Link checking...per target?

[pdxwordsmith]

I posted this over on the Flare forum, but no one chimed in.

I am building two "books" for three products, creating WebHelp and PDF for each from a single source (that makes 12 distinct targets...yikes!). As you might imagine, I'm employing conditional text extensively.

I've searched, but can't seem to find the answer to this problem...

How do I check the links for a particular target?

When I build to a target, some files are not included. Any cross-references to the excluded topic file are bad (well,they just aren't a link). Flare doesn't seem to flag the errors in the build status unless the bad link is in the TOC.

I bought Analyzer, hoping this would solve my problem, but I don't think it does. All the tools seem to act on ALL the files in the project - which is nice, but doesn't help me debug target-specific broken links.

I'm hoping there's a perfectly simple solution that I'm just not seeing...? If not, does anyone have any recommendations for 3rd-party link checkers (HTML and PDF)? The ones I've seen seem to be overkill for what I want (just a report of the bad links, source, and target).

[John Owens]

Good question. I would like to get the same question answered too, as we are in the same boat.

Please someone answer.

[SteveS]

I've used Xenu link sleuth in the past and found it fairly good.

HTH

[i-tietz]

I placed an enhancement request for that some time last year, I think ... maybe you wanna do it, too?

[John Owens]

I've used Xenu link sleuth in the past and found it fairly good.

HTH

Thanks Steve for the tip about Xenu Link Sleuth.
However, it is more of an after-the-fact tool. What we really need is for Flare to tell us when we are linking to a topic outside the currently active TOC. This way we could automate XRef creation to have those links add text to redirect the reader to the other document, rather than what happens now...adding a broken link to my local development computer's hard drive. (In PDF output at least)

I also purchased MadCap's Analyzer, but this feature is not included in Analyzer either.

Workarounds? Seems that multiple conditions and/or multiple CSS mediums would be messy, since one topic may be in say 3 of the 6 TOCs.

[ChoccieMuffin]

In your docs sets, do you have identical PDF and WebHelp for 6 products, or are all 12 outputs different?

If they're the same, someone mentioned on the forums the tip of searching in your PDFs for "on page 1", as that will pick up links that don't link to anything. I've found that tip very helpful and now run that check any time I've updated my work. I know that's another "after the fact" thing, but a worthwhile check that takes just a moment to do, as a final reassurance that the links aren't broken.

[John Owens]

Thanks ChoccieMuffin for your tip.

I will try that. In the mean time I think we should all join i-tietz and sent this in to Madcap as an enhancement request. Flare is a great product, but this is something that I would use daily. Flare needs to be smart enough to inform us that the link, though in the same project, it pointing to a different target.

Thanks again everyone for your tips and suggestions.

[pdxwordsmith]

Thanks for the ideas. This does seem to be a big gaping hole, doesn't it? Frame handles this nicely - hide the conditional text, then build the book and Frame lets you know what links are unresolved.

My target matrix looks like this:

Product PDF WebHelp
=================================
A1 A1-print A1-online
A2 A2-print A2-online
A3 A3-print A3-online
B1 B1-print B1-online
B2 B2-print B2-online
B3 B3-print B3-online

The content of the A series are variations (we call them "editions" - the shared content is the same, except for product names, but some features exist/don't exist in different editions). Likewise the content of the B series.

I did try searching for "on page 1" in a pinch but that's sort of tiresome I'll check out Xenu.

Glad I wasn't losing my mind about this, but sad this feature doesn't exist...

[i-tietz]

Glad I wasn't losing my mind about this, but sad this feature doesn't exist...

again thee same plea: Don't you want to place an enhancement request? The more customers do that, the higher the chance to see it in a future version.

[pdxwordsmith]

Yes, I did. And here's the link if you'd like to:
http://www.madcapsoftware.com/bugs/submit.aspx