SmileOnMyMac Blog

I just came across this neat tip on developer David Smalley’s blog. It uses AppleScript to generate a tinyURL with a TextExpander abbreviation.

(If you’re not familiar with Tiny URL, it’s an online service that converts long URLs into short ones more appropriate to share in email and microblogs.)

I am no AppleScript maven, but it sounded pretty cool. I’ve been using Tiny URL a lot lately since I started using Twitter. So I consulted Greg, whose works on TextExpander development, to see what he thought. His response:

This does work, and it’s quite convenient. Here’s an easy way for you to import this:

And he sent me the AppleScript wrapped in a TextExpander Group. You can download it here:
http://www.smileonmymac.com/textexpander/tinyurl.textexpander.zip

Download and unzip it, and then add the group in the TextExpander preferences pane.

Then you’re set to follow Greg’s instructions:

You select a URL, copy it to the Clipboard, then type “tinyurl” (and your delimiter if you’re not doing instant expansion) then wait a few seconds and “tinyurl” will be replaced by a tiny URL.

If you’re a real geek, you can grab the AppleScript from the original blog post and create your own AppleScript snippet in TextExpander.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 at 2:23 pm and is filed under TextExpander, User Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.