Revision as of 20:28, 21 September 2007

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Archives

January → February 2006 February 2006 February → April 2006 April 2006 April → May 2006 June 2006 June → July 2006 July 2006 August 2006 September 2006 October 2006 October → November 2006 December 2006 January 2007 February 2007 March → May 2007 June → July 2007

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.

• "When I try to update to the new version 4.0, the updater freezes halfway through.'

  There is a bug in the version 3.9 updater. If you encounter this problem, uninstall AWB, and then re-install the latest version from Sourceforge.

• Will it ever work on Linux or Mac?

  Probably not, at least not until mono gets .NET 2.0 fully supported.

  A Wine bug has been filed. (Note that .NET 2 doesn't install on Wine.)

  However, pyAWB (pythonAWB), is being developed for Linux

• 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 other 3rd party wiki's, by entering the URL where index.php of this wiki resides. The wiki must support Query API (ex, install) and Bot API required by AWB. This means that it should have latest HEAD version of MediaWiki or something close to that.

• What interwiki link order does AWB use?

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

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

  AWB does not use Internet Explorer. It does, however, happen to use the same web browser control that Internet Explorer does; 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" in the "(2) Set options" 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 an Internet Explorer setting. This page explains how to turn off the clicking sound.

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

  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.

Problems with other software

• Modified versions of monobook.js (e.g. to utilise popups, godmode-light etc.): AWB works, but page loading can be slow. Workaround is to disable Active Scripting in Internet Explorer - see AWB Tips and tricks for more information and workaround.
  • Bugs in monobook.js can cause AWB to crash or be unable to load pages. Use the same workaround, or refer to the answer in the FAQ above. If you've updated monobook.js and are experiencing problems, please verify the bug still occurs with a blank monobook.js before reporting it as an AWB bug.
• Misplaced Pages Skins other than monobook: AWB might not work with other skins due to the skins having bugs.
  • Known problem in Cologne Blue skin: see Bug 9806 and AWB bug report.
• NoScript (Firefox extension) or other XSS-related extensions: some features such as "Open text in browser" may not work correctly. Workaround for NoScript: Disable the "Sanitize cross-site suspicious requests" option.

Discussion

Creating articles?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'''Eixen''' is a municipality in the Nordvorpommern district, in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany.
{{Mecklenburg-geo-stub}}
{{Cities and towns in Nordvorpommern (district)}}
]
]

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

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

It's actually easier to substitute the {{PAGENAME}} variable. Jogers (talk) 21:08, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

User:Sumibot did something similar while creating Indian village articles. See the bot's AWB settings page and the RFBA page for more information. I have made a feature request that would take this even further. Regards, Ganeshk (talk) 20:11, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Set options menu

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

Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/Bugs#Bottom_Frame_doesn.27t_show - Its a bug... Reedy Boy 21:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

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

We dont know. We tried to fix it in 4.1, but it didnt seem to be fixed... Reedy Boy 10:39, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

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

Its ok with 3.9... There has to be a common factor. We will hopefully get this sorted, and soon as we do, we will get a release out. Reedy Boy 20:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

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

Nope, it was disabled, not because it broke anything, just because it was really out of date. Reedy Boy 20:37, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

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

Find and replace

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

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

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

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

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

Can't use custom wiki

I have a custom wiki on my computer that I'd like to use, but it doesn't have a domain name. I can enter "localhost", "127.0.0.1", or my computer's network address (192.168.x.x), but no domain, and AWB doesn't accept these. How can I use it on my wiki? Tuvok 01:04, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Proxy server

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

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

It has been reported as a Bug and also a feature request. AWB doesnt actually have the feature, so, its a feature request. In theory, it should follow the system IE settings, but this wouldnt work for internal processes. It has already been requested as a feature on the page. Reedy Boy 17:42, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

AWB not working?

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