MediaWiki talk:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js

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 Info: Documentation is at Help:VisualFileChange.js. This talk page is for comments, feedback and desires to the developers of this script.

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Current version: 0.10.0.0

Archives /Archive/2011 /Archive/2012 /Archive/2013 /Archive/2014 /Archive/2016 /Archive/2017 /Archive/2018 /Archive/2019 /Archive/2020

	SpBot archives all sections tagged with {{Section resolved|1=~~~~}} after 5 days. For the archive overview, see Archive/. The latest archive is located at Archive/2024.

TO DO

• Add a file MOVE/RENAME action
• Allow multiple executions/ clone data instead of distructing
• Reason to talk-summary
• Improve UI for prepend any text + notify uploader
• Improve talk messages left by the script (the and also:-problem)
• Make VisualFileChange more intelligent - memory as key: Look how it is used (e.g. track usage using an abuse filter for a short time)
• Allow to specify custom clean-up rules (or trigger edit checkbox)
• Extend automated clean-up for custom replace: Commons:File description page regular expressions
• A view option to e.g. allow hiding unselected
• Adjustable thumb sizes (default and dynamically) through a general plugIn name perhaps ThumbScale? Reuse code from MediaWiki:EnhancedPOTY.js  Done -- User: Perhelion 06:03, 2 July 2018 (UTC)

Kleiner Text

• bugzilla:40059 — Global usage badges disappeared after Krinkle and Kaldari again "maintained" something  Done
• Delete talk pages / show if a talk page exists

Bug: it does not detect renamed files properly

When creating Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Panama1519 I had to add this file manually. The file was previously renamed minutes ago. Thanks in advance & for this tool. --Marco Aurelio (disputatio) 11:26, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

@MarcoAurelio: Has this happened also recently? --Leyo 00:33, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Leyo: MarcoAurelio resigned from wiki- activities due to health issues, AFAIR. The bug still persists. -- Rillke^(q?) 07:48, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

@Leyo: - Sorry for not replying. As Rillke says (thank you), I was off the projects due to health issues. Best regards. —MarcoAurelio (talk) 14:20, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

The bug still persists in 2016-17. --XXN, 18:20, 24 November 2016 (UTC) / 17:36, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

And in 2018. File:Jenštejn zřícenina hrad_016.jpg was renamed 4 November 2017. Nominated today but File:Lisbon, bridge.jpg did not get nominated. - Alexis Jazz 02:37, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

I looked for the bug and the conclusion is, the whole architecture of the file handling should be converted from title to pageids, if no additional API request should be applied. So it's a bigger intervention (maybe this is the reason why Rillke don't fixed this). -- User: Perhelion 06:42, 9 March 2018 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz, XXN, MarcoAurelio, and Leyo: I've done a fix (without ids), but I'm not fully sure about side-effects here. -- User: Perhelion 11:22, 11 March 2018 (UTC)

The script uses default subpage name, ignores the "heading for the mass deletion request"

It's a bug, or expected behavior? Personally, I've found this behavior confusing. --Trycatch (talk) 05:57, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Why not both. I prefer a fixed page (this is bad for e.g. category:Copyright violation) because then, it is easy to see whether something of a particular user or category has been nominated before. (And as a result you can see the arguments there)

There is also the technical point of view: Users may type chars like <>[] so I would have to validate and restrict the title lenght (255 bytes, exclusive namespace). So it is a mixed blessing.

If I could somehow ensure that people do not change the subpage too often, I would be inclined to implement it. -- RE rillke questions? 09:24, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, this option can be added to "Advanced configuration" if you afraid it will be used too often. --Trycatch (talk) 12:41, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Reasons for deletion

I think will be good idea to keep only unique reasons for deletion as well as to make number of reasons to remember configurable (I have ~ 10 of them, only 6 stored as of now). --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:14, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Eugene, what's your opinion about grouping: http://jqueryui.com/demos/autocomplete/#categories (type the letter "a"). Would this be a benefit in usability? And what groups should be used? 1) default reasons 2) custom saved reasons - or also the groups of the default reasons (Namespace-specific deletions, General reasons) -- Rillke^(q?) 19:41, 3 September 2012 (UTC)

I think will be good idea to reproduce 2-levels reasons from regular deletion form for files. Additional reason should be stored and sure during type will be great. But may be this job could be left for browser? --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:20, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

There is no way, I think, to let the use the native browser-autocomplete because this only works in true HTML forms; the forms created by JavaScript are not really submitted or are no forms, consequently the browser's autocomplete does not work. But now, the next version first that also fixes some regressions by the new jQuery version… -- Rillke^(q?) 16:02, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Not showing processed-as-duplicate files

I processed File:Magyar Bulls Training squad 2011.jpg as a dupe from File:First Magyar Bulls squad (for the matches vs. Czech Republic and Belgrade).jpg. When I start vfc on the users uploads, both images show up in the cached deleted uploads, though one still exists. --Funfood ␌ 07:56, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

This is an instance of bugzilla:31849. When I am going to resolve #Bug: it does not detect renamed files properly, this might be possible to resolve as well. -- Rillke^(q?) 08:48, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Gallery pages

Currently, clicking on Perform batch task on gallery pages does not work as expected, since only “Category” and “User” are possible options. I would find an option “Gallery” or “Page” useful, e.g. for getting a quick overview on the number of uses per individual file in the gallery (or user subpage). --Leyo 09:44, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

If you just want to view or edit single files, this would be more an option for gadget gallery details. But adding support for all files on a page seems to be reasonable to me. -- Rillke^(q?) 12:10, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

What I meant is just the same as the script currently does for (i) files in a specific category or (ii) uploaded by a specific user. Hence, files shown in a gallery or user page would become (iii). --Leyo 12:33, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

While it doesn't suggest it yet, there is a new option "page" that works for everything except special pages/ non-saved pages/ category-pages -- Rillke^(q?) 13:56, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Great, thank you. The only thing that might change is that Page is preselected instead of User when clicking on Perform batch task while being on a gallery page. --Leyo 14:19, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

That was what I meant saying doesn't suggest it :-) -- Rillke^(q?) 17:51, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

Any chance to have this suggestion added? --Leyo 00:18, 7 November 2014 (UTC)

Fully protected user talk pages

{{Editprotected}} When creating Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:Claes Oldenburg, the tool stopped at the "notifying uploaders" step because the page User talk:Gerardus is fully protected. As a result, the deletion request was not added to the daily log, so I will have to do that manually.

As a side note, the script also notified User:File Upload Bot (Magnus Manske) instead of the user who operated that bot. --Stefan4 (talk) 21:05, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

[1]. vfc currently has the latest text rev in cache — that's why it couldn't find the person who operated the bot. This should be changed and for option custom-replace / examine something else should be implemented. -- Rillke^(q?) 21:25, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

Well, this requires querying the protection level before (inprop=protection). If we decide to do this, we could also add an opt-out for users (template setting a category or the like). -- Rillke^(q?) 21:15, 19 October 2012 (UTC)

Advanced user notifications will be part of a library since notifying people is not only done by this script. -- Rillke^(q?) 13:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Please modify this automatic tool (and whatever library Rillke was writing about above) to ignore user talk pages it can't write to due to protection, and consider doing so to other automatic tools. Please see Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Blocks and protections#Joymaster for details.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 11:55, 26 February 2018 (UTC)

Loading all files in category more easily?

Hello, some of you directed me to this tool from Cat-a-lot. I've been trying it out and it's quite powerful. My problem is that if I am working off a category with say 300 files in it, and I want to find and replace among all of them (sometimes using "cute select" I think it's called), I have to get the software to incrementally load all the files in the category by scrolling down and down and down. (For my purposes I turn the thumbnails off, but by definition I need to load the wikitext at the start.) I was trying some increasingly complicated regexes on Category:Still life paintings to distribute the contents by date of work. Each time I returned to the program I had to do this scrolling down until the ~400th file came into sight, before I could run the regexes against all of them. The ability to batch the large category more easily is just teasing me! The foundation is right there. Is there some way you could have an option to grab all the file data at once? Or at least in a few incremental clicks? For my purposes I didn't even need the thumbnail GUI, I simply needed to know that the program was working with all files in that category in the background (though previewing the find and replace is great, which requires file identification). Hopefully I'm not repeating prior feedback... I get the feeling my use cases are different from most users. Boo-Boo Baroo (talk) 00:40, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi - to partially answer my own question, I have found the preference to increase the number of files loaded per update. Glad that's included. ;) Boo-Boo Baroo (talk) 04:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi Boo-Boo Baroo, the need to batch edit command-line like (without the visual-stuff or at least without the gallery boxes) is known to me. E.g. you specify a task and then the application automatically fetches the whole category, does the changes but does not display anything else than errors and progress. It's in my long list at COM:User scripts. If you like to help me creating such a tool, this would be great. You can experiment at Special:ApiSandbox and read about jQuery. If we create such a tool, it should not only work on categories but also other lists like user uploads, backlinks, …

Most users use pywikipedia or AWB/.NET Bot framework for such tasks. But it's also quite easy with JavaScript but has to be tested properly and it is important that someone who is able to fix JS-Bugs is continuously using it.

Lots of devs have a totally wrong idea of JavaScript. It has limitations but generally you can create great and powerful stuff with it, performance in browsers is growing and features are added (e.g. eased access to the local file system, fullscreen options, …).

