User blog:KuroUrufu/Guide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser

You have created your bot account and feel ready to use a bot software? This is the right place: we'll see step-by-step how to get AutoWikiBrowser and how to use it. In short, you'll have to follow these steps:
 * 1) Download the program.
 * 2) Choose the wiki where you are going to use the bot.
 * 3) Log in to the bot account.
 * 4) Specify what the bot should do.
 * 5) Secify what pages the bot should edit.

Download the program
Download AutoWikiBrowser to your computer. When the download is done, launch AutoWikiBrowser and you are ready to begin.



Choose the wiki
Choose the wiki where you are going to use the bot:
 * 1) Go to Options → Preferences → Site.Guide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 04 options.pngGuide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 05 preferences.pngGuide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 06 site.png
 * 2) From the drop-down list, choose " " as your project.Guide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 07 project custom.png
 * 3) * Note that you could also choose " " from the drop-down list and then type the first part of the URL of your community (for example, " " should be entered for the " " community) but this works only for English wikis.
 * 4) Select "https://" instead of "http://".Guide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 08 https.png
 * 5) * Note that, even if the HTTP/HTTPS drop-down is set to HTTP, it will correct itself to HTTPS after the next step but this auto-correction could not work with some versions of the software.
 * 6) Enter the domain name of the wiki (for example  ) you want into the text field (n.b. don't include "https://" since you specified that above/before).Guide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 09 wiki url.png
 * 7) When you are done, save changes with the "OK" button.Guide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 10 ok.png

Your program may freeze for a few moments. After this, at the right on the bottom bar, you will see that the program is synchronized with the given community.

Log in
Once you have chosen a wiki, you must log into your bot account.
 * 1) Go to File → Log in/Profiles....Guide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 11 file.pngGuide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 12 log in.png
 * 2) Enter the bot's username and password.
 * 3) * You will need to log in with a special name and password generated through Special:BotPasswords. See Help:Bots for more information on this process. The Username should be AccountName@BotPasswordName, for example if your username is  and your bot password is called , you would type  . Assuming you are on a secure computer, you probably want to check the Save Password field. Once you have configured your account, log in by double-clicking on the account you want to log in with.
 * 4) Press "Login".Guide to Get and Use AutoWikiBrowser - 13 username and password login.png

Your bottom bar will now show that you are fully logged in. Now the bot is set and ready to work!

Note: Some wikis use a checkpage that may limit the program to specific users as well as restrict who can edit automatically.

Choose edit options
We need to tell the bot which pages to edit and what to do in them: the order of these two steps is not relevant. For our guide, we'll begin telling the bot what we want to do.

Next to the "Make list" panel, there is the main editing options section. In order to tell the bot to fix the artist's name, we'll use the "Find and replace" options. Be sure to check the checkbox to enable it, then click "Normal settings". Enter the misspelled name in the "Find" box and the correct spelling in the "Replace with" box. For this example, you can leave the other options alone, though feel free to play around with the settings. Hit "OK" to close the box and set your settings.

Choose the pages to edit
Now we'll need a list of pages to edit. AutoWikiBrowser has many different list generators to use. In the "Make list" panel, browse the "Source" drop-down and select an appropriate option. If all the pages you're interested in are in the same category, use the "Category" option. If you're more interested in pages that use a certain template, use the "What transcludes page (all NS)" option.



To make a list of all pages in the main namespace, in the "Make List" panel choose "Special Page" as the source. When you press "Make List" an additional window should appear. Choose "All Pages", select namespace "Main:" and press "OK".



Start editing
When you are ready to begin, go to the "Start" tab from the middle section. It's advisable to enter a "Default Summary", that will be the base of your edit summary for each edit: it's not mandatory but it's really useful to know what the bot did.

Press "Start" and the program will start searching through the list of pages. When it finds the phrase it is looking for, it will apply all the appropriate changes and display the changes in the main box.

If the changes aren't quite what you had planned on, you can still edit the page using the edit box in the bottom right.

When you are done, press "Save" to save changes. If the page doesn't need to be edited, press "Skip" to leave the page unchanged. When you press "Save", you update the cache of that page for the wiki: doing so when no changes were done is called a null edit.

If you are not interested in null edits and you don't want to click "Save" or "Skip" every time the page remains the same with no changes, go to the Options tab and select the "skip if no replacement" checkbox or go to the Skip tab and select the option "Skip if no changes are made": this will cause the bot to automatically skip pages that won't have any changes.

Fully automatic bot
The example above shows how you can edit semi-automatically. It is quite fast and safe, as you can control each change being made. However, if you wish, you can go to the "Bots" tab and check the "Auto save" option. AutoWikiBrowser will now save each change automatically without any confirmation needed.

Use this option with care: running a few semi-automatic test edits before turning auto save on to test if the bot is functioning properly is strongly recommended. You should especially consider every scenario where your instructions may cause unwanted side effects.