Are folks using the Analyzer link checking?

[lauraj]

The low traffic in this forum makes me wonder whether people are using Analyzer very much. Admittedly, though, it's not an app you're going to use every day the way many of us use Flare... but since my experience is also making me wary of it, and the forum's just crying out for new threads anyway , I figured I'd ask.

I've acquired Analyzer fairly recently, and have made serious effort to use it on two projects. One is a big, weird project, and because all my external links in that project are reported as "broken", I can't use the link checking at all. Someone up-forum said you can just check whether the number of reportedly broken links changes, but that's not going to work for this project because there are thousands of external links and I add more all the time. Madcap support couldn't help me with this problem at all -- I reported it way back in beta and they couldn't do anything with it.

Now I've tried Analyzer with another (smaller, more normal) project and it's reporting 91 broken links. I checked on the first half-dozen or so and they seem perfectly fine. It doesn't seem worth my while to check the rest. I've reported this one to Madcap support (along with the database errors I'm getting in the same project), and they haven't had time to answer yet, but this does make me wonder whether folks really are profitably using this tool? (A colleague of mine swears by it, but I think his projects are very small and simple.)

[Nita Beck]

Yes, I use Analyzer often (and for more than checking broken links). My projects range from 125 to 600 topics each.

I do use it for checking broken links, but bear in mind that the links it may find to be broken aren't necessarily hyperlinks from one topic to another. They could be links from one stylesheet to another, or broken links in the alias file. I actually do try to run down the broken links, but I'm retentive that way!

Nita

[carolynmwallace]

I use Analyzer all the time; it's saved me from a TON of "boo-boos," including broken links. My projects range from 100 to 500 topics, all with external links (which Analyzer counts and identifies correctly).

What version are you using? I seem to recall having a broken link/external link issue in the first version, but I haven't seen it in v2.5. Every broken link I've seen in 2.5 has actually been broken.

Also, while I doubt that I can think of anything MadCap Support can't, here's what I'd be checking if it were my project.

• Is Analyzer counting any external links correctly? If so, is there a difference between the "correct" links and the "broken" ones? For example, are the "broken" links in snippets as opposed to topics? I'm STILL having issues with Analyzer not reviewing code in snippets correctly (such as claiming I have undefined styles when I don't).
• What do the "broken" links look like in the Text Editor view? Are they correctly formatted HTML? (i.e., <a title="URL" href="http://www.madcapsoftware.com">MadCap</a>)

I really do find the program very helpful and wouldn't release a project without running it through Analyzer first. However, I don't have many problems with it, so no posts to make.

[lauraj]

Good, I'm glad it is working for other folks! Maybe I can get it working for me. I'll be sending my project to Madcap Support for help...
The project I tried it on during the beta test had some oddly-formed links (for a specific reason) .... I had been assuming that was the problem, but the project I'm working on now has normal-looking links. As I said, the code of the links themselves looks fine to me. These are both external and internal (topic-to-topic) links that are being reported broken. I haven't tried to analyze whether any links are being correctly reported as non-broken or whether Analyzer is actually reporting every single link broken. Haven't had time. It's definitely NOT just links in snippets.

[gewriter_2]

The low traffic in this forum makes me wonder whether people are using Analyzer very much. Admittedly, though, it's not an app you're going to use every day the way many of us use Flare... but since my experience is also making me wary of it, and the forum's just crying out for new threads anyway , I figured I'd ask.

I've acquired Analyzer fairly recently, and have made serious effort to use it on two projects. One is a big, weird project, and because all my external links in that project are reported as "broken", I can't use the link checking at all. Someone up-forum said you can just check whether the number of reportedly broken links changes, but that's not going to work for this project because there are thousands of external links and I add more all the time. Madcap support couldn't help me with this problem at all -- I reported it way back in beta and they couldn't do anything with it.

Now I've tried Analyzer with another (smaller, more normal) project and it's reporting 91 broken links. I checked on the first half-dozen or so and they seem perfectly fine. It doesn't seem worth my while to check the rest. I've reported this one to Madcap support (along with the database errors I'm getting in the same project), and they haven't had time to answer yet, but this does make me wonder whether folks really are profitably using this tool? (A colleague of mine swears by it, but I think his projects are very small and simple.)

One thing about external links... Flare/Analyzer recognizes an external link as having the following syntax: mk:@MSITStore:linking_file.chm::topic_name.htm.
If this isn't the syntax you're using for topic to topic external links, then Analyzer is going to think the links are broken. I use Analyzer religiously when doing release candidate builds. Not only does it help with broken links, it's helpful for identifying topics not linked to a TOC or without index entries. This is especially helpful when developing lots of new content. We inherited some pretty sloppy files from RoboHelp, but once we converted to Flare and started using Analyzer, the defect rate on the help went to virtually zero.

