LIVEdigitally

Hi, my name is jonathanpberger and I’ll be covering all sorts of nerdy topics here on LiveDigitally. Got comments? Questions? Rants? You can drop me a line at jpb@livedigitally.com or see what else I’m up to on my Twitter feed, my homepage, or my tumbleblog.

One of my can’t-live-without-it time-and-keystroke-saving apps (TextExpander) got bumped to version 2.3 today. It’s a minor update: a few bug-fixes and a new snippet group for Accented Words (like “rosé”, “olé”, “sauté”, or “jalapeño”). But I got to playing around, and saw a cool video demonstrating how to use TextExpander for another time-and-keystroke-saver: URL-Shortening.

URL-Shortening may not seem like a big deal, but it comes in handy when you’re dealing with space restrictions (like Twitter’s 140 character-limit), you want to tidy up some messy links, or you’re trying to RickRoll someone. It’s one of those possibly-extraneous activities that makes life a tiny little bit easier, but only when it’s effortless to employ. Enter TextExpander.

Jack-Daniyel Strong has a great tip for shortening URLs using TinyURL, TextExpander, and Applescript. After setting it up, you can shorten URLs by

1) copying the URL to the clipboard, and 2) typing a preset abbreviation. It’s that easy.

I’ve adapted his technique for the new kid on the URL-shortening block, Bit.ly (which everyone is gushing over), and which provides a host of neat features like History, Click/Referrer tracking, thumbnails, mirroring, and best of all, a robust API.

I’ve written briefly about TextExpander in the past, but allow me to go on at greater length: TextExpander is frickin’ AWESOME. It provides system-wide text abbreviations which I use literally tens or even hundreds of times each day. Common typos? Fixed. “Teh” turns into “the” automatically, every time, in any application. Common abbreviations or boilerplate text? Use a few letters to spit out long, commonly-used strings of text. I use “jonathanpberger” as my account name on pretty much every public web service around: Twitter, Flickr, Del.icio.us, Google account, etc. I must type those 15 characters a hundred times a day—except I don’t type them. I type “jjpb”, and they’re filled in automatically.

How about HTML or CSS? Not only can I type “,a” (that’s “comma-A”) and get

<a href=""></a>

or type “,img” (that’s “comma-i-m-g”) for

<img src="" alt="" width="" height="" border="0" />

but the cursor will return to the spot where I need to start typing: between the quotes after the “href=""” or “src=""”.

What’s more, SmileOnMyMac (the company responsible for TextExpander) provides libraries of useful snippets like HTML, CSS, common misspellings, and more, all of which you can install with a click.

Ok, enough gushing. This isn’t an infomercial. What we’re here for today is TextExpander’s AppleScript support. Here we go:

1. Create a new snippet (command-N) and paste the following AppleScript in the “Content” box:

	set the ClipURL to (the clipboard as string)

	ignoring case
		if ((characters 1 through 4 of ClipURL as string) is not "http") then
			return "Malformed URL."
		else
			set curlCMD to ¬
				"curl --stderr /dev/null \"http://bit.ly/api?url=" & ClipURL & "\""

			-- Run the script and get the result:
			set tinyURL to (do shell script curlCMD)

			return tinyURL
		end if
	end ignoring

2. Above the box, you’ll want to change “Content: Plain Text” to “Content: AppleScript” so that we execute the script instead of replacing our text with the raw code.
3. Set the Abbreviation. I like the standard TextExpander convention of doubling the first letter (I use the default “ttime” for a timestamp), so I use “bbit”.

Here’s what it should look like:

All done. Now let’s say (hypothetically) you have a cousin who’s researching family genealogy on her summer break. Maybe (if you’re a cousin of mine) she’ll have sent you a link to an image of the immigration record on Ellis Island that brought your family to this country back in 1908. It might have a URL that looks like this:

http://www.ellisisland.org/EIFile/popup_weif_5a.asp?src=%2Fcgi%2Dbin%2Ftif2gif%2Eexe%3FT%3D%5C%5C%5C%5C192%2E168%2E4%2E227%5C%5Cimages%5C%5CT715%2D1081%5C%5CT715%2D10810827%2ETIF%26S%3D%2E5&pID=101759060124&name=Beile%26nbsp%3BMinowitz&doa=Mar+07%2C+1908&port=Liverpool&line=0019

Now that we’ve got the Bit.ly AppleScript set up, all we have to do is select that painfully long URL, copy it to the clipboard (Edit>Copy or command-C), and type “bbit”. Voilà:

http://bit.ly/4swZ2G

That’s a way easier URL to post on Twitter!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 23rd, 2008 at 6:24 pm by jonathan berger and is filed under General, Web/Internet. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.