Xenu : Java Glossary

Xenu can also produce an orphans report, a list of files nobody links to. These are most often discarded images, or stray files. Be warned. Xenu does not look in the style sheet file, so any images used only there Xenu will consider orphans. Just because something is an orphan does not mean it should be discared. It may be the home page of a ring or a download you posted not linked into your site.

Xenu puts most of its configuration information in F:\Program Files\Xenu\xenu.ini. You may find it more convenient to edit the xenu.ini file than use the menus if you have a lot of repetitive information to enter. It lets you store the broken link data in user files such as xenu.xen which you can save anywhere you please. It lets you export tab separated files anywhere you please. It creates the broken link report in C:\documents and settings\%username%\local settings\temp temp files with W2K/XP or in C:\Users\ %username%\AppData\Local\Temp\XXXX.htm with Vista.

You can use File ⇒ Export to TAB-separated File… or File ⇒ Export Page Map to TAB-separated File… for further computer processing.

You can configure a list of URLs not to check only when you click File ⇒ Check URL.

While spidering, it appears to stop everything to ask you about some site with a certificate, but actually it is continuing to check links in the background.

It has a number of bugs and problems including:

• Beware, Xenu is extremely case-sensitive. Make sure you use lower case drive letters and / instead of \ in your URLs. It won’t complain. It just won’t work. If you have trouble, manually patch the Xenu.ini file to correct your URLs.
• Many false broken links. Reducing the number of threads helps.
• It ignores style sheets.
• It does not handle Applet class references or jar references. It think they are all broken.
• It often gets confused by redirects and fails to tell you the document where the problem originated.
• It is extremely slow if you ask for the full set of reports.
• Sometimes it stalls. Just clicking the Xenu window often prods it back to life.
• It tends to overwhelm you with links that are not really broken, just slow, temporarily down, ones that don’ support HTTP HEAD, or that want a you to lie about what sort of browser you are.
• It rechecks very link from scratch every time. It maintains history. If it did, it would not need to recheck links that were known good recently, except local links, which are fast check anyway.
• Be careful to verify the check external links option at the very last moment before you start the spidering. Xenu keeps changing the flag on you unexpectedly.

Here is what a Xenu configuration file typically look like. Note how link checking for Applets is suppressed.

I find it sometimes easier to edit the xenu.ini file with a text editor than to use Xenu’s GUI. It certainly easier to proofread. I tidy xenu.ini with INI before and after each edit.