[navoff]

I use Analyzer as well (V2.3). The problem I've had since I first started using it is that the database has a text string limit of 4,000 characters and I have a number of lengthy <pre></pre> sections where the text inside the set of the tags exceeds the 4000 character limit. I reported it as a bug (#27635). I haven''t been able to find out whether it was addressed in the latest version of the software and since my company hasn't upgraded from V2.3, I can't verify for myself. Because of the database errors created by exceeding the string limit, links to those files show up in Analyzer as broken.

That aside, the Analyzer has been a big help in resolving a number of issues that would have compromised the build.

[Gman_Montreal]

I have the new version of Analyzer (3.1) and it seems to mis-report quite a few broken links in my Flare 6.1 HTML Help project. Specifically, it's flagging a link to topics called "auto-formatting dialog box", "Miscellaneous tab", "Vocabulary editor," and many topics in a specific folder when nothing is wrong. For the Auto-formatting topic links, I'm wondering if the tool unable to accept links with hyphens.

Many other links are reported as broken when they are not - links to a topic with an apostrophe in the title (What's New), and any topics or topic folders that are conditionalized but not necessarily excluded from the current primary target.

Also, graphics were reported as unused but they were not.

Any advice/bug reports about the tool would be appreciated.

[gewriter_2]

I use Analyzer as well (V2.3). The problem I've had since I first started using it is that the database has a text string limit of 4,000 characters and I have a number of lengthy <pre></pre> sections where the text inside the set of the tags exceeds the 4000 character limit. I reported it as a bug (#27635). I haven''t been able to find out whether it was addressed in the latest version of the software and since my company hasn't upgraded from V2.3, I can't verify for myself. Because of the database errors created by exceeding the string limit, links to those files show up in Analyzer as broken.

That aside, the Analyzer has been a big help in resolving a number of issues that would have compromised the build.

We've also started seeing some of the text string limit errors. We found that they were being caused by spellchecker. Whenever we had words in our topics that were industry-specific, we would add them to the spell-checker dictionary so we could avoid seeing those little red squiggly lines under everything. However, that was apparently putting the list of words into meta data at the beginning of each topic. Once we deleted all the spellchecker strings, we quit getting the data errors.

[ccardimon]

One thing about external links... Flare/Analyzer recognizes an external link as having the following syntax: mk:@MSITStore:linking_file.chm::topic_name.htm. If this isn't the syntax you're using for topic to topic external links, then Analyzer is going to think the links are broken.

Isn't the syntax built automatically when the hyperlink function is used to create an external link?

[lauraj]

One thing about external links... Flare/Analyzer recognizes an external link as having the following syntax: mk:@MSITStore:linking_file.chm::topic_name.htm.
If this isn't the syntax you're using for topic to topic external links, then Analyzer is going to think the links are broken.

To clarify my original post, the "external links" I'm talking about are links to web sites (WebHelp and other sites), not to .chm files.

I never have resolved this issue and never have been able to use Analyzer to its potential. I do run it sometimes and get some value from it, but as I can't count on the accuracy of its reporting, and have been badly bitten by the 4,000-character limit bug, I'm not using it much. Glad somebody else paid for it.

[ccardimon]

I never have resolved this issue and never have been able to use Analyzer to its potential.

Me neither.

I do run it sometimes and get some value from it

Me too.

[rjhoughton]

I am using it. I have discovered that the "broken links" it finds are often in the source code, and NOT visible unless you send the file to the text editor.

Now if I could just figure out some of the stylesheet broken link issues....

Rachel

[Centauri27]

I use Analyzer as well (V2.3). The problem I've had since I first started using it is that the database has a text string limit of 4,000 characters and I have a number of lengthy <pre></pre> sections where the text inside the set of the tags exceeds the 4000 character limit. I reported it as a bug (#27635). I haven''t been able to find out whether it was addressed in the latest version of the software and since my company hasn't upgraded from V2.3, I can't verify for myself.

For what it's worth, I am using Analyzer 3.1 and I can confirm that problem still exists. I just ran into the same database error today, where Analyzer complained about this huge chunk of text I placed between <pre></pre> tags. Fortunately was workaround was simple: break up the chunk of text by sticking in more <pre> tags. I was forced to go the <pre> route when my attempts at creating styles with hanging indents made a mess of the output in Firefox (though it did render correctly in IE).