You can also disable "load text", if you don't intend to examine the changes before doing the edits. The text will then be loaded before doing the edits automatically. -- Rillke^(q?) 14:40, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply Rillke. It's an interesting project and using Javascript opens it up to more users like me, which is important. I have worked a little with Javascript (years ago, before there were so many libraries on top of libraries) but not enough to help a project like this without a huge re-education first. I will also say I'm concerned that someone is going to raise a fuss about the end user being able to "run a bot", but the truth is, to manage 15 million files, anyone who cares about Commons needs tools like this. If they care enough about Commons to bother finding the tool, then bad edits are unlikely to be a problem.

Another small(?) feature request would be making the "cute select" wikitext regex have a multiline option. Right now I run one regex to "select", then another to "deselect" some of the files selected because the change I want to make already exists later on the page (the multiline regex would use negative lookahead). For now, Boo-Boo Baroo (talk) 19:19, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Profile saving/load glitch

I have encountered a couple of problems with profile loading. First, there seems to be the possibility that the profile I just pressed "Load" on is cached and is thus not truly updating from the settings .js. This has led to some replacement runs where I thought I was using a just-enhanced regex but in fact was using an older version. Second, when I recently saved a new profile it was a modification of an existing profile with 9 replacements. I deleted replacement number 7, I think, but 8 and 9 remained. Once I saved this as a new profile with slot 7 empty and reloaded it, I found it only had 6 replacements. This is effectively debugged with this manual edit that I made to the settings, where I deleted all the parameters related to empty replacement 7, and renamed 8 to 7, and 9 to 8. The previous debug attempt, where I simply tried to reactivate the empty 7th one as follows -- "mdRRegEx7":falsetrue,"mdRVar7":true -- did not work.

I can manage the second issue by not leaving replacement fields blank, but the profile caching (confirmed by closing my browser and reloading) is a subtle issue. One can't be sure with 8 convoluted regexes if I've actually got the most recently tweaked versions active. For your information! Boo-Boo Baroo (talk) 11:20, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

What links here

Is it possible to select a batch of images that are linked to a particular page? --Wylve (talk) 08:03, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

The controlling the option must be rewritten before so one only has to insert the API module (backlinks, {bltitle,blnamespace,blcontinue,bldir,bllimit}) and it does everything else without blowing-up the code. -- Rillke^(q?) 13:36, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Access to the list of selected files in replace mode

Is it possible to have access to the list of selected files in replace mode ? With such a feature, one could easily populate the other_versions field of a page. Pleclown (talk) 21:06, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

• This sounds like a very good idea. I will consider this! (As soon as I've time.) It will be a variable like %SELECTED_FILES_N% [n for new line as separator]. As long as this isn't implemented, Gallery tool is able to create huge, formatted lists (export function). -- Rillke^(q?) 21:22, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Indicating Convert to SVG/Use TeX

I think will be great to have indication that {{Convert to SVG}} or {{Use TeX}} is added to file. See Special:Contributions/Thepalerider2012 as use case example. --EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:33, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Statistics

After having performed a replacement job it would be interesting to know some statistics, e.g. the number of applications of replacement 1, 2, etc. It is feasible to implement this feature without too much effort? --Leyo 07:36, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

 Support should be very easy to do. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 12:30, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I would like to suggest what I consider to be an improvement over post-execution statistics:

When the user marks a media file, the script immediately performs a dry-run of the defined action. If the action succeeds a counter is incremented. The result of the action dry-run is discarded. The message on the left can then be something like: '939 of 942 selected files to perform the action on'. Since the user probably wants to know about selected files for which the action cannot be performed, those can be highlighted in a color different from the normal selected-color.

If it is too expensive to perform this kind of immediate dry-run (e.g. when the user toggles the 'Invert selection' key on several thousand files) an alternative could be an orange 'Dry-run execution' button placed between the green 'Execute' and the red 'Cancel' ones, that will count the number of files for which the action can be performed and then report this number to the user - preferably along with the numbers of the files for which the action could not be performed.

The rationale for this change is to catch actions with unexpected effects, prior to execution. Lklundin (talk) 12:10, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

{{Noncommercial}}

This tool allows tagging multiple files with {{Nonderivative}} but not with {{Noncommercial}}. Could that be added? --Stefan4 (talk) 21:31, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Please apply for adminship. Then you don't have to always ask and wait (for the sluggish developer). -- Rillke^(q?) 21:49, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Transclusions

It would be great if VisualFileChange worked on Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Xyz, too. --Leyo 13:59, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

 Agree ++Raoli ✉ (talk) 17:53, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

I seem to have missed #What links here. --Leyo 15:57, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Some profile setting do not get changed when new profile is applied

Try to load a profile for custom replace counting eight different costom-replace-rules and afterwards try to load a profile with less than eight rules. It seems for me, that the rules 5-8 are not wiped as they should. --McZusatz (talk) 18:48, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Nominating redirects instead of actual files

A couple of days I ago, I used this gadget to create Commons:Deletion requests/Files uploaded by Sheeraz07mba. One of the files uploaded by the user had been renamed from File:Sir Ziauddin recieving Egyptian delegation to Aligarh Muslim University.jpg to File:Sir Ziauddin receiving Egyptian delegation to Aligarh Muslim University.jpg (receiving was misspelled). The result was that the tool nominated the redirect for deletion rather than the actual file, which wasn't what I intended to do. —LX (talk, contribs) 19:35, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't know how to resolve it without breaking cosistency with other methods; MediaWiki API has a flag, that when set, will make it automatically resolving redirects for edits. This however won't work when editing the page's full text (instead of just prepending/appending)

Currently the upload log is the base for this gadget's data [thus not tracking moved files]. I thought about

1. using tracing like in Commons:MyGallery (data will be always up-to-date, but slow)
2. running a server backend on Labs (usually fast but tool labs sometimes kills webservices for unknown reasons and some users appear enjoying running really heavy DB queries leading to replication lag and slow response times)
3. hybrid solution (who should maintain all this code?)
4. authoring a patch for the MW code base (it would be as "unclean" as the code that creates Special:AllMyUploads) to allow listing all, including deleted and "old images" of a user

-- Rillke^(q?) 13:22, 15 June 2014 (UTC)

Improvements

A few suggestions if I can:

1. I usually copy output from CatScan2 to User:Jarekt/a and than fire up VisualFileChange.js. Currently us the page is in user space than the default "User or category:" mode is "User name" for User:Jarekt. In case of user subpages can the default be "Full page name" for User:Jarekt/a?
2. I often run "No license" action. Can we add removal of Category:Media without a license: needs history check if {{No license}} is run? That would save me a step.
3. Can we add Category Add and Remove action to the list? Cat-a-lot is better when it works but I can not use it with the results of "what links here" or CatScan2. It would be better than the string replacement option.

As always. Thanks --Jarekt (talk) 19:31, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

new DR listings

VFC seems to be unable to create new DR listing pages, I just tried to nominate some files for deletion and got an "unable to edit" error related to the listing page (which did not exist at this time). --Didym (talk) 00:11, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

The listings were previously created by user:bryanBot. -- Rillke^(q?) 03:54, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

As the bot ran on the Toolserver, it stopped working months ago. Is it possible to add the feature to create the DR listings without putting too much time into this (QuickDelete can create this pages, but unfortunately not handle multiple file DRs), or would it be the better way to restart a bot doing the creation work? --Didym (talk) 12:57, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

I added the DR listings function to my bot. --Steinsplitter (talk) 19:48, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you, Steinsplitter. It's better this way because sometimes really weird DR listing pages are created by the gadgets (when the computer clock is wrong, for example). -- Rillke^(q?) 20:21, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Problem with User Categories

VFC does not work properly if you want to edit a user category such as Category:User:Geo Swan/Taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS10. If you pull down the "Category name" header and then enter "User:Geo Swan/Taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS10" in the name box, it changes the header to "User name" and leaves "Geo Swan/Taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS10". VFC would be the best way to make the necessary edit to the 1359 files here, but it won't do it. .     Jim . . . . (Jameslwoodward) (talk to me) 14:23, 5 December 2014 (UTC)

More flexible consideration of files

I would really appreciate to have a few additional way on how to get file lists added to this great tool. Some are mentioned above, but I list them here for an easier overview:

• Gallery: works, but page name needs to be entered manually
• Special:WhatLinksHere, possibly with sub-options links and transclusions
• Search results: This would especially be valuable for doing fixes/maintenance work as Cirrus provides great options such as insource:.

