Mac OS X Service to shorten a URL with Bit.ly

Since the Bit.ly URL-shortening service is all the rage lately, and I hadn’t seen anyone create a Mac OS X Service for it yet, I decided to try my hand at it.

Here’s the result. The core is a relatively simple Python script and requires Mac OS X 10.5 (or Python 2.5 if you have an earlier version of Mac OS X). The Service was wrapped up with ThisService by Peter Hosey. It’s my first attempt at creating a Mac OS X Service — with or without ThisService — and I hope it works for you. However, it is provided “as-is” with no warranty.

That said, if you have comments or suggestions, please feel free to contact me.

Also, I’m not counting this as an endorsement of Bit.ly; I just looked at info on their site and thought I could probably script it and, as you can see, I did.

To install the Service:

1. Unzip the downloaded file.
2. Drag the unzipped Service to /Library/Services (for all users) or ~/Library/Services (for just the current user).

To use it:

1. Select the full text of an “http” or “https” URL that you’d like to shorten. (Don’t just select a site’s domain name. The Service is specifically coded to work on full URLs starting with “http” or “https.” So, “www.jaharmi.com” will not work but “http://www.jaharmi.com” will.)
2. Choose “Shorten URL with Bit.ly” from the Services submenu of the application menu. The selected URL will be replaced with the text of the shortened URL from Bit.ly. If it is not, the original URL will remain.

Of special note, however, is that if you shorten URLs with Bit.ly this way rather than through your browser, you probably won’t see them show up in your history (the most recent 15 URLs you’ve shortened). The script just shortens URLs for you and does so outside of your browser, so whatever cookies or other tracking Bit.ly is doing to generate your history, it doesn’t appear to carry over when using this simple little Service.