User:Dispenser/Dab solver
 | 🚨🚨 The Dab solver tool is broken and its maintainer is inactive. For an all-purpose alternative, consider using AutoWikiBrowser, JavaScript Wiki Browser, or WPCleaner. |
 | |
| Original author(s) | Dispenser |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 27 January 2010 |
| Written in | Python, JavaScript |
| Operating system | Web |
| Available in | 17 languages |
List of languages English, Bosnian, Danish, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Persian, Russian, Serbian, Simple English, Slovene, Swedish | |
| Type | Wikipedia:Tool |
| License | GPL/Proprietary |
| Website | http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/view/Dab_solver |
Dab solver is a tool developed and formerly maintained by User:Dispenser. It is no longer functioning or maintained.
Dab solver is a multilingual, menu-driven tool for disambiguating links in Wikipedia. The tool assists people in correcting ambiguous hyper-links such as mercury, which could refer to the god, the planet, or the chemical element. This tool is akin to a spell checker for links, giving the user a choice of links when the user clicks on the ambiguous link.
The tool features an interface designed to be fast and intuitive, using pre-caching to load pages and relevancy scores before you start. To further enhance users' productivity, the tool provides intelligent edit summaries, keyboard support, redirect matching, and relevancy scoring indicating what similar pages are linking to. It also offers advanced features unmatched by other disambiguation programs, such as customizable template support, red link suggestion, an article mini-browser, a manual-of-style checker, and smart context that displays only relevant text.
To use the "Disambig fix list" tool which applies the Dab solver tool repeatedly, go to dab fix list (at tools.wmflabs.org).
To report problems or otherwise discuss "Dab solver" with Dispenser, go to User talk:Dispenser/Dab solver.
The tool is used by 70+ Wikipedians to make 15,000 edits a month in across multiple languages of Wikipedia.
How to disambiguate
- Pick a topic or Paste an article URL in the text box and press Enter.
- Click on the red text brings up the correction menu.
- Usually the correct link will be clear from the context.
- If it is not clear, do not guess; instead, pick
I don't know / Tag {{dn}}. 
Unlink links that are not important to the context.- Some links to a disambiguation page are intentional and correct. Such links usually appear in an article's hatnotes and See also section. To make an intentional link, pick
Link to disambiguation page. - Links to
Wiktionary (if available) are at bottom for links to definitions.
- If it is not clear, do not guess; instead, pick
- When done, click Save changes if connected with OAuth or click Show changes.
Finding pages to disambiguate
- Disambiguation links by WikiProject
- Current disambiguation collaborations
- Your watchlist
Features
Menu icons
| No shared links | Visual indicator of the number of articles linking to your and the target | |
| 1 shared link | ||
| 2-4 shared links | ||
| 5-18 shared links | ||
| 19+ shared links | ||
|
Circular link | The article links to the current page |
|
Already linked elsewhere on the page | |
|
Disambiguation link | Open the disambiguation page |
|
Set-index Article link | Open the set-index article |
|
Wikidata link | Unused |
|
Wiktionary link | Wiktionary links will automatically appear if you need to link to a definition (e.g. Tour de force) |
|
Wikipedia link | Unused |
|
Unlink | Remove the link from the text Use this if the term is over-linked and Wiktionary isn't appropriate. |
|
Tag | Select I don't know / Tag {{dn}} request for help. Use this to signal subject-matter editors as needing more in-depth knowledge to solve. |
|
Undo | Revert link back to the original target |
- You can change the label of a link by editing the text box above.
Link suggester
The Tool looks (up to 30 seconds) for blue links, red links, and Wiktionary links missing on the disambiguation page. It uses simplified searches from Dabfix and attempts to display the most relevant results. Use Dabfix to add these links to the disambiguation page.
Sorting
Default sort: The original wikitext order.
Alpha sort: A case-insensitive ASCIIbetical sort, excludes numbers.
Year sort: Only sorts by the first 4 digit numbers under 2100.
MOS:DAB checker
Automated Manual of Style checker for disambiguation pages has been built and displays it results in {{ambox}} at the end of the article. This information is also submitted back to the server. See also: User:Dispenser/MOS:DAB stats.
Keyboard shortcuts
- Tab ↹ / ⇧ Shift+Tab ↹ Next and previous link
- ↑/↓ Up or down dab menu list
- ↵ Enter Use link
- Ctrl+↵ Enter Follow link
- Alt+⇧ Shift+S Save page
- Alt+⇧ Shift+P Show Preview
- Alt+⇧ Shift+V Show changes
Popup page shortcuts
- Alt+⇧ Shift+C Dab Read
- Alt+⇧ Shift+E Dab Edit
- Alt+⇧ Shift+J Dab What links here or Dab Fix List
- Alt+⇧ Shift+R Dab Refresh
- Alt+⇧ Shift+H Dab History
Misc
- Esc Close popup
- F1 The documentation page
- F4 Show/hide popup
- F8 Show/hide edit box (read-only)
- See also Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts
URL parameters
- page
- The page to disambiguate
- link
- Pipe-separated list of titles to disambiguate regardless of Dab solver's internal logic. This can be used manually check links to a primary topic[1] or disambiguate Set index articles.
- summarytrail
- A string to append to end of the automatic edit summary generated by the tool. [2]
- editintro
- Renders the content of the given paramter similar to WP:EDITINTRO above the box. Note: CSS classes are unavailable, use
style=. Used by {{Disambiguation needed}}.
Translation
Translations are stored in JSON format at User:Dispenser/Dab solver/i18n.json. Only NoLinksInText is needed to remove the translate request message. The string selection priority is Your language code, * (Universal), en (English). The @doc should help explain what each string is used for.
If this is too daunting, you can copy and translate the basics block and post it to the talk page.
Note: The DAB Challenge and DPL bot are separate and currently not capable of operating on other wikis.
Third-party content
You will need to set RequestPolicy, NoScript, Privacy Badger, Disconnect, etc. from blocking the following domains:
tools.wmflabs.org- Relatedness and link suggesterwikipedia.org- Articles and disambiguation contentupload.wikimedia.org- Icons and article imageschart.apis.google.com(optional) - summary graph for recent changes
FAQ
Can you enable the save button? Can "This is a minor edit" and "Watch this page" checkboxes be set to my user preference or watch status?
- [needs update] Because of a MediaWiki security feature, if the save button were enabled without the correct edit token it wouldn't work for logged in users, instead landing you on a preview page with an error message. Being able to look up a user's personal settings for preferences and watchlist is restricted. Since the Toolserver rules (rule 8) specify that tools cannot ask login information such features will not be provided. There is a workaround in Preferences where you can change the default behavior of watching pages and provide an edit token to temporarily enable the save button.
Image credits
- File:High-contrast-dialog-close.svg Close popup
- File:redirectltr.png Redirect
- Pending redesign: [Help icon]
- File:Loading bar.gif
- File:RefToolbar spinning throbber.gif
- File:Cancel.png
- File:Icons-mini-action refresh.gif
Historic URLs
In the past, this tool has been found at the following addresses:
- http://69.142.160.183/~dispenser/view/Dab_solver
- https://dispenser.info.tm/~dispenser/view/Dab_solver
- https://tools.wmflabs.org/dispenser/view/Dab_solver