Note that the third bullet point would in principle include the second bullet point with the search options linksto: and hastemplate:, respectively. --Leyo 22:54, 7 January 2015 (UTC)

I usually use CatScan to generate a gallery which I save in a temporary place and than load it with VisualFileChange. It is quite convenient although I would like it better if the default page the tool chooses when you press "Perform batch task" was the page you are on. --Jarekt (talk) 04:09, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I totally support the importance of the mentioned features requests, especially the last one. --Arnd (talk) 17:24, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

I came here looking for some way to act on search results (like HotCat does). This feature will be very useful. Thanks! @Jarekt: Can I automatically generate a temporary gallery (for use with VisualFileChange) from the search results? Please explain how. Cheers. --Cpt.a.haddock (talk) 12:52, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

Cpt.a.haddock, One way is to use en:Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser to make list of files based on search and than copy the list to a sandbox page that can be processed by VisualFileChange. --Jarekt (talk) 12:58, 27 May 2015 (UTC)

@Jarekt: That worked well. Thanks! --Cpt.a.haddock (talk) 11:17, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Just to document it: If one cannot or does not want to use AutoWikiBrowser there is a Javascript that can be used. I have created a gallery.js which is included in common.js. You find then the new item Create gallery in tools which allows you to store a gallery of the current search results into a wikipage. --Arnd (talk) 18:58, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Special:Diff/161772469

Somehow, the redirect was nominated for deletion instead of the file. Something seems to be wrong, and it could be dangerous if a deletion request closes as delete but the file remains as only the redirect is deleted. --Stefan4 (talk) 16:28, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately a long-lasting and know issue. One should really do something about this. -- Rillke^(q?) 16:41, 26 May 2015 (UTC)

Would it be possible to place file redirects in Category:Non-media deletion requests instead of the usual monthly categories? Then editors could check that category once in a while and correct incorrect deletion nominations. It's possible to detect redirects by using {{#ifexist:Media:Example.svg|not a redirect|redirect}}. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:35, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

Delete and notify uses {{Speedywhat}} all times

It may be more appropriate to use more specific templates such as {{Project scope}} based on the selected reason for deletion the admin made. E.g. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3AJash_reem&type=revision&diff=164430604&oldid=164430238 --McZusatz (talk) 10:39, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Disable for non-autoconfirmed users

I think it would be sensible to disable this script if the user is not autoconfirmed. The script allows very high speed bot-like actions, so we should try and restrict access a bit :)--Nilfanion (talk) 12:30, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Non-autoconfirmed users can make 8 edits per minute. This is not high-speed-bot-rate. But I got another request by Yann per e-Mail and replied to him that if there is a problem, we'll find a solution. -- Rillke^(q?) 13:35, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

Hi, This is an old issue. Yes, new accounts should be restricted using this tool. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:20, 17 December 2015 (UTC)

I'd outright disable it for new accounts, as it allows fully automatic editing (can select a huge batch and leave it alone). A speed restriction slows but doesn't prevent bot-like behaviour. Its not speed, but automation that's the issue.

New users should not be carrying out automated edits, even if they are experienced editors from other wikis, as they should familiarise themselves with Commons before doing mass changes.--Nilfanion (talk) 12:14, 20 December 2015 (UTC)

All except the nominate for deletion action are now disabled for anonymous users. It's probably favourable to get one huge deletion request instead of hundreds of smaller ones scattered around, no matter whether they're valid or not. -- Rillke^(q?) 12:35, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

Wrong solution to the wrong problem. Its not anonymous users, but logged-in and not autoconfirmed users. Besides - I'm curious as to how anon users could have accessed any gadget in the first place?--Nilfanion (talk)

It's a script and not a gadget, not taking into account that you can load any gadget script with your JavaScript console, even (self-)modified code. There are even anons who used Cat-A-Lot (for good). Unless we have a more clever definition of what trust means, I am not going to implement further barriers. Trust ≠ autoconfirmed. Why should e.g. someone who has made 200 contribs at en.wp not be able to use our features instantly? Telling them they have to wait 3 days is really stupid. And it doesn't prevent vandalism at all. -- Rillke^(q?) 02:27, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree trust is not the same thing as autoconfirmed. However, when a banned user can create a sockpuppet and make thousands of edits with zero effort that is not a good thing. Requiring autoconfirmed status would be a speedbump there. It is also extremely unlikely to actually affect any valid use - this is an advanced tool and it is unlikely a genuine new-to-Commons user will want to use it immediately.

Personally, I'd lock down all public scripts that allow edits to multiple files with a single action and require at least an opt-in request to gain access in style of AWB. VFC and Cat-a-Lot would fall in that category, but not Quick Delete or HotCat. There is no technical method of preventing copying this code to their personal JS and running that.

The two of us can agree to disagree on further action. However I will point out that if consensus for a change is established (eg at the AN), as the script's author you do not have a veto.--Nilfanion (talk) 11:01, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with logged in, but non-autoconfirmed users using VFC. They are limited to 8 edits per minute, and they cannot make a thousand of edits easily. Due to that, we can revert them easily. That's why we have the autoconfirmed right, to prevent mass vandalism. ★ Poké⁹⁵ 01:10, 16 April 2016 (UTC)

I found this tool useful for cleaning up bot uploads and sometimes for re-categorizing (e.g combining two categories into one). I don't quite get it why it's disabled for anons now. This barrier seems to complicate things for no good reason. Was it actually causing significant problems (other than theoretical problems)? Rationale here seems similar to occasional willingness to disable all kinds of editing for new users/anons, because they mess things up more likely. As for being experienced or not, anyone can still run scripts, as pointed out above, and if one's really a new user, then one probably don't know about this tool anyways. Also, as pointed out above, there's 8 edits per minute limit anyways, and it's easy to revert. 62.65.58.38 14:49, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

It was massively abused, and revision deletion for every single edit performed with a mass editing tool isn't exactly funny. --Didym (talk) 20:58, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

You mean some vandal specifically abused this tool massively, not one's own script? Are there examples of some specific cases? Rillke's reply ("if there is a problem, we'll") above indicates that these cases were not known at the time when restrictions were set. 62.65.58.38 06:36, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Space before signature causes monospacing

When notifying an uploader of a mass nomination where they have uploaded only one affected file, the signature appears on a line of its own, prefixed with a space, causing it to be displayed as preformatted text, which is rather ugly (example). When more than one of the uploader's files are affected, the signature appears on the same line as the last file, so it looks normal (example). On a related note, I don't really see the benefit of separating out the first file into a single-item list of its own and adding the "And also" heading for the rest; a bullet list already implies "and" between points. —LX (talk, contribs) 20:54, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Are you sure that you don't have a leading space in your customized signature? --Leyo 00:51, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm sure. —LX (talk, contribs) 00:57, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

OK, you removed the default “Yours sincerely”. --Leyo 01:31, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes, that narrows down the cause a bit. The "userNote" option is set to "" in the window.vFCSettings of my monobook.js. I think that should be a supported configuration, which would mean this is still a valid issue. —LX (talk, contribs) 02:10, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Suggestions

VFC profiles

Make VFC save it's preferences (profiles) in another js file, not in user's common.js. File history is flooded and maybe people want to not keep profiles forever - if profiles are stored in a page like /VFC.js or /VFCpreferences.js, it can be easily deleted from time to time. --XXN, 12:26, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

VFC

Make it possible to change uploader name in VFC interface without reloading page - this helps preserving settings (especially patterns for search-replace).

Make it possible to re-run a task in VFC interface without reloading page - this is usefull especially when you have constructed a complex regex pattern and forgot to escape a char or added some extra elemens, etc. --XXN, 15:27, 6 April 2016 (UTC)

Expand VisualFileChange with 2 more options (out of scope)

See Commons:Village pump/Proposals#Expand VisualFileChange with 2 more options (out of scope). Gunnex (talk) 19:40, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Notification

Is it possible to choose some better notification than ==[[:%FILE%]]==\n? It's a bit irritating that I have to go to the user talk page and replace the header with the correct notification template after tagging the files. --Stefan2 (talk) 13:46, 30 June 2016 (UTC)

Uncategorised files

There should be, probably, an option to easily toggle select all uncategorised files preloaded in VFC working window. Personally, more than 90% of times when I'm using VFC is for replacing of /\{\{Uncategorized.*?\}\}/g with some category. --XXN, 18:31, 19 December 2016 (UTC)

XXN, i never made this. Therefore, i doubt if it is a general use case. But you could quickly select those files by using Advanced Select Files->Wikitext matches? --Arnd (talk) 07:39, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to see also VFC having buil-it optional functions for simple default clean-up, like removal of {{Check categories}} and maybe {{Uncategorized}}. Yes, I am frequently working with VFC on categorization. Someone can say that this is not a general use case, but I do it:) If not accepted, probably I need to fork VFC, creating my own version. --XXN, 21:46, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

"You cannot execute new requests without reloading this page"

Hi everyone, I am using VisualFileChange.js to make batch edits. In this moment I am working with a custom replace to add a template after another. It didn't works. When I execute the program appears a box with the title "What would you like to do next?" and inside:

Note: You cannot execute new requests without reloading this page.

But you can save your inputs into a profile. [It is a button]

The inputs of the last executed requests are automatically saved.

Check your contributions

Reload this page

If I check my contributions, I don't see any new contribution. If I reload the page, with or without the link that the box gives me, it continues without working. I have tried many times. Could anyone help to fix this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Regards, Ivanhercaz (talk) 16:59, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

I think I've also encountereted such a problem in past. This can be caused by some invisible marks (BOM marks). In such cases to match better the searched string the simplest way is to copy the string from a page to be processed, and to paste it in VFC. cc Ivanhercaz. XXN, 17:22, 1 July 2017 (UTC)

Hi XXN! Thank you for your answer, if I copy the string and then paste it VFC, it works fine! It was easier than I imagined, I don't know how I didn't think to do it. Regards, Ivanhercaz (talk) 11:44, 4 July 2017 (UTC)

Regarding an issue noted whilst using VFC at Commons

A summary here [2]

VisualFileChange allows selection of media for changes such as deletions on a mass basis. In the course of using it on a Deletion Request at Commons, a number of categories were in turn nominated.

