Filed under: Cool tools, Productivity, Freeware
TinyURL Service
Over at Hawk Wings, Tim Gaden points to the TinyURL Service by Rachel Blackman. Once installed (which annoyingly requires a restart), this Service allows you to create a TinyURL simply by selecting the URL (e.g. in the address bar of your browser) and invoking the Service (either through the Services Menu, with the global hotkey, or with Quicksilver). This saves some steps compared to using TinyURL's bookmarklet. Tim draws attention to this because using TinyURL is one of the workarounds for dealing Mail.app's unfortunate tendency to break links in emails sent from it. Instead of dragging the URL from your browser, just select it and invoke "Shrink URL," and the appropriate TinyURL will appear in your address bar for dragging and dropping. Another ready constituency for the Service is the whole mob of Twitter fanatics, of which you can include us here at TUAW.Rachel's TinyURL Service is a free download from Riverdark Studios.
[Via Hawk Wings]
Update: In the comments below, Sparks (i.e. Rachel) notes that she has addressed some of the concerns with her first version and has a new version that can Shrink the URL to the clipboard. It can be downloaded from her site here (zip).
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Ahmad said 11:08AM on 4-05-2007
omg, restart my computer? totally not worth it.
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Brandon Walter said 12:15PM on 4-05-2007
how about just putting carrots around it and not using the software at all... like this.
that makes it work everytime no matter how long the URL is.
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Mat Lu said 12:19PM on 4-05-2007
The carat does not work for all long URLs. I still think it's a good idea and I've long done this, but the links still break when sent to other email clients (including especially Outlook on Windows and even in Gmail) from Mail.app.
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Felix said 12:23PM on 4-05-2007
If you want to have a perfect link in Mail, 1) select you link, 2) copy it 3) Choose Add Hyperlink from the Edit menu 4) paste your URL.
That way, Mail doesn't decide for you about what is a link and what isn't.
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Macskeeball said 12:33PM on 4-05-2007
CAUTION: I just used the File -> Show Files command of Installer.app, and apparently the installer puts the Service bundle within /System. Third party software should *never* modify the system folder unless they absolutely have to. A drag and drop install with directions provided in the disk image should be used instead.
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Sejuru said 2:57PM on 4-05-2007
Why not just use the Firefox plugin, Tinyurl Creator?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/126
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Macskeeball said 4:20PM on 4-05-2007
Sejuru, services are basically system-wide. Also, not everyone uses Firefox; I use Camino myself. Services can also be used in Quicksilver.
As for my previous comment, I've made the developer aware of the install location issue, as well as this TUAW post (and thus the comments).
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Sparks said 5:03PM on 4-05-2007
So, evidently this little service tool has gotten some posting coverage, moreso than I expected! Yipe! So, I've done a quick second release for folks. :)
I've added a new 'Shrink URL to Clipboard' service as requested by a couple of folks, so that you can still shrink a URL in a read-only text-field; it just puts the result on the clipboard instead of replacing the original.
http://www.riverdark.net/misc/TinyURL.zip (service)
http://www.riverdark.net/misc/TinyURL-src.zip (source code)
I've repackaged it as a simple drag-and-drop as was suggested; you can drop it into ~/Library/Services to have it just for one user, or into /Library/Services to have it system-wide. To uninstall the old version, just delete /System/Library/Services/TinyURL.service and poof.
A restart /is/ still required before the service gets picked up, but that's a limitation of Apple's system-service stuff... I can't really get around it.
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dave said 5:07PM on 4-05-2007
firefox plugin? what about camino? safari? others? this is a perfect service utility- and particularly useful on web sites like this where somebody may want to paste a long url on the fly without breaking the css or screwing up the url - it converts the url bar displayed address on the fly via the service menu when inside the browser (or any aware app, text edits et al)...
completely and totally worth every second of the restart....
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Macskeeball said 6:18PM on 4-05-2007
I actually don't think a restart is required. Simply re-logging into OS X should suffice.
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Sparks said 7:03PM on 4-05-2007
If you copy it into your personal library, yes, a login/logout will do it instead, that's true. Basically, for services, anything that re-launches/re-initializes the appropriate configuration 'space' will do it.
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Tod said 2:04AM on 4-06-2007
Hooray for Rachel! This Service really works wonders! I've been using it tonight to create truncated URLs to add to some trolling comments I posted in a couple of die-hard Zune-lovers sites.
The "Shrink to Clipboard" feature is really really great! It's highly recommended for anyone trying to add URLs to emails, blog posts, comments, and any other place where you don't want (or can't) enter those super-long URLs generated by database-driven sites these days (my own included).
Thanks again to Rachel and to Mat for giving us the heads up.
-Tod
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Todd Dominey said 8:36AM on 4-12-2007
Or just use Shrink, a handy dashboard widget.
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Todd Dominey said 8:42AM on 4-12-2007
Here's the link
http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/networking_security/shrink.html
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