Use TextExpander to create a TinyUrl

March 7th, 2008

I’m a big TextExpander user, so much so that I always find myself typing strange key combinations to do things even when I’m not on my own machine. Whilst I do appreciate that unix has a perfectly good alias command that could be used instead, I like that my text shortcuts work even when I’m ssh’d into a remote machine (TextExpander is just watching your keyboard input and converting it as you type).

Recently I’ve found myself doing a lot of TinyUrl links (mainly because of Twitter) and decided to knock up an Applescript to instantly convert whatever is on my clipboard into a tiny url as I type.

Go and check out the code on pastie – once you’ve got this its just a case of creating a new Applescript snippet in TextExpander and pasting in this code.

Update: I got linked from the SmileOnMyMac Blog (developers of TextExpander) – thanks guys! Glad you like the tip :) They also have a pre-packaged version of my script ready to download straight into TextExpander so head over there to get hold of it.

Another Update: Looks like Jack-Daniyel Strong devised a much nicer version of my applescript that is faster, and has error checking. Nice work! I’m now using his script :)

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