However, the script as implemented, didn't appear to have an obvious warning about potential "double taggging", where due to an image being in 2 or more categories, could potentially end up being nominated twice due to rapid progression through a group of categories, cached versions of pages, or the script not necessarily fully recognizing what had been nominated previously (with respect to other categories or previous nominations or manually).

This may be done to a user misunderstanding on my part, but felt it would be reasonable to ensure that it is entirely down to that, and not a technical oversight or issue in the script and it's various implementations. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 09:12, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure about this. What would be expected in the warning? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 11:20, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

In relation to deletions which use a tag, "A deletion tag is already present on the following media. As 'double nomination' is not considered good practice, These files will be excluded from the request. : ...list of files...". I.E it won't tag if there's a deletion tag already present. Over on Wikipedia TWINKLE does something similar. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 14:11, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think it's within my ability to add such feature. Maybe @Perhelion: ? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 15:34, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

File sort order

Would it be possible for "default" sort order to return the images that are used in the order that they appear on the page? Alternatively add an option for that? The current default appears to be ascending by filename. Storkk (talk) 12:21, 17 June 2017 (UTC)

Minor edits

(How) is it possible to mark VFC edits as minor? --Leyo 18:54, 24 November 2017 (UTC)

 Support adding such a feature.   — Jeff G. ツ 15:07, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

 Support --Arnd (talk) 09:40, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

Cannot read property 'length' of undefined

Commons:Deletion requests/undefinedinsource:huntingtontheatreco

Maybe trying to nominate 1729 files at once was asking a bit too much. I managed to nominate 602. I'll get the rest.

Tasks:

 Done Starting and gathering information.

 Done Determining target.

 Done Retrieving file-list from server.

 Done Retrieving details from server.

 Done Checking input.

 Done Creating request subpage.

 Done Tagging files. (Prepend text)

 Done Notifying uploaders.

 Done Listing request subpage to the daily list.

 Not done tracking mobile uploads

Revert overwritten files?

"Error: There was an error while listing mobile upload ##### TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined" - Alexis Jazz 21:59, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Commons:Deletion requests/undefinedinsource:huntingtontheatreco -hastemplate:delete

I had entered "Files found with Special:Search/insource:huntingtontheatreco " in the field for "Insert the heading for the mass deletion request, please" (so it would be merged with the existing request) but that seems to have been ignored. this is used for the header only, you have no control over the name of the page that is created.

Tasks:

 Done Starting and gathering information.

 Done Determining target.

 Done Retrieving file-list from server.

 Done Retrieving details from server.

 Done Checking input.

 Done Creating request subpage.

 Not done Tagging files. (Prepend text)

 Done Notifying uploaders.

 Done Listing request subpage to the daily list.

 Not done tracking mobile uploads

Revert overwritten files?

"Error: There was an error while listing mobile upload ##### TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined"

While running I got: "Error: -- NO TASK DESCR. FOR mdGetMetaTable PLEASE ADD IT -- ##### TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined"

Also, I thought I had selected 467 files but only 450 are listed. The numbering is also odd. It counts normally but then it goes to "120, 121, 126, 127, 128, 131". The last image is 1115. The search returns 1,182 results. - Alexis Jazz 22:16, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

@Alexis Jazz: I finished it for you.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 22:24, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. You still somehow missed 276 though? (working on them)

I now even got the NO TASK DESCR. error while loading the search results in VFC. - Alexis Jazz 22:28, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Avoid loading scripts external to Commons

Given the recent unpleasantness where at least 2 admin accounts were compromised and were used to try to force the loading of external scripts, I think we should really have very compelling reasons to require loading scripts from domains other than commons.wikimedia.org. For the diff function of the Examine changes, we load a script from Schnark's dewiki userspace:

mw.loader.load( '//de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Benutzer:Schnark/js/diff.js/core.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript' );

I suggest we copy de:Benutzer:Schnark/js/diff.js/core.js to an on-Commons location and load it from there. Thoughts? Storkk (talk) 12:56, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

You mean, to prevent a chain reaction to commons in case a dewiki sysop or Schnark's account is compromised? The former is going to be much harder considering m:Creation_of_separate_user_group_for_editing_sitewide_CSS/JS, and the latter... very unlikely. Including external scripts is reducing the maintainence costs. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 13:56, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

I think the general principle is more edifying in this case. But if you want to discuss the previous specific problem, that group's existence would not have prevented it, since one of the users compromised would surely be in that group. But back to the general case, I believe the tiny reduction in maintenance costs does not even remotely outweigh the fact that I need to load javascript curated by a community I have no first-hand knowledge of in order to use what has become essentially part of the core administrative and curation tools on commons. I only became aware of this when Diff wasn't working and I found I had to allow uMatrix to import a script from dewiki. Storkk (talk) 14:08, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Would be possible to just include a permanent linked version, but then the urls have to be updated after changes made upstream. CSP is enabled as well. --Steinsplitter (talk) 14:11, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

That would be marginally better, but would still necessitate running de.wikipedia.org scripts to use what has become core commons.wikimedia.org functionality, unless it's possible to create a Commons permalink for a dewiki page, but I'm not aware that's possible. I don't understand the full ramifications of CSP, though. Storkk (talk) 14:29, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) FWIW it also seems pretty bad that the js load respects the origin's TLS status. If you're going to load external JS (which, again, I think is a bad idea), loading it over anything but HTTPS is just nuts IMO. Storkk (talk) 14:12, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Set to https --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 14:28, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Uploaders not notified

Commons:Deletion requests/Files in Category:MP4 files

No uploaders were notified. The only odd thing is that I nominated .mp4 files, I have no idea why that would break uploader notification. - Alexis Jazz ^{ping plz} 03:31, 21 August 2018 (UTC)

VFC seems not to work for search inputs anymore

I am getting an error like: "Script cannot find any file / initial upload in / by insource:/\|interwiki= \|defaultsort= \|mapzoom=/." --Arnd (talk) 13:04, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

@Aschroet: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&search=insource%3A%2F%5C%7Cinterwiki%3D+%5C%7Cdefaultsort%3D+%5C%7Cmapzoom%3D%2F.&fulltext=Search&searchToken=46sr3mtw7rd09y3c6onf0fszx appears to be empty. What search had results that you were trying to use VFC on?   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 13:37, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, i forgot that VFC does not work for categories. --Arnd (talk) 15:37, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

@Aschroet: Having it work on non-file pages like categories would be a great feature enhancement.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 15:39, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Pagepile as input

Would it be possible to enable Pagepile (or even better a Petscan query id) as input format for VFC? That could make a lot of maintenance tasks easier. --MB-one (talk) 09:38, 21 October 2018 (UTC)

Translation capability

Hello.I suggest that the tool become translatable by translatewiki.net or a local message here with the addition of descriptions of the tool within it to facilitate its use.Thanks ديفيد عادل وهبة خليل 2 (talk) 15:33, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Removing of obsolete OTRS tags

Hi, when adding a new OTRS permission (or permission received), it would be very, very useful to remove any former OTRS template from the files. For instance:

• removing any {{OTRS pending}} when adding {{OTRS received}}
• removing any {{OTRS pending}} or {{OTRS received}} when adding {{PermissionOTRS}}

This can be done with any of the existing OTRS options in the tool. Thanks --Ruthven (msg) 08:59, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

I have experienced this issue as well. I thought “OTRS- remove tags” would do it, but it didn’t. -- 1989 (talk) 19:25, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

This is somehow special. Why not use the OTRS gadget? -- User: Perhelion 19:40, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

@Perhelion:  Because it doesn't work for all the files in a category, for instance. When you have tenths of files, it's painful to do them one by one. --Ruthven (msg) 19:54, 21 February 2019 (UTC)

depicts

Maybe it is too early to ask, but as the Structured Data on Commons is on, it would be really great to see, if VFC provides option to add depicts someday soon. Thanks in advance -- Bodhisattwa (talk) 20:45, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

Show source

Hi, It would be very useful that VFS shows the source mentioned (3 categories: own, external, others, with the details shown when the mouse over). Regards, Yann (talk) 13:50, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Weird behaviour

I was just using it on User:Walter Grassroot. Choose "User name", enter the name, and continue by default. At least two photos from 7 June from Special:ListFiles/Walter_Grassroot are not shown properly. No.8 File:遂昌长粽.jpg has no thumbnail and a file size of 0. No.10 File:云中君遂昌红茶.jpg is missing.--Roy17 (talk) 19:16, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

It queries logevents query, which links to File:遂川长粽.jpg, and guess what? File page with no file uploaded (the file was moved to File:遂昌长粽.jpg, and the redirect was deleted, and a certain app recreated the page)... Let me check how to query for uploaded file with consideration of file moves. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 18:45, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

@Zhuyifei1999: thx a lot! I'll report the bug behind special:diff/353950582 somewhere. I guess it occurred because the app remembers the old file name.--Roy17 (talk) 18:51, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I changed the API query to use allimages instead of logevents. Unfortunately, this means that we cannot filter it to the files where the user uploaded the first revision (rather than overwrite) anymore. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 19:23, 12 June 2019 (UTC)

Commons app bug report: https://github.com/commons-app/apps-android-commons/issues/3017

@Zhuyifei1999: VFC couldnt detect the rotated one in Special:ListFiles/GRAND_UNITY_DEVELOPMENT.--Roy17 (talk) 14:29, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I just realised this is an old bug mentioned at the top of this page: #Bug:_it_does_not_detect_renamed_files_properly

But I think it might be better to stick to logevents. After all, files moved without leaving redirects are quite uncommon and could be ignored for technical reasons. They could be dealt with manually or with category/search modes of VFC.--Roy17 (talk) 15:16, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

I cannot see "the rotated one" in Special:ListFiles/GRAND_UNITY_DEVELOPMENT. There are two images listed on the special page and both images are listed in VFC for me.

