Broken Links

Checking broken links

Every time you Install or edit a file, check all the links. Not just before, but after it is Installed.

Stupid things that can happen

While cutting and pasting, you can easily miss the first character of a line, like < and leave a tag like this:

     Li><a href="#birds">Birds of North America</a>

Or you can accidentally erase one of the " quotes while typing in the name. or altering the name, like this:

     <h3><a name=cats">Foolish looking cats</a></h3>

Caps in file and path names

It is easy to mis-type file names. You have a related file dog.html, but you type:

     <h3><a href="Dog.html">Shetland Sheep Dog</a></h3>

or...

     <h3><a href="dog,html">Shetland Sheep Dog</a></h3>

If it is in the SPCA/ directory, it is easy to type:

     <h3><a href="spca/dog.html">Shetland Sheep Dog</a></h3>

To avoid these errors, I always use copy-and-paste. Never re-type.

Stray < or > or "

Here is an example. This one is murder! It blotted out most of the file.

     <!--<

Here are two more with stray characters that accidentally got left in the tags.

     <<Li><a href="#birds">Birds of North America</a>

     <h3><a name=cats">>Foolish looking cats</a></h3>

Searching for named anchors

Named anchors are one of the biggest sources of tag trouble. When you find a bad link:

Press e to Edit
Go to the index menu at the top
Note the name of the anchor link, let's say, "#cats"
Press ^W to search and enter "cats"
The cursor will jump right there to see what is wrong

Using the HTML Checker

With the cursor on your file, just press f for Full Menu and select HTML Check. Back will come a report telling you all your html errors and where they are in your file.