Using Xenu to check for broken links in Flare output
Using Xenu to check for broken links in Flare output
Here’s a tip for anyone trying to use Xenu to check for broken links in Flare. With Robohelp I always used Xenu to check for broken links, and it worked very well. When I tried it with Flare, it only checked the top level because it seems that Flare handles the TOC differently from Robohelp. I was able to get Xenu to work with Flare output by creating a dummy topic and inserting a TOC proxy in it. I then generated the output and pointed Xenu to the dummy topic. Voila! Xenu then successfully checked all my links, just as it had done in RoboHelp.
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Re: Using Xenu to check for broken links in Flare output
...or you could use Madcap Analyzer instead...
Started as a newbie with Flare 6.1, now using Flare 2023.
Report bugs at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.
Request features at https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback ... quest.aspx
Report bugs at http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx.
Request features at https://www.madcapsoftware.com/feedback ... quest.aspx
Re: Using Xenu to check for broken links in Flare output
The problems with using Analyzer to check links are:
- If you have links across merged projects, Analyzer reports all of those as bad because it doesn't see the other project
- If you have conditionally excluded topics, Analyzer doesn't detect if there are non-excluded links to the excluded topics.
Re: Using Xenu to check for broken links in Flare output
I can see Xenu would be useful for external links - so it'd be handy for merged projects.
Just to be clear, you can check for broken links using Project Analysis in Flare - you don't need the separate Analyzer app.
The build log will also tell you about these links to excluded topics.
Just to be clear, you can check for broken links using Project Analysis in Flare - you don't need the separate Analyzer app.
Links to an excluded topic will not created as (broken) links in the output though - it removes the actual link, and just includes the link text.devjoe wrote:If you have conditionally excluded topics, Analyzer doesn't detect if there are non-excluded links to the excluded topics.
The build log will also tell you about these links to excluded topics.