As for switching back to logevents, what is the benefit of that compared to allimages? I don't see that was considered in previous threads. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 18:12, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

@Zhuyifei1999: you need to select see old versions. The current setup does not find overwritten files.--Roy17 (talk) 20:29, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

So you are saying that old versions should be considered in the API query? --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 21:31, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes if that's possible. If not, roll back to logevents. Deleted redirects are far less common than overwritten files.--Roy17 (talk) 22:18, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

Reverted --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 22:27, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

"Start at <date>" option no longer seems to work

Within the past two or three days, it seems that the "Start at <date>" option no longer seems to work properly. Now, whatever date I enter, I only get either the most recent files (i.e., 2019) or the oldest files depending on the sorting setting that is selected. —seav (talk) 18:14, 13 June 2019 (UTC)

Fixed. Sorry about that and tanks for reporting. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 05:50, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you very much for fixing the bug! I can confirm the option now works correctly. —seav (talk) 07:18, 14 June 2019 (UTC)

Make links in preview of entered notes open in a new tab?

Clicking on any file opens it in a new tab. The same should apply to links generated in Your provided reason to delete is in the left sidebar. (I chose 20 files and wanted to see if the shorthand I gave in the reason was correct. Ctrl+click failed at first, so I clicked directly. Boom! XD)--Roy17 (talk) 09:17, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

There was no warning about leaving the page with unsaved changes? Then this should be fixed, too. -- Rillke^(q?) 19:02, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

Support for structured data, AC/DC and more :-)

Hello! As also mentioned earlier on this talk page, I have heard from quite a few VisualFileChange.js users (including in person at Wikimania) that they would be very delighted if VFC would also support editing structured data (captions, Depicts and other statements). That said, Lucas Werkmeister has in the meanwhile also started developing a tool called AC/DC with similar functionality. I was wondering if you, the VFC developers, are interested and willing to indeed provide structured data support at some point, or if you'd prefer that other tools pick this up? In either case I will be very happy to support you where I can -- for instance by helping to coordinate the efforts, to help with (clarity in) documentation, and/or to connect you with my colleague developers if you need advice. Many greetings, also from Keegan - SandraF (WMF) (talk) 11:47, 30 August 2019 (UTC)

Thank you Sandra. I will check AC/DC script right away. Masum Reza^📞 08:15, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

Mark "Files from external sources with reviewed licenses" green

Flickrreviewed files are marked with a green frd. Pending licencereviews are marked with a green lrR. Could you please mark files in cat:Files from external sources with reviewed licenses with a green lrd or something similar to frd?--Roy17 (talk) 09:32, 14 September 2019 (UTC)

Removing text without adding a blank line

Is it possible to remove a line of text without adding a blank line? Se this edit for example. The optimal output would be this. Can it be done? If not, can someone implement it into VFC?Jonteemil (talk) 19:00, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I deleted this post since I figured it could be done using Cat-a-lot. I have now though once again found myself in a position where a want to remove something, namely a template from a few files. This can't be done right? You can replace, but you can not delete. If the placement of the template is always the same, for example above == {{int:filedesc}} == you can replace the template plus == {{int:filedesc}} == with == {{int:filedesc}} ==. This technically removes the template (and the line it's written on) however this can't be done when the placement of the template isn't always the same. If you leave the "Replace with" input empty the line remains, even if nothing is written on it. Can someone add a "Remove" action to VFC. This would be very appreciated.Jonteemil (talk) 14:51, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps something like "When replacing by empty input: if line becomes empty -> remove line, if line is not empty -> don't remove line" would work if someone would be able to translate this to javascript code?Jonteemil (talk) 15:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Just add a blank line after the pattern to match. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 09:37, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@Zhuyifei1999: How would this work when there isn't a blank line just below the template? Which was the case in my example above.Jonteemil (talk) 16:16, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

This example? Did you even try? The original text: [[Category:SVG text logos]]\n[[Category:SVGs by Moheen Reeyad]], where \n is a linebreak (think of it like an enter key). What you want: [[Category:SVGs by Moheen Reeyad]]. So replace [[Category:SVG text logos]]\n with nothing. What is \n if nothing follows? A blank line. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 17:29, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

In other words, if you don't want the enter key to be there, replace out the enter key. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 17:31, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@Zhuyifei1999: How would this work on a file that isn't in Category:SVGs by Moheen Reeyad.Jonteemil (talk) 20:28, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I decline to answer. If you don't even try it out, I won't even explain how it works. --Zhuyifei1999 (talk) 22:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

@Zhuyifei1999: Okay, it actually did work, on most of the files anyway, thank you. I still think there should be a "remove" task implemented though. The reason is that three different kinds of removal has to be accounted for. Namely 1. if /it/ is alone on its line. 2. where there's something before /it/ on the same line and 3. where there is something after /it/ on the same line. Now you have to make three replacements to account for all possible placements of what you want to remove. Luckily 99% of the files I wanted to edit were 1. This might not always be the case however.Jonteemil (talk) 15:20, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

@Zhuyifei1999: Your help with \n after the string (I think it is?) has made my use of the VFC a bit easier. I once again want to thank you for that. There seems to be a lot of drama/negativity around Commons atm so I just wanted to show some appreciation for a change. Thank you!Jonteemil (talk) 01:39, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Create file formations multiple times

Hello,
I have the following question:
Is there a way to create descriptions in the tab 'File information' for multiple files with VisualFileChange (similar to Cat-a-lot)?
-- F. Riedelio (talk) 06:27, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

@F. Riedelio: I don't quite understand what you mean. Can you explain further?Jonteemil (talk) 03:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Jonteemil: many thanks for your response.

I would like to change the 'Captions' in the 'File information' tab for several files (photos) with the same description at the same time, not for each file individually.

--F. Riedelio (talk) 06:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@F. Riedelio: I see, it seems as you weren't the first who asked this question: Commons talk:File captions#Tools for easily adding captions to already uploaded files?. There seems to be a lot of tools that lets you add statements to a file. But I can't seem to find any that let's you add captions. I guess a bot could do it but I unfortunately don't think there is a "cap-a-lot" as Animalparty beautifully worded it.Jonteemil (talk) 06:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Is VisualFileChange.js broken?

Please see Commons:Village pump#Is VisualFileChange.js broken?. VFC seems to be broken both on Firefox and Chromium. pandakekok9 04:14, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Copy from Village Pump, cf. Special:PermaLink/413729721#Is VisualFileChange.js broken?:

Is VisualFileChange.js broken? Or is it just me? Tried to fire it off from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Search&limit=500&offset=0&ns0=1&ns6=1&ns9=1&ns12=1&ns14=1&ns100=1&ns106=1&search=Soule+Seattle&advancedSearch-current=%7B%7D&searchToken=rqss1robfm3r14vwivcvqno7 because I wanted to globally replace {{en|Soule, John P.}} with {{Creator:John P. Soule}}. The problem came while VisualFileChange was loading files, so I never even got to that command. The error message began in red at left, and ran off the bottom of the window in a manner that made it unreadable, something beginning "ERROR: NO TASK DESCR FOR". Looking with the Firefox web inspector, it looks like it's "-- No TASK DESCR. FOR mdFormattNumber PLEASE ADD IT -- ##### TypeError: pg.revisions[0] is undefined:" - Jmabel ! talk 03:04, 21 April 2020 (UTC) Yeah, seems to happen to me as well with Firefox 75.0. I will try using Chromium, and maybe perhaps downgrade Firefox. pandakekok9 03:11, 21 April 2020 (UTC) Seems to happen with Firefox 74.0.1 as well. pandakekok9 03:18, 21 April 2020 (UTC) Also broken in Chromium 81.0.4044.92. This seems to be a VFC issue. pandakekok9 03:39, 21 April 2020 (UTC) @Jmabel and Pandakekok9: Works the same on Safari on iPhone. Can be worked around by using Special:Search/Soule AND Seattle though.Jonteemil (talk) 16:13, 21 April 2020 (UTC) It does however take a little bit longer time to render the file list, eventhough it eventually renders. Very strange.Jonteemil (talk) 18:13, 21 April 2020 (UTC) Thanks! Bizarre, but I guess I can do that in the future. - Jmabel ! talk 18:31, 21 April 2020 (UTC) @Jmabel: Until it gets fixed I would guess so yes. Your welcome :).Jonteemil (talk) 18:37, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Last edit was by Kwj2772 (Special:Diff/390024004/404078565). Perhaps Krinkle has a clue? Are there recent changes that potentially affect the massively used gadget? It’s very pity that the most (and for a very long only) active admins regarding Javascript are not active for months or no admin anymore. — Speravir – 23:28, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi. I've performed some generic JavaScript maintenance on this file in the past but have no idea how this gadget internally works, sorry. --Krinkle 23:47, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

