Using a custom short URL service

By default, Copy ShortURL falls back to the URL shortening service is.gd. As I am not affiliated with is.gd however, I wanted to make it easy for people to use whatever service they like.

You may specify a different service by clicking “preferences” on Copy ShortURL in the Firefox add-ons pane.

There, you can choose from default services or enter your own custom URL.

When creating a new short URL, the add-on will request (GET) the URL you specify here, while replacing the placeholder %URL% with the long URL that it is trying to shorten. As a reply from the shortening service, it expects a one-line, plain text document containing the shortened URL.

Examples:

  • http://is.gd/api.php?longurl=%URL% (default) (docs)
  • http://tinyurl.com/api-create.php?url=%URL% (3rd party docs)
  • http://yoursite.com/yourls-api.php?signature=<apikey>&action=shorturl&format=simple&url=%URL% (docs)

bit.ly

Popular service bit.ly has a slighty more elaborate API. Create an OAuth access token, then enter the following custom service URL into Copy ShortURL’s settings:

https://api-ssl.bitly.com/v3/shorten?format=txt&access_token=<accesstoken>&longUrl=%URL%

Replace <accesstoken> in the URL with the token you created.

Full bitly API docs exist.