cOOol 1.0 Beta2 review

cOOol project is a simple Python script that looks for broken hyperlinks in OpenOffice.org documents. Here are some key features o

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 10K Developer: Michael Opdenacker

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cOOol project is a simple Python script that looks for broken hyperlinks in OpenOffice.org documents.

Here are some key features of "cOOol":
cOOol only supports OpenOffice.org documents in the new OpenDocument format. You need OpenOffice.org 1.1.5 or later to export other documents to this format.
cOOol is fast: it doesn't start OpenOffice.org and runs link checks in parallel threads.
cOOol supports most kinds of hyperlinks, including links within the documents.
cOOol is easy to use. Just download the script and run it!
cOOol is free. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

Here is why an automatic link checker for your documents is useful:

External references can be a very valuable part of your documents. Broken links reduce their usefulness as well as the impression they make. They also give the feeling that your documents are outdated and older than they are.
Web sites evolve frequently. Having an automated way of detecting obsolete links is essential to keeping your documents up to date.
You may be much more familiar with your target websites than your readers. They may not be able to find a new location by themselves. You'd better be aware of the change and do this for them!
When you rename a page (for example), OpenOffice.org doesn't update all the references to it.

Usage:

usage: coool [options] [OpenOffice.org document files]

Checks OpenOffice.org documents for broken Links

options:
--version show program's version number and exit
-h, --help show this help message and exit
-v, --verbose display progress information

When a broken link is found, open the document in OpenOffice.org and use the search facility to look for the link text.

Limitations:
cOOol doesn't check for e-mail links. It could at least check that the corresponding domain is valid.
cOOol doesn't give you page numbers for broken links. You have to open the document and use the search facilities to locate each link.
cOOol still crashes on some documents with Unicode strings (for example with Chinese text)

What's New in This Release:
This release highlights broken links found in style data (headers, footers, and master pages). Otherwise, the user may look for them in regular text.