I don’t have much time to look into this right now, but to reproduce: open this URL (loads the gadget even if you don’t have it enabled usually), click “perform batch task” in the sidebar, click “proceed” in the “What user or category is this action about?” popup, scroll down in the results list a few times. The error is thrown at MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/ui.js, mdQueriedFile function; the API appears to return an empty revisions array for page ID 84973088. --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 09:53, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

And looking at the result of the API request that VFC makes, I see a) that the "continue" part of the response includes "rvcontinue": "84973088|409097305", i. e. the API hasn’t finished returning revisions for this file (that’s the same page ID there); b) that file has a lot of metadata in the imageinfo, with the “pages” metadata containing some 742 entries (one per page). It looks like the gadget assumes that, if a query API response includes a file, then it will also include revisions for that file, but I don’t think that’s true in general: with continuation, the response data for a file can be split across multiple API responses, and it looks like that’s happened here – the large amount of imageinfo metadata has pushed the revisions data for this into the next response, causing VFC to fail when processing the first response (because it expects the revisions to be there already). --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 10:10, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Pandakekok9, Jonteemil, Jmabel, and Speravir: Alright, I have a suggested fix/workaround at User:Lucas Werkmeister/Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/ui.js. It doesn’t fix the issue properly (that file will be missing its revision data – I’m not sure what effect that will have), but at least you can continue to load more files, so it seems to be some improvement. I’ll probably deploy it tomorrow if nobody objects or has a better idea. (You can try it out by pasting the contents of that page in the browser console after loading VFC (“perform batch task” sidebar link), but before starting the search (“proceed” button).) --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 23:18, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Danke, Lucas, fürs Ansehen!

Actually I think, VFC does not need to know at all old file revisions, only the active one, or is it important for admins, Joe?

Lucas, testing your code I now get another error message: Error: -- NO TASK DESCR. FOR mdFormattNumber PLEASE ADD IT -- ##### TypeError: pg.revisions[0] is undefined.

— Speravir – 00:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I certainly can't think of any reason VFC would care about old file revisions, but I've never looked at its inner workings. - Jmabel ! talk 05:27, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

What might be the reason for the error?Jonteemil (talk) 06:18, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@Speravir and Jmabel: It’s failing to load any revisions, including the current/latest one. @Speravir: that looks like the same error to me (pg.revisions[0] is undefined) – maybe the workaround wasn’t loaded correctly. --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 08:07, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Jonteemil, see Lucas’ post from 10:10, 22 April 2020. It’s an issue with reading file revisions. — Speravir

Lucas, first I definitely got a (slightly?) different error message before, I even double checked this yesterday before posting, but cannot reproduce this now. (Emm, now I remember that Jmabel had posted the error himself, see above … so, I’m quite embarrassed.) For the file revisions, thanks for clearing, but VFC also does not need to read the full active revision, only the active wiki source – it certainly cannot act on the file metadata info. Acting on the structured data would be very useful, I’m sure, but this is quite probably worth an own phab task. — Speravir – 18:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

@Pandakekok9, Jmabel, Jonteemil, and Speravir: I’ve applied that workaround now, please let me know how it works for you (as I don’t use the gadget). --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 12:28, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

It didn't worked at first, but after server purging and bypassing my browser's cache, it works now. Firefox 75.0. pandakekok9 12:43, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

It works for me. Thanks for the fix :).Jonteemil (talk) 15:25, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Yepp, works for this case. Thank you, Lucas. I’d say, section resolved. — Speravir – 18:05, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Great, thanks! (Well, I’m not sure about the section resolved, I just don’t know how to fix this better… does the gadget have active developers?) --Lucas Werkmeister (talk) 18:21, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

does the gadget have active developers? <-- Unfortunately, no. --Steinsplitter (talk) 18:33, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Possible false negative when selecting files by RegEx

I usually use VFC to tag recent files that have no licence as "no-license". To do that, I first use a custom RegEx to exclude files that already have a copyright-related tag (copyvio, speedy, no license, no permission, no source, OTRS, DR etc.). Thanks to AntiCompositeNumber on File:"Катюша" на базе "Виллиса".jpg (diff), I realized that there are possible false negatives. I tried reproducing it, and, for the third time, VFC doesn't exclude this file (even though its source code matches the RegEx). I tried testing the RegEx on regex101, and the result shows there is no problem with the RegEx/source code. On the other hand, it's clear that VFC knows the file is tagged (it has a [!]), so I think VFC can read the source code properly. Is this normal for VFC? Thanks. Ahmad^talk 09:15, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

What's the regex that you're using? --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 16:14, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

It's ([Cc]opyvio|[Nn]o (license|permission|source) since|[Ss]peedy|SD|[Dd]elete|[Cc][Cc][- ]|GFDL|PD\-|OTRS|otrs|[Ff]lickr). To reproduce, select Category:Media uploaded without a license as of 2020-05, using VFC, use this regex to select files, and then invert selection. Ahmad^talk 09:51, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Ahmad the file is deleted, so only admins can now look into this. Could you send me the wikitext by mail? How are the files added to this kind of category? Maybe I misunderstand something, but one thing I notice at a first glance is that there are valid licenses you do not search for, e.g. {{ODbL OpenStreetMap}} and {{OpenStreetMap}} (I recently pointed someone to these; the latter contains the former, but only in the template source), another one I know is {{LaTeX}}, and in Category:License tags there are much more. Not speaking about custom license template boxes created by users. — Speravir – 18:42, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

@Speravir: Thanks, I just sent it. Addition of files to this category is done by {{Remove this line and insert a license instead}} (maybe there are other templates, too, but this specific template is the case here). To my knowledge, UploadWizard automatically adds the template if the file doesn't have a license.

About licenses such as LaTeX and OSM, you're right, but it's not really a problem (or, at least, it hasn't been one so far). I usually do a quick check on selected files, and VFC automatically detects licenses, so I can manually deselect problematic ones. Usually, there are both false negatives and false positives that I (de)select manually. And for straightforward cases (obvious copyvios, obvious below COM:TOO cases, etc.) I usually don't add the no license tag, I try to fix/delete them instead. Since LaTeX and OSM maps can be dealt with easily, I don't think we need them in the regex. And, quite frankly, I'd be surprised to see a LaTeX/OSM/custom license case there; the category mostly contains uploads by new users, and such licenses are usually added by users with some experience on the project (so they are likely to remove the template from the page once they add a license). Ahmad^talk 16:31, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

Ahmad, last first: Now knowing the background I agree with you about the latter. Thank you for the mail. After seeing this I am unfortunately as clueless as you. This looks like a VFC bug to me, or one of the underlying regex implementation. Nethertheless some suggestions:

• I would write this regex string slightly different (I am quite sure, this is wrong: [- ], this means “any sign, but not a space char” No, I have erred here. — Speravir):

\{\{\s*([Cc]opyvio|[Nn]o license (since|own work)|[Nn]o (permission|source) since|[Ss]peedy|[Ss]pd|[Qq]D|[Ss]D|[Dd]elete|[Cc][Cc](-|0|by)|[Gg]FDL|[Pp]D-|[Oo](TRS|trs)|[Pp]ermissionOTRS|[Ff]lickr)

(I did not check that for all, but {{Copyvio}} is a beast, it has 41 redirects! Maybe some unused could be deleted, cf. Special:WhatLinksHere. [Edit: Ehemm, they should all be unused until a file comes around where they are used … I mean a lot of them seem unnecessarily to be created for just one purpose.])

It’s actually a bit longer. If you are bold you could temporarily undelete the file and check again. Or you test in Beta-Commons, but VFC there would first have to be updated. The only active admin in beta I know is Raymond.

• Independently of VFC you could check, whether the gadget GalleryDetails could be helpful. It works very well on categories, too!

— Speravir – 22:49, 12 June 2020 (UTC)

@Speravir: What pages exactly do I have to update? Raymond 13:41, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Raymond, it depends on what Ahmad wants to do. In case of testing with VFC in Beta-Commons MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js and all of its subscripts/-pages should be copied and added to gadget definition (in latter case apparently MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/install.js is not needed anymore). Ahmad would also need some harmless test files lacking license tags sorted into a category, but it should be possible doing this for himself. — Speravir – 21:27, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

BTW, Ahmad or Raymond, in some of the scripts you can inside of comments find the old/wrong address MediaWiki:VisualFileChange.js. Is this worth script updates? — Speravir – 21:27, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the follow-up. I think Beta-Commons is a much better idea, because testing it on a different wiki can help solving the problem. However, unfortunately, I think Raymond can't edit/update the script, as that would require interface administrator right there. That being said, I have that right on Test Wikipedia. Although it's not the best solution (obviously because that's a Wikipedia, not a Commons), I'll check and see if it's possible to run the test there.

As for those scripts, I'll look into those in MediaWiki namespace, thanks for mentioning it. There are many cases in user namespace (hundreds, in fact), but I'd rather not edit them. MediaWiki ones are somehow important because those scripts are used widely by users, but user scripts are mainly used by the user (and perhaps a few others), so I think a clean up on them is not really worth it, and, personally, I try to avoid editing them unless there is a problem. Ahmad^talk 01:21, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

[Feature Request] Can VFC display some kind of warning/signal if a batch task is perfomed on a user with Last Warning on talk page?

