Link Sweeper v1.2
(c) 1998 Jonathan Potter/Left Side Software

This software requires Windows 95 or Windows NT 4.0 or later to run.

  This program is distributed under the Shareware concept. If you like and use this program, please consider registering to support the development of this and other low-cost, user friendly software. The registration fee is $US10 - please see the online registration page for more information. Registered users will be given priority when asking for technical support, and will also receive notification of new releases of this and other software.

Note: The original version of Windows 95 had a bug in the Sockets library which could cause gradual memory loss, leading to an eventual crash. If you are experiencing problems of this nature, please download the patch from this Microsoft page.

1. Introduction

Most people who have been surfing the web for a while would have built up quite a collection of favourite sites in their browser. Under Navigator, these are called "bookmarks", and in Explorer they are called "favorites". What ever you call them, how many of yours actually work any more? If you go back and try a bookmark that you created several months ago, chances are that you'll find it has either moved to a new location, or no longer exists at all. Link Sweeper is a utility that will systematically test all your bookmarks and/or favorites, letting you clean up your bookmark collection.

2. Installation

Link Sweeper requires no special installation procedures. Simply copy the LinkSweeper.exe program to the folder you want to keep it in, and add it to your Start Menu. To uninstall Link Sweeper, simply delete the program file.

3. The Main Window

The Link Sweeper main window may look complicated, but it is actually very simple to operate. The four buttons in the top-left corner control the operation of the program. The display area immediately to the right of the buttons presents general information, including an on-going log of the cleaning operation. The list view in the middle of the window shows you what each thread is currently doing (more about threads later), and the display area at the bottom shows a log of all the links that were found to be not working.

4. Settings

The first time you run Link Sweeper, the Settings dialog will open automatically. After that, you can click the Settings button on the main window to open it. The available options are:

Use this option to control whether Netscape Navigator Bookmarks are cleaned. If you have Netscape installed on your computer, this option will be turned on by default. The Location field is used to specify where to find the Netscape Bookmark file.

Use this option to control whether Internet Explorer Favorites are cleaned. If you have Explorer installed on your computer, this option will be turned on by default. The Location field is used to specify where to find the Favorites directory.

If this option is enabled, and you are cleaning both Bookmarks and Favorites, then the contents of both your bookmarks file and favorites directory will be synchronised after the cleaning operation is performed. This option is useful if you regularly use both Navigator and Explorer, and find your bookmarks/favorites falling out of sync. Please note that this function is only available in the registered version.

Use this option to sort your Netscape Bookmarks alphabetically. Please note that this will cause any separator bars you have in your bookmarks menu to be lost.

This option is useful if you want to run Link Sweeper regularly. The chances that a link that you have accessed recently will suddenly stop working are small - it is more often links that you have not used for a month or so that you find are broken. This option instructs Link Sweeper to only check links that you have not accessed for more than a given number of days (the default is 30 days). When Link Sweeper itself checks a link, it updates that link's last-access date, and so will also not check links that Link Sweeper itself has been to within the given time.

You can also use this option to disable the link checking process altogether, and simply use Link Sweeper to sort or synchronise your Bookmarks. For example, you might want to sort your bookmarks fairly often, but not want to sit through the checking/cleaning process every single time. In this case, you would set the number of days to a very high number (eg, 5000). Link Sweeper would then not actually check any links (unless any were actually older than 5000 days), but the sorting/synchronising would still take place.

 

Link Sweeper uses the result code returned by the web server to determine whether a link works or not. Result code 403 does not specifically mean the page does not exist, but often that is the reason. Using this option will cause Link Sweeper to tread result code 403 (forbidden) as if it was a result 404 (not found).

These options let you choose what happens to links that do not work (because the page was not found, because the host couldn't be found, or because the server returned code 403). Ask what to do with it is the default option, and will let you choose what to do with the link at the end of the process. Delete it automatically will delete the link with no input required by you. Shift it to the 'broken' folder will move the link to a folder called Broken Links (this folder will be created automatically the first time it is used).

