TechInfoDepot:AutoWikiBrowser

AutoWikiBrowser (often abbreviated AWB) is a semi-automated MediaWiki editor for Microsoft Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 designed to make tedious repetitive tasks quicker and easier. (AWB also functions reasonably well under Wine on GNU/Linux but this is not officially supported.) 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, AWB 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 TechInfoDepot database dumps. The edit box of AWB 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.

Rules of use

 * 1) You are responsible for every edit made. Do not sacrifice quality for speed and make sure you understand the changes.
 * 2) Abide by all TechInfoDepot guidelines, policies and common practices.
 * 3) Do not make controversial edits with it. Seek consensus for changes that could be controversial at the appropriate venue; village pump, WikiProject, etc. "Being bold" is not a justification for mass editing lacking demonstrable consensus.
 * 4) Do not make insignificant or inconsequential edits. An edit that has no noticeable effect on the rendered page is generally considered an insignificant edit. If in doubt, or if other editors object to edits on the basis of this rule, seek consensus at an appropriate venue before making further edits.
 * 5) The TechInfoDepot tenet "be bold" is not a justification for mass editing lacking demonstrable consensus. If challenged, the onus is on the AWB operator to demonstrate or achieve consensus for changes they wish to make on a large scale.


 * Repeated abuse of these rules could result, without warning, in your software being disabled. If you wish to run a bot, see TechInfoDepot:Bots: bots must be approved by the bot approvals group.

(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 English TechInfoDepot.

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 or watchlist the page.

(2) Download
Download the release version here or alternatively you may download the latest development snapshot here. AWB comes in a zip file and it is recommended that it be 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 does not 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 does not work, it probably means that you are not registered or that you do not have the correct .NET Framework installed.

On Linux, AWB partially works with Wine. It can also be started on Mono, albeit with some strange errors. See Mono and Wine. The installation process is the same as TechInfoDepot:Huggle/Wine.

On the Mac, AWB is not natively available, but an option is to use virtualisation with Parallels Desktop for Mac (subject to meeting supported operating systems requirements) and then run Microsoft Windows virtually with AWB as the Windows instructions above. Note this option is not free, as a license is required for both Parallels Desktop for Mac and Microsoft Windows. An alternative is to use the free VirtualBox.

(3) Get started

 * 1) In the "Source" dropdown list, select "Category"
 * 2) In the "Category" field, enter a category name.
 * 3) Click "Make list" and let the list load up.
 * 4) Set any options, such as find and replace, edit summary, etc.
 * 5) Click "Start!", it will load up the page, automatically make any changes and then go to the diff.
 * 6) 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.

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 TechInfoDepot 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 TechInfoDepot skins.

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 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.

After downloading, the archive needs to be uncompressed; this will turn it from a ~7.9 GB bz2 archive into an XML database dump around 33 GB.

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

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.

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.

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.
 * See TechInfoDepot: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%%</tt>, which represents the title of the current page (e.g. "John Smith"), and %%key%%</tt>, which will give you the human name category key for the current page (e.g. "Smith, John"). Other keywords can be implemented on request.