Perform batch task on a user. If VFC can somehow check the user talk page for presence of {{End of copyvios}}, and display a warning or an icon to signify a positive result, that will help a lot with anti-copyvio work.--Roy17 (talk) 14:03, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

VFC refuses to perform any actions

I am trying to use VFC to disperse some items from Category:FEDLINK_-_United_States_Federal_Collection to a new category, by doing what should be a simple search and replace.

However when I set this up in VFC, using the custom replace option, and then click on Execute. Absolutely NOTHING happens despite a number of files being selected?

What am I doing wrong, or is VFC unable to do the tasks it claims to support? ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 20:50, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: currently, VFC seems to be working.--Estopedist1 (talk) 06:31, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@ShakespeareFan00: If you only want to move items from a category to another you can try Cat-a-lot.Jonteemil (talk) 07:37, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

I got it working. I do however a feature request. (see below) ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:38, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

@Estopedist1: . Well, it may be working for you, Perhaps you can thus explain, why when using "custom replace" with the following strings nothing happens, despite files being selected. I copied the strings directly from a file that be affected, by the intended replacement.

• Search string: "Documents from the FEDLINK-US Government Printing Office collection"
• Replacement: "Documents from the US Bureau of Land Management Library"

VFC fails to indicate, why no files have actually been changed (and I did check my contributions to make sure.) Why is VFC failing to match the search string, and thus not change any pages despite them being selected,? Thanks.ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 11:55, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Allow the saving of 'option' sets so that certain batch tasks can be repeated at a later date.

I have a very specifc search and replace query I run to do a category replace.

Entering the relevant patterns each time and the 'advanced search' filter is time-consuming.

It would be nice to save these options so they can be recalled directly. Saving a 'profile' did not seem to do this. ShakespeareFan00 (talk) 08:40, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Bug: Not selecting all files by category

Hi, thanks for this tool, I've been giving it a lot of use lately putting categorization onto the ANEFO photographer uploads (splitting down >10k file categories into something smaller). I have several bugs and recommendations.

Here's one. I want to work on Category:1963 in Leiden, look for files within that which are also in Category:Photographs by Gerard Dukker and then move them to Category:Photographs by Gerard Dukker in Leiden (1963). It works, I've moved a few hundred files across.

To choose the files involved, I use Advanced Select Files | In Category "Photographs by Gerard Dukker". Then a couple of regexes for the changes.

But left behind after the run are a handful of images which don't get selected (five windmills). One is File:Molen "De Herder" - Leiden - 20137620 - RCE.jpg Can anyone see the problem? I can see the category from the list, and if it's selected, I can move it with the same regexes.

I have had problems when searching for categories to change with regexes, if they're the last thing in the file description and there's no whitespace following. But that doesn't seem to be the problem here, and I'd expect this selection to be working from the database, not the wikitext.

Thanks Andy Dingley (talk) 13:31, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

• More examples at Category:1992 in Alkmaar and Category:1994 in Alkmaar. I auto-selected most of the files here, but half of them (those still in the category) wouldn't auto-select. If I tick them, I can apply the regexes successfully. If I try to auto-select them, nothing happens. Either membership of the category, regexing for the Creator field, regexing for the category in the wikitext, or even trying to select the 1994 in Alkmaar category (which ought to select everything). Andy Dingley (talk) 16:32, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Bug: Errors with long categories

I'm mostly working with categories that have >200 files. To load all of them, so that I can run an auto-select, I have to scroll past the first 100 using the down-arrow button, then keep scrolling. After a few scrolls, the file count often randomly jumps up by a few hundred (but the files seem to load OK). In some cases I can scroll indefinitely, re-loading what's clearly the last page or two of them over and over, but with continually increasing numbers.

Andy Dingley (talk) 16:34, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Limitation: Regexes at EOF

I'm using regexes to modify categories. There seem to be problems when that category is at the last line of the wikitext for the file, i.e. the regex runs into an EOF rather than an EOL. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:36, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Automatic notification concern

Moved from Help talk:VisualFileChange.js

Hello. Bogomolov.PL told me at my talkpage to stop giving DR notices (on FOP related DR's) on his talk page, because he wasn't the true uploader of the affected file/s (e.g. File:Astana-concerthall.jpg). Rather he just made some modifications like cropping and adjusting of contrast. I explained to him that this may be how this gadget works - it sends notices even to those who are not uploaders (but those who modified those files). Is there a way to fix the gadget's mechanism so that only the original uploader will be notified and not those who made modifications on the DR-ed files? JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:23, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

In addition, is there a way to fix the gadget's mechanism so that those who only made modifications on the DR-ed files can opt out of notifications?   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 15:51, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

not loading with user's contributions as a generator

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T282122
RESOLVED

for some reason stopped working today, tried different browsers. You can reproduce if you go to my contributions (for example) and "perform batch task" by user's contributions. It stays frozen on a stage "Retrieving file-list from server", other generators seem to be working. Error shown is:

Error:
An error occurred while querying the upload-list. ##### API request failed (internal_api_error_DBQueryDisconnectedError): [88e0d6ae-b1ec-4378-99db-8c9c82fa285b] Caught exception of type Wikimedia\Rdbms\DBQueryDisconnectedError

rubin16 (talk) 09:36, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

I confirm the same problem on Windows 10 (Google Chrome and Firefox) as well as Android. ~Cybularny ^Speak? 09:45, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

tried again with a different error

Error:
An error occurred while querying the upload-list. ##### API request returned code 504 error. Error code is

rubin16 (talk) 12:22, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

@Rubin16: same while launching a deletion request of FB-sourced uploads of a certain KaciAbila. But this time the resultant files don't show up (only blank area is present, and the WiFi status bar on top of my phone screen indicates no data transmission). JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 13:34, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

Yes, it is a MediaWiki API problem, affecting only the "user name" function. You can still use VFC on a page, category, or search. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 18:53, 6 May 2021 (UTC)

The train was rolled back to the previous MW version, so VFC should be firing on all cylinders again. AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 00:07, 7 May 2021 (UTC)

PermissionTicket

{{Edit request}} Hi, today the PermissionOTRS template has been moved to {{PermissionTicket}} because of the OTRS to VRTS renaming process; e.g. see Phab:T280392 and Phab:T280397. It is possible to update the gadget to use the new name of the permission template? Thanks --Ruthven (msg) 20:17, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

 Done Special:Diff/559689913 AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 21:09, 11 May 2021 (UTC)

Doesn't load anymore

VFS doesn't load for me anymore. Console shows error message "Uncaught SyntaxError: illegal character U+001F". -- Discostu (talk) 11:01, 2 June 2021 (UTC)

MediaSearch

{{Editprotect}} to use vfc on a MediaSearch result page, i think we can simply change line 272 of MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/core.js to sth like "... === 'Search' or 'MediaSearch'". i dont know js syntax. you get the idea.--RZuo (talk) 12:51, 5 June 2021 (UTC)

if ( mw.config.get( 'wgCanonicalSpecialPageName' ) === ('Search' || 'MediaSearch') ) {

probably this.--RZuo (talk) 11:46, 21 June 2021 (UTC)

 Done AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 22:56, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Uncategorized files only

I'm missing an option to select uncategorized files. That would be really helpful. --Hjart (talk) 10:01, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

@Hjart: You can "Advanced Select Files" for which Wikitext matches "{{Unc" without quotes.   — Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me} 20:41, 25 July 2021 (UTC)

[bugreport] VFC does not pass text parameter (a mandatory API parameter) under certain circumstances

Hello, @Janbery was trying to use VFC to do a mass replacement on a lot of files. On certain files, an API error missingparam was reported, with MW complaining that At least one of the parameters \"text\", \"appendtext\", \"prependtext\" and \"undo\" is required. Network tab in devtools confirmed VFC omitted that param for two files for some reason. See [3] for an example API request made by the tool. Can you please look into this, and fix the bug? Thank you! Martin Urbanec (talk) 17:38, 8 October 2021 (UTC)

No more orders are executed

To whom it may concern
When I want to make changes with VisualFileChange, it always says "Note: New jobs cannot be made without restarting VisualFileChange" and no changes are made.
Question: How can I perform a restart of VisualFileChange?
--F. Riedelio • talk 17:06, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

Edit request

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RZuo

Please make it possible to change the default pagename for deletion requests. For example I couldn't override Commons:Deletion requests/Files found with intitle:/Ursa/i logo to Commons:Deletion requests/Ursa logos, only the heading.Jonteemil (talk) 20:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

i support. i wanted to change the target page, too.--RZuo (talk) 07:14, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

I also  Support this change. Names of DR subpages should be overridable at the outset, rather than with moves and edits of the pages under discussion. See also COM:AN#Interface Administrators attention please.   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 11:21, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

i guess codes about "requestPage" in MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/exec.js need to be edited for this.--RZuo (talk) 00:10, 6 July 2023 (UTC)

Problems with special tags

​Maybe that I made something wrong or did not understand it; and I cannot find postings from other users about that problem.
Whatever I am trying, no matter whether I define the 'pattern to match' in plain text or as a Regex, VFC does not find tags as e.g. </source> or </syntaxhighlight>.
What can I do when I need to replace such patterna? -- sarang♥사랑 09:36, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi sarang, i guess you need to select 'Do not preserve nowikis and comments.' below the 'pattern to match'. --Arnd 🇺🇦 (talk) 18:44, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Doesnt work for this user