These options let you choose what happens to links to pages that have been moved (this means that the page itself still works, but your link to it is wrong). Ask what to do with it is the default option, and will let you choose what to do with the link at the end of the process. Automatically update the link will update the link with the new address automatically, with no input required by you.

These options lets you configure your proxy settings. Link Sweeper will attempt to fill these fields in for you automatically, but as there is no system-defined way of configuring a proxy server, you should check these settings before attempting to use Link Sweeper. You should use the same settings here as you do in your web broswer. If Connect through Proxy Server is turned off, Link Sweeper will establish a direct connection to each site. Your ISP may have disabled this functionality; if you find Link Sweeper can never make a connection to a remote site, you may need to turn the proxy on.

This lets you set the number of concurrent threads Link Sweeper will use to check your bookmarks. The more threads you use, the faster the operation will run. However, you will find that using more than a certain number of threads (depending on your system performance) will reduce the reliability of Link Sweeper. In testing we have found that most systems can support 20-30 threads quite happily, but you might have to play around with this field to find the value that works best for you. Please note that the unregistered version does not support more than 2 threads.

Use this value to configure the time Link Sweeper will wait for a reply from a remote web server before giving up. The default is 30 seconds.

Use this to configure the number of times Link Sweeper will attempt to connect to a remote web server before giving up. The default is 5 times.

5. Usage

Once you have configured Link Sweeper using the Settings dialog, click the Clean! button on the main window to begin the cleaning operation. Link Sweeper will then read your bookmarks and/or favorites, and then begin the checking process. Depending on the number of links you have to check, and the number of threads you have selected, this may take some time. The progress bar at the bottom of the main window will give you an indication of the overall progress, and you can follow the progress of each thread using the list view and log displays.

What happens at the end of the checking process depends on how you have configured Link Sweeper. If you have set the If a link no longer works and the If a page has been moved options to the automatic settings, Link Sweeper will perform the appropriate actions and then save your bookmarks and/or favorites automatically. If you have configured Link Sweeper to 'ask what to do with it' for either of the two settings, Link Sweeper will open the Results dialog, which you can use to select what happens to each link.

The list view displays a list of the links that did not work. The name of each link appears in the Name column. The Type column indicates whether the link was a bookmark (book), a favorite (fav) or both (if you have the Sychronise option turned on). The Problem column tells you what the problem with the link was, and the Action column lets you choose what will happen to the link. The URL of the link is shown in the URL column.

To change what happens to a link, click on the Action column. The default action for all links is Leave, which means nothing will happen to the link. For broken links, clicking on the Action column will cycle through the options Leave, Delete and Shift. Delete means the link will be deleted, and Shift means it will be shifted into the Broken Links folder. For pages that have moved, the only two options are Leave and Update, which will update the link with the new address of the page. To change the action for all links, use the buttons below the list.

You can also select the name of a link with the right mouse button to display the context menu. The context menu allows you to select the action for the link, and also has several other functions. Browser lets you open the link in your default web browser. Rename lets you change the name of the link. Copy URL (and Copy New URL for moved pages) copies the URL of the link to the clipboard.

When you have selected what you want to do with all the bad links, click the Ok button, and Link Sweeper will complete the cleaning process and save your bookmarks and/or favorites back to disk.

6. Copyrights

Link Sweeper is (c) Copyright 1998 by Jonathan Potter, Left Side Software. All Rights Reserved.
Netscape and Netscape Navigator are registered trademarks of Netscape Communications Corporation.
Internet Explorer is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

Please note that while Link Sweeper has been tested thoroughly, no responsibility is taken for any loss or damage that may result from the use of this program. We recommend you make a backup copy of your bookmarks/favorites before running this program.

7. Release History

v1.0 Mar 98

• First public release

v1.1 7 Jun 98

• Link Sweeper would lose certain characters in the link names for Netscape bookmarks (filtering them out is necessary for Explorer favourites). It now only filters when saving favourites.

v1.2 22 Jan 99

• Link Sweeper was still losing some characters when saving favourites (commas, etc), this is now fixed.
• Fixed a problem which could cause a crash if you clicked Browse to locate the Netscape bookmark file