4 ms·

Show HN: Shortlink – Local, easy to remember URL aliases

22 points by mikeshi42 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mikeshi42 10y ago
Hey guys! I just wrapped up the initial build of Shortlink. The idea is based off of I hate touching the mouse and my workflow can become Cmd+T, Cmd+L, m/[shortlink], Enter. No mouse needed for bookmarks, no overflow bookmarks bar! :D You can also use it as a link organization/searching utility, m/[invalid-shortlink] will automatically pull up relevant shortlinks related to your query, and you can always see all shortlinks by going to `m/` in your URL bar. A couple ways I have it set up is for reference pages or dashboards (ex. m/proj-ga => analytics.goog../#realtime/rt-overview/../) or things like gdrive folders (m/projects => drive.google..), and of course memes (m/thisisfine => .../thisisfine.jpg). tl;dr: A gif is worth a thousand thousand words https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif Hope everyone finds this useful! :D
- simplehuman 10y ago
  The gif did give me many words but not the ones you intended :) 403 Forbidden Code: AccessDenied Message: Access Denied RequestId: 1A562E114530E51D HostId: GPwxkg0B8oa+EB+haVBn92tO6h1VhCJJhDnRV+17lOXjS/L+tnZD6nzqQzvoppdOi4UooN1h2SY=
  - mikeshi42 10y ago
    Haha I wonder if this was an S3 issue... anyways re-uploaded to another provider. I hope this one works! https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif
- woodrowbarlow 10y ago
  > You can also use it as a link organization/searching utility. You aren't selling this feature hard enough -- definitely mention it in the extension description. If I were on Chrome (I'm on Firefox), that feature would make me install it and use it instead of bookmarks. Except... a 16-link limit? Seriously? That's not even enough to get a sense of whether it's something I'd enjoy using. Most people have more than 16 tabs open at any given time, not to mention bookmarks. If you're shipping this as a fremium thing, give users enough to get hooked.
  - mikeshi42 10y ago
    Thanks for the feedback! I've found out that a lot of people use this differently and I'm definitely still pivoting into the use case of organization and search and out of "oh this will get to your URLs faster". Thank you though, I'll be editing my description in a bit :P As for 16, I hover under the limit myself, but I understand if that might seem a bit low and that's fair. I was just experimenting with the idea of freemium and didn't want to have a higher limit and lower it later and have more people upset. I'll be looking to bump up the limit in the future (or possibly remove it, since it might not even be a feature people care about.) In your opinion, what do you think is a reasonable limit to set? (Or is it just unreasonable to limit it at all?)
    - kinduff 10y ago
      In my honest opinion, this kind of tools should not be monetized through its core functionality. My opinion as a user/developer, this is awesome, but 16? I would build one myself. Try to search another way to monetize, some ads on your landing page or additional features, but would not go to limit the core functionality. Good luck!
discreditable 10y ago
Reminds me of the bookmark keyword feature from Firefox. It's possible to hack into Chrome by setting sites as search providers. http://lifehacker.com/5476033/how-to-set-keyword-bookmarks-in-google-chrome http://lifehacker.com/5476033/how-to-set-keyword-bookmarks-i...
- mikeshi42 10y ago
  Yup! I've tried this solution myself but just found it incredibly hacky and un-intuitive. I hope the nicer UX (hotkeys!) allows for a better experience. In the future I hope to plan to have better syncing (cloud, sync into a traditional bookmark for mobile use), x-platform, share w/ others, tighter omnibar integration, etc. But you're right that there are reasonable solutions out there currently, but I hope Shortlink provides a lower barrier to entry and less configurations to fuss over. As for Firefox, I'm not really a user myself, I've just tried it real quick and it seems like you have to type quite a bit to get the omnibar(?) to prioritize the bookmark result over the other autocompletes, as for shortlink you can type m/[shortlink] and be guaranteed to hop over to the site you saved. Good food for thought though!
  - discreditable 10y ago
