Forum Discussion
Broken Links Checker
Is this function on the development roadmap? Just wondering.
IMHO, a "broken link checker" within the Articulate software would be minimally useful. Sure, perhaps it could find all the links that are truly broken, that is, links that are no longer active. The developer would still have to edit those links, either by correcting the URL (and re-checking it!) or deleting the link entirely.
But what about links that go to an active but wrong website? Those aren't "broken" in the same sense. But they are still incorrect and need to be fixed.
- The only way to find incorrect links is for a human to test every link to ensure it goes to the appropriate site.
- Okay, it might be possible to do this with AI. But, personally, I wouldn't trust AI to judge whether a working link is "correct" or not. In other words, it'd still require human testing.
Bottom line: The development schedule should include adequate time for quality-assurance testing, because it is an important part of the process.
We administer courses that collectively that contain 1000s of hyperlinks and recheck these links each semester before the course begins anew. Our solution is to use the app Integrity for Mac to check the HTML. It provides details of broken links, 404s and redirects. It's not failed us so far.
I appreciate your bottom line, but we do not have time for manual testing of these links beyond the initial course development.
I can understand why it'd be difficult to manually check 1000s of hyperlinks each semester. Thanks for telling folks about the Integrity for Mac app. It's always nice to hear about trustworthy tools!
