CSH Default Page

[spatte22]

Hey guys,

I have a quick CSH-related question (working with html5 output): is it possible to default to a topic other than the home page of a site when a CSH link is broken?


My understanding:
The cshid "anchor" is appended to the URL of the main entry file to the site (ie: blabla.com/blabla/bla/help.htm), which makes sense as to why a broken CSH link would direct to the home page of the site. Therefore, I think that it is not possible to re-direct to any other topic aside from the home page unless we add extra scripting (or something else) as a "band aid" solution.


I have a team that would like the "backup plan" for potential broken CSH links to direct to a different page other than the site's home page. If you guys have any suggestions for a solution, I'm all ears!

Thanks

[NorthEast]

I'm pretty sure that you can't do this in Flare - if the identifier (CSHID) doesn't exist, then you'll be directed to the default home page.
The redirect is handled by MadCap's scripts, so I'm not sure how you'd detect and intercept any unlinked identifiers.

If you know the broken identifiers, then you could add all of them to the alias file, and link them to a particular topic.
I've done this before for products that were still in development. I added all the identifiers and initially linked them all to a single topic that had a "topic not ready" message. I only linked the identifier to the real topic when it was complete.

[spatte22]

Yeah, that's what I was afraid of .

I have a possible band-aid solution of adding my own script on the home page to parse the URL with the cshid anchors in it, but we'll see if I actually end up using it.

As always, thanks for the response, Dave

[NorthEast]

I have a possible band-aid solution of adding my own script on the home page to parse the URL with the cshid anchors in it, but we'll see if I actually end up using it.

I'm not sure you can even do that. By the time the home page is displayed, the cshid isn't in the URL (unlike pages where the cshid does exist).

That's why I was saying you might have a problem detecting and intercepting any unlinked identifiers, as the redirect is all handled in MadCap's scripts.