Special:Contributions/NNU-10-24100108. "Script cannot find any file / initial upload in / by NNU-10-24100108."--RZuo (talk) 07:14, 31 March 2022 (UTC) Hi RZuo, for me it works (now). Can you please re-test? --Arnd 🇺🇦 (talk) 18:40, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

i just tested it. it didnt load at first, then i opened browser console and was playing with it for a short while, then i loaded the script again, and it worked. i tried a few more times. when i moved slowly and didnt take any action for a while after the tab had loaded, the script worked for the user.

it's probably my adblockplus (on firefox browser) that was interfering with vfc. RZuo (talk) 18:49, 26 April 2022 (UTC)

Regex doesnt select all eligible files?

some files have errors that cause them to seemingly transclude template:1879.

use vfc, search query mode, "hastemplate:1879", finds 89 such files.

choose advanced select, put {{PD-1923|1879}} into "Wikitext matches (RegExpr)", it can only select 73 files. i also tried a regex as greedy as PD.*1879, but could only select the same 73 files. example files that could not be selected by this filter: File:Brooklyn Museum - "Mon Dieu M'ame Bombec qué que vous avez donc attrapé..." - Honoré Daumier.jpg File:Brooklyn Museum - Le Pruth. "Ah ça... à quel drôle de jeu..." - Honoré Daumier.jpg. RZuo (talk) 08:14, 14 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi RZuo, I can confirm the problem. What i can see in the Javascript logging is a warning for each of the files that are not properly selected, e. g. Error: Error: Syntax error, unrecognized expression: input[value="File:Brooklyn Museum - \"Cré nom......Si on réfléchissait......" - Honoré Daumier.jpg"] It seems that only the first quotation mark in the filename (before Cré) is propertly escaped (\") while the second isn't. I guess that this causes the mentioned problem. Somebody who is more familiar with the Gadget should fix that. --Arnd 🇺🇦 (talk) 15:23, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

Hi again RZuo, i found one line in the code which perfectly fits the mentioned "escaping behavior" and the error message and maybe solves the problem. It is: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/ui.js#L-1464. I assume that there should be an upload.replaceAll instead of a upload.replace only. Not sure if you or me could fix this directly or if someone else that can try it out before should do so. What do you think? --Arnd 🇺🇦 (talk) 19:25, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

@Aschroet: thx a lot! sorry i forgot to reply last time. i'm a noob in js. i really dont know how to fix it. maybe some other user will come along and get it done.

i wanted to ask you, how did you "see in the Javascript logging is a warning for each of the files"? i'd love to learn and hopefully next time i can get closer to debugging by myself. :) RZuo (talk) 20:18, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

RZuo, according to the JS console you can easily find information with google, e. .g. [4]. By the way, the script can only be edit by administators. So i open an edit request:

It is requested that an edit or modification be made to this protected page.
Administrators: Please apply <nowiki> or {{Tl}} to the tag after the request is fulfilled.

---

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RZuo

Although not 100% if it helps, please change in line https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/ui.js#L-1464 from upload.replace to upload.replaceAll. If replaceAll is not supported then we need upload.replace(/"/g, '\\"') Details can be found in the description above. Thank you, --Arnd 🇺🇦 (talk) 18:36, 23 April 2022 (UTC)

"Please wait"

I'm trying to do a bulk replace of "Creator:Workshop of Giovanni Maria Vasaro" with ""Creator:Giovanni Maria Vasaro|workshop of", and I keep getting "please wait". I've tired different batch-replaces, and they work fine. I tried the Vasaro batch yesterday, I tried it again today, I tried after logging out and back in, I tried it in different browsers.

"Please wait" every time.

What's going on? DS (talk) 17:19, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Final summary

It is requested that an edit or modification be made to this protected page.
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RZuo

After editing a large amount of files, it is tedious to check the list of all of them whether they had been treated well. VFC should show finally the number of affected files, and the number of successfully edited files, so it can be seen swiftly whether all edits are done - without the need to browse through a list of many many files. -- sarang♥사랑 07:08, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Preselect option

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RZuo

AFAIK that option is not yet offered, I cannot find about it neither in Action: nor in Tasks:

1. It would be very helpful when it is possible to find file descriptions with certain properties, e.g. used templates, category combinations or any other pattern;
   such a selection by a specified filter option can be a mighty tool for finding files needing maintenance - just selection, no alteration !
2. BTW, such a preselection would also be helpful to see in advance which files will be affected by a modification.
   

When the button for "Just select" is ticked, all selected files get a special highlighting, enabling the decision how to treat either the selected or the not-selected ones. Sure it will be a slight expansion for VFC, but a far-reaching increase for the usablity of that tool. -- sarang♥사랑 07:08, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Without that expansion, the option is only to make in the selection a small change (when possible, whitespace so the alteration need not to be undone), and then have the two groups to work with; but t seems not to be a good idea to update hundreds of files for nothing than to find them. I do not know about another possibility to find special patterns in file descriptions, but I need it for urgent maintainance. -- sarang♥사랑 06:34, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Slashes in search query bug

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RZuo

There's a bug where if you are using a search query which has slashes in its name, and you are mass-nominating files for deletion, VFC cannot create the subpage. This is because VFC tries creating a bunch of subpages due to the slashes. It tries naming the deletion nomination page "Files found with search query foo/bar/baz" but the slashes cause "baz" to be a subpage of "bar", which is a subpage of "Files found with search query foo".

The most obvious solution would be to replace the slashes with another similar character, such as ∕ (U+2215, division slash). --Matr1x-101^{Pinging me doesn't hurt!} {user - talk? - useless contributions} 22:00, 4 January 2023 (UTC)

[Feature request] mark edits as minor option in custom replace mode

it should allow users to choose marking edits as minor. RZuo (talk) 13:02, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

[Feature request] Support for wrong license

Please add support for {{Wrong license}}/{{Wrong license note}} same as no license/source/permission. This is necessary to tag historical media uploaded under bogus licenses/authorship claims. EugeneZelenko (talk) 15:58, 8 February 2023 (UTC)

VFC not working

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T337651

Nothing is happening when I click "Perform batch task" in the sidebar, and the "Just try it without installing" link on the Help page reloads that page with no effect. Trying it in both Firefox and Edge gives the same result.

Someone else has reported VFC as failing for a few days now over at Help_talk:VisualFileChange.js#it_is_not_working. Belbury (talk) 19:16, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Same here with Firefox on Windows, --Arnd 🇺🇦 (talk) 19:47, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

not working, need fix ASAP ----modern_primat ඞඞඞ ^TALK 13:23, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Did anyone report this on Phabricator? This JS tool is also broken. Yann (talk) 15:33, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Could this be related to phab:T117720? --Didym (talk) 16:08, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

@Belbury@Aschroet@Modern primat@Yann@Didym it's back, thx to Legoktm.

but someone needs to rewrite the code to get rid of tipsy in the long run. RZuo (talk) 18:49, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

sorry for the ping. it's actually still broken. now it's stuck at "Determining target." or "Retrieving file-list from server." RZuo (talk) 18:53, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

As a feedback also from my side: Loading a category for editing does not work. Only the upper bar appears with the question: «What user or category is this action about?» In the left bar it's visible that VFC stops at this action: «Determining target.» Hope VFC can be fixed. All the best, -- Radomianin (talk) 19:50, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

change https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/ui.js#L-2417 like https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/core.js&diff=prev&oldid=768055169 . RZuo (talk) 19:11, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

all these probably need to be changed similarly if not already done so:

1. MediaWiki:Gadget-dashboard.UndeletionRequester.js
2. MediaWiki:RenameRequest.js
3. MediaWiki:JSONListUploads.js
4. MediaWiki:Gadget-dashboard.AddToFlickrBlacklist.js
5. MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/core.js
6. MediaWiki:Gadget-GlobalUsage.js
7. MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/ui.js

RZuo (talk) 19:14, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Should be done now. --Didym (talk) 20:20, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much, now everything works as usual :) Best, -- Radomianin (talk) 20:34, 28 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you very much, RZuo, Didym and others! --Aristeas (talk) 06:47, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

What is the status of this "note" - "... rollback overwritten files to combat vandalism"

I am new to VFC and I noticed this note, "Notes: We are working to re-add the possibility to rollback overwritten files to combat vandalism"

How old is this note and what is the status of adding this feature to VFC? Thanks, -- Ooligan (talk) 18:19, 14 January 2024 (UTC)

@Ooligan: I see now, that was added to MediaWiki:Gadget-VisualFileChange.js/ui.js in Line 1,561 of special:diff/75969485 by Rillke 23:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC).   — 🇺🇦Jeff G. ツ _{please ping or talk to me}🇺🇦 02:54, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

"Perform batch task" does not show the search string

Hi all, after performing a search and then clicking "Perform batch task" VFC does not automatically show the search string in the popup window. This worked a while ago. Regards, --Arnd 🇺🇦 (talk) 09:58, 25 April 2024 (UTC)

it works for me for Special:Search/London but not https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:MediaSearch?search=London . RZuo (talk) 10:59, 25 April 2024 (UTC)