Checking broken links between child projects

[TroyWells]

I have a master project with 20+ child projects. I used to have these in RoboHelp, and I used Xenu to check for broken links, especially links from one child project to another child project. However, I just finished getting my master project and child projects all setup in Flare. When I tried to use Xenu this time, I did not find any broken links. I continued to test and found the same and got suspicious. Then I purposefully created a broken link, and Xenu still told me there were no broken links. Obviously, Xenu does not work in my Flare output like it did with my RoboHelp output.

Does anyone else have another tool they use to check links between child projects in Flare that works or know any adjustment I could make in Xenu to make it work as expected?

Thanks!!
Troy

[crdmerge]

Troy, did you ever resolve this issue? Or, has anyone else come up with a link checking solution across a merged project (other than an online validation product)?

We just switched from RH, with a 40+ merged project, and Xenu just doesn't work on it.


Leon

[crdmerge]

Eureka!

My boss found the solution (that's why he gets paid the moderate bucks).

In Flare, you have to point Xenu to the Startup Topic instead of the Output File (as we did with RH).

Who knew?


Leon

[TroyWells]

What do you mean the "Startup Topic" vs. the "Output File"? I don't find much difference in output from RoboHelp to Flare.

[crdmerge]

The Web browser frame information:

• RH Start Page * = Flare Output File

The "Home page" that initially appears in the content pane

• RH Default Topic = Flare Startup Topic *

* indicates the topic that Xenu should be pointed to.

[NorthEast]

You need to open a topic (in the Content folder), rather than the file you use to open the project (e.g. Default.htm) ; that just contains the frameset definition, which presumably Xenu cannot 'follow'.

[TroyWells]

It doesn't work as well. If I chose the default topic in RoboHelp output, it would magically check all the links throughout the entire project, including even Related Topics/Concept Controls.

If I check the overview file or any other file inside the content folder, it only checks the links from that file and the links in the linked files, etc.

I cannot explain how it works so well with RoboHelp, but it just doesn't do the same for Flare output.

[crdmerge]

Flare file to point to:

xenu_flare.gif

RoboHelp file to point to:

xenu_RH.gif

You should get the same results.


Good luck,
Leon

[TroyWells]

I have heard this from 2 of you now, but it is just not what I am seeing. Let me give you an example. If I point Xenu to Startup Topic in one of my projects from Flare, it searches 16 URLs. If I point it to the default file in the RoboHelp output for the same file, it searches 314 URLs.

I wish I could say it worked, but it is not the way you both are saying it should. Perhaps in your tests, your main topic has all links to all other topics in your project. If mine did, I am sure it would work fine, but it does not.

Any other thoughts/ideas?

[crdmerge]

If I point Xenu to Startup Topic in one of my projects from Flare

Isn't this a merged project? If so, you must be pointing to the Startup Topic in the parent project.

EDIT: You are pointing to the topic in your output, are you not, and not the source?


No other thoughts, sorry.
Leon

[TroyWells]

I do have a merged project, but I tested in one of the child projects. If it won't work in the child project, there is no way it will work starting at the root of the parent.

And yes, I am pointing to my output, but I appreciate you checking on that!

The only thing I can figure is that there is something in the default file for RoboHelp that enables Xenu to do what it does.

By the way, I am not locked into Xenu. If there is another link check that will recursively check all the links in a help project, I'd be glad to give it a try!!

Thanks!!

[LTinker68]

Have you tried the built-in Analyzer features? I'm pretty sure there's a link check function in there.

[TroyWells]

Flare and Analyzer check for broken links but not in merged projects. They just check the source. Even if the links are correct, but they point to another child project, they will show as broken.

[crdmerge]

Just to be absolutely clear that we're speaking the same language:

In Flare, Xenu must be pointing to the file you see as the "Home page" when you first open the output (which must obviously reside in the parent project). Have you tried running Xenu against the output on both your local machine and a server location? One might work where the other does not, for some insane reason.

Yes, Analyzer only works within the active project.

We looked at the other few free link checkers available, but they're awful. We didn't look at the "online" products; that's too scary to contemplate!


Good luck,
Leon

[Valiant]

Just because it's what we have installed from an earlier time, I've been using Microsoft FrontPage 2003 for link checking.
We have a parent project with about 30 child projects under it. Some of these child projects have 6-8 child projects (grandchild projects?).
We've been frustrated because of a (reported and unfixed) bug in Flare than can chop some links in the child projects (escpecially grandchild projects) linking back to the main project when the body proxy is used.

I've found a couple issues using FrontPage to do the link checking:
After the report is generated, I select all links and use the verify link feature.
Some of out external links have a "?" in the link. FrontPage considers these broken because it drops the link text starting with the ?.
Next, I copy the report from FrontPage to Word, it imports as a table.
I sort the table by status and delete any rows that are shown with status=OK.
Next I resort the table by the hyperlink column and I delete any that are flagged as broken because the original link had a ? in it (it's only two links repeated multiple times).

It's bulky and not the best, but it has worked for us to

[trent the thief]

Hi Troy,

I've just started using Xenu to check the links in a huge project that has child projects and figured out what was meant in the earlier posts. The key is to give Xenu the URL of the merged project's Content frame, not the URL that you would normally use to open the merged project.

To get that url, open the help project in FireFox, then right-click in the Content frame and select This Frame->Open Frame in New Tab. The address bar for that tab has the URL to feed Xenu.



I also run Apache on my local machine. I've found that gives more useful results since windows doesn't give a care about letter casing for local files, while Apache will just say no if the link/file letter case is wrong