Wikipedia:WikiProject edit counters/Flcelloguy's Tool/Help
This is the help page for Flcelloguy's Tool.
FAQ
What is Flcelloguy's Tool?
The tool, originally created by Flcelloguy and expanded by Titoxd and other members of the Wikiproject edit counters, is a program that can count the number of edits a particular Wikipedian has and provide statistics on those results, such as breakdown by namespace, the percentage of minor edits, and percentage of edit summary usage. More features will be released soon.
What distinguishes this from Kate's Tool and Interiot's Tool?
This tool was inspired by the original Kate's Tool, which generates the edit count by querying the toolserver. However, during that time the tool and the server was down frequently, and Flcelloguy's Tool was developed as a backup. Because it does not query from the toolserver, the tool is an independent program that can run at all times, provided that the Wikipedia website is up. Interiot's Tool, programmed by Interiot, was later designed by Interiot as an alternative to Kate's Tool; however, it too also queries from the toolserver. Thus, while Flcelloguy's Tool is relatively crude compared to the other two, we offer this more as a backup and as a tool to offer more detailed statistics.
Instructions
Downloading
Java is required to run this program. Most computers do not have built in Java capabilities to compile and execute code, so you may need to download it. See the links for downloads from Sun Microsystems. The downloads are free, safe, and should take only a few minutes. See the links for more information.
Compiling and executing
There are two ways to execute the program. The first method, which we recommend at the moment, is to download the JAR program from here. You do not need to save the file; opening the JAR will suffice.
The second method, which requires more time and effort, is to individually copy the Java code into new .java files. This will require the download of freeware Java run-time development program. We recommend JCreator, BlueJ, or Eclipse; see links for more details. Once that is done, you will need to individually copy and paste the code from each class into a new file with the respective class name. Make sure all the files are in the same folder. After you have done so, you will need to compile each file individually, and then execute the program. See your run-time development program's tutorial or help for more information on this.
Using the Tool
Once you have opened the tool, it should look like the screenshot at right. To start the counting, select "Download" from the drop-down menu and type in the user's name whose contributions you wish to analyze. After clicking "proceed", please allow the tool several moments while it parses the contributions. Even though nothing appears to be happening for a few seconds, it is parsing and counting the contributions.
Due to MediaWiki restrictions that only allow up to 5000 contributions per page, if the user has greater than 5000 edits you will need to parse each contribution page separately. Click on "Yes" when the tool prompts you if you want to analyze the next 5000 contributions. This will need to be done for each contributions page; that is, if a user has 14,000 edits, the tool will need to parse three pages of contributions.
After the completion of the parsing, the edit count and some associated statistics will be displayed on the right hand side. Currently displayed are the total edit count, breakdown by namespace, percentage of minor edits, and edit summary usage. Note that some of the features displayed are currently non-functional, such as the graph, tree, and filtering options. We are currently working on these and improving the tool.
Alternatively, you can also parse contributions from a given file. This is useful if you only want to analyze a section of a user's contributions. To do so, copy and paste the edits you wish to analyze from the [[Special:Contributions/USER]] (user contributions), and save the file as a .txt(Notepad), or right-click the contributions page, click "view page source" (the wording may differ from browser to browser), and go to file, and then save page as. This will save it as either a .html or .htm file. Then, in the tool, select either "single local" or "multiple local" from the drop-down menu. If you have more than one page to analyze (i.e. you wish to analyze more than 5000 edits), select multiple; otherwise, select single. Then click "browse", specifying the file that you wish to analyze.