# Links view

The Links view (Window > Show View > Links or clicking on the icon in the Web perspective) shows the files in your projects, the links between them and the characteristics of those links. This view helps you distinguish between different types of links, shows you the number of links to target files and indicates where documents have broken links or links to external files.

The Links view is like the Project Explorer view in that you can open files by double-clicking on the file icons it displays. Similarly, the Project Explorer view shows you a file system hierarchical view of your project and the Links view shows you the hierarchical relationship of your files, based on the links between them.

When files contain links to other files, they can be described as having parent-child relationships. When a file is in focus in the Links view, you can see the hierarchical relationships between it and the files to which it links. You can look at the parents (the files to the left) that contain links to the file in focus and the children (the files to the right) that are the targets of the links.

Hypertext links in HTML files are displayed as arrows between the files in the Links view. Hypertext links can be divided into different types. The following are examples of the most common kinds of links:

  The arrow with two lines through it indicates that the link is broken or that the link is to a file outside the WebContent folder.
  Note: Broken links are also displayed in the Problems View and are indicated by the icon in the first column.)

  The icon indicates that the link is to a cascading stylesheet.

  The arrow with a number on it indicates the number of times the file in focus links to the file to which it points.

  The or icons indicate that the link is to a graphic. Links to graphics are sometimes referred to as an embedded links because they are rendered as part of the same HTTP request (appear on the same page).

  The arrow with a question mark on it indicates that the validity of the link cannot be verified.

  The icon indicates that the link is one of a number of industry standard link types. The icon indicates that the link is to a mailing address. Links to file types that are not recognized are represented by the icon.

Related tasks
Refreshing the Links view
Viewing and navigating links
Fixing broken links using the Fixup link references wizard

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