Automation MadCap Flare Technical communication

Automated QA: Checking for broken links in your Flare output – now also for HTTP links

Posted on Author msander Comments(5)

The CheckLinks tool now also finds broken http and https links in addition to finding broken local relative links.

The syntax for running the tool is, for example:

C:\> Checklinks2 "C:\OutputFolder" "C:\LogFolder"

For info about the existing tool, see http://techwritingengineer.com/automated-qa-checking-for-broken-links-in-your-flare-output/

msander

Related Articles
Technical communication

Social Hacks for Techwriters

Posted on Author msander

As a technical writer, your job is to research and create information about technical processes or products for the benefit of your target audience. In the research part of the job, you’ll most likely come in contact with subject matter experts of all shapes, sizes, and colors. Your job is, much like a Special Forces  […]
Technical communication

From SME to techwriter in 7 steps.

Posted on Author msander

I work as a professional technical writer even though I am really a subject matter expert. This provides a lot of challenges and opportunities.  Before my current job I couldn’t care less about the uses of en and em dashes, something that has now taken up at least an hour of my life. More importantly […]
Agile Automation Kanban Lean MadCap Flare

Setting up a Kanban Board in MadCap Flare

Posted on Author msander

If you’re a fan of using Kanban boards – the simplest way of implementing one in MadCap Flare is to use a TOC.  Setting up a Kanban TOC in Flare Create a new TOC and add items corresponding to your workflow (e.g. Backlog, In Writing, etc) Add topics to your backlog Work on one topic at a […]

5 Replies to “Automated QA: Checking for broken links in your Flare output – now also for HTTP links”

  1. This sounds good. But when I run it nothing happens: no error message but no text file either.

    Any ideas what the problem might be?

    Reply

    1. Great, thanks. That works fine. It doesn’t like it if you leave trailing backslashes in the paths though. I get:

      Unhandled Exception: System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path.
      at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path, Boolean checkAdditional)
      at System.IO.Path.GetFileName(String path)
      at System.IO.StreamWriter.CreateFile(String path, Boolean append, Boolean checkHost)
      at System.IO.StreamWriter..ctor(String path, Boolean append, Encoding encoding, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean checkHost)
      at System.IO.File.InternalWriteAllText(String path, String contents, Encoding encoding, Boolean checkHost)
      at System.IO.File.WriteAllText(String path, String contents)
      at HREF_CHECKER.Module1.WriteLogFile(String logText, String logPath)
      at HREF_CHECKER.Module1.Main()

      Feature request: print some output on the command line – e.g.
      “x broken links found. See log file ”

      Thanks again. That’s a really useful little tool.

      Reply

      1. In my previous comment I used angle-bracketed text which disappeared on submit.
        After “See log file” add the path/name of the log file.

        Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *