browser
 * Refresh history — Refreshes the history of the current page

View logs context menu
This context menu is common to both the Successfully saved and the skipped logs
 * Add selected to article list — Adds the article of the currently selected log to the article list
 * Cut — Cuts the currently selected log(s)
 * Copy — Copies the currently selected log(s)
 * Remove — Removes the currently selected log(s)
 * Select all — Selects all the logs in the current list view
 * Select none — Selects none of the logs in the current list view
 * Open in browser — Opens the article of the currently selected item in the list view
 * Open history in browser — Opens the article history of the currently selected item in the list view
 * Clear — Remove all displayed entries
 * Reset — Remove all displayed and hidden entries, remove sorting

List maker context menu
The list box context menu is the menu that appears when you right-click inside the list box.
 * Filter out non main space — Removes all non-main space articles.
 * Filter — Opens the advanced filter options.
 * Convert to talk pages — Transforms the list into talk pages, e.g. "Cat" => "Talk:Cat".
 * Convert from talk pages — Transforms the list from talk pages, e.g. "Talk:Cat" => "Cat".
 * Sort alphabetically — Sorts list alphabetically.
 * Save list to text file — Saves list to text file (which can be used later on to create new list, as described above.)
 * Cut selection — Cuts the currently selected article(s)
 * Copy selection — Copies the currently selected article(s)
 * Paste selection — Pastes whatever is in the clipboard. Articles separated by newlines or commas will be entered as separate articles
 * Select all — Select/Highlight all the articles in the list
 * Invert selection - Selects any articles which aren't selected, unselects any articles which are selected
 * Select none — Unselects all articles in the list
 * Add selected from list... — When an item is selected, the following can be added to the list
 * From category — Adds the contents of a category when a category is selected.
 * From whatlinkshere — Adds the articles that link to the selected article.
 * From links on page — Adds the articles linked in the selected article.
 * From image links — Adds the articles linked to an image when an image is selected.
 * Remove — Removes the selected article(s).
 * Remove — Removes the selected article(s).
 * Duplicates — Removes duplicates from the article list.
 * Clear — Clears the list.
 * Open article in browser — Opens the article in your default browser.

Database Scanner User Manual
ar:مساعدة:الأوتوويكي براوزر fr:Aide:AutoWikiBrowser