    > it seems like you have to type quite a bit to get the omnibar(?) to prioritize the bookmark result over the other autocompletes Not exactly. Once you set the keyword, you can type the keyword and press enter. Here I use hn to reach Hacker News and sd to reach Slashdot: http://imgur.com/a/EaRCo http://imgur.com/a/EaRCo
    - mikeshi42 10y ago
      Got it! Didn't realize you set them in properties. I guess to differentiate, I could work on shortlink-only search queries in the omnibar as well (and more powerful organization). Thanks for the demo!
orliesaurus 10y ago
"Currently has a 16 link limit, want more? Premium will be coming soon!" Mmmh - but why? Surely make the limit appear when you actually have PREMIUM not before?
- mikeshi42 10y ago
  To be honest, I was having serious trouble parsing through Chrome's absolutely terrible docs relating to paywalling features. I just gave up and decided I should validate a market for something like this exists before I invest into bothering to slog through the entire monetization process. If you hit the limit, let me know, I'd love it if you love it that much, and would love your feedback! I think I'll be looking for other venues of monetization, or bumping up the limit a bit. That being said, I use the Chrome store version of my extension too and I haven't hit the limit myself (yet!). tl;dr I'm still figuring out a lot of the aspects of this, but wanted some validation before moving forward with more iterations.
  - orliesaurus 10y ago
    if you're thinking about monetizing something with 9 installs you're definitely a hustler ! good luck to you!
harrygallagher4 10y ago
I'm all for keyboard-centric navigation, but what makes this better than Holmes? It does the same thing, but lets you search all of your already existing bookmarks, and there's no premium version/limitations. Holmes: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/holmes/gokficnebmomagijbakglkcmhdbchbhn https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/holmes/gokficnebmo...
- mikeshi42 10y ago
  Just had a chance to check out Holmes, you're right in that right now the offerings are almost the same. I hope as I iterate a couple of times I'll have more features that would differentiate further. I would argue that my search is more complete than their 10 bookmark limit and shortlinks isn't based off of fuzzy finding (which is I guess a negative for some people).
ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago
Just use dmenu [1] and surfraw [2] bookmarks. [1] http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ [2] https://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/ https://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/
known 10y ago
Is it similar to archive.is
- mikeshi42 10y ago
  Not really, unless I've misunderstood what archive.is does. Shortlink allows you to create an "alias" for a URL you visit often. Say you have a GA dashboard that you go back to very often (something that you would usually bookmark). You can create a shortlink that will point to that (ex. "m/ga"). Using this shortlink, you can type it in the URL bar in your browser and it'll redirect you to the GA dashboard page.

22 points by mikeshi42 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Hey guys! I just wrapped up the initial build of Shortlink. The idea is based off of I hate touching the mouse and my workflow can become Cmd+T, Cmd+L, m/[shortlink], Enter. No mouse needed for bookmarks, no overflow bookmarks bar! :D You can also use it as a link organization/searching utility, m/[invalid-shortlink] will automatically pull up relevant shortlinks related to your query, and you can always see all shortlinks by going to `m/` in your URL bar. A couple ways I have it set up is for reference pages or dashboards (ex. m/proj-ga => analytics.goog../#realtime/rt-overview/../) or things like gdrive folders (m/projects => drive.google..), and of course memes (m/thisisfine => .../thisisfine.jpg). tl;dr: A gif is worth a thousand thousand words https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif Hope everyone finds this useful! :D

simplehuman 10y ago
The gif did give me many words but not the ones you intended :) 403 Forbidden Code: AccessDenied Message: Access Denied RequestId: 1A562E114530E51D HostId: GPwxkg0B8oa+EB+haVBn92tO6h1VhCJJhDnRV+17lOXjS/L+tnZD6nzqQzvoppdOi4UooN1h2SY=
- mikeshi42 10y ago
  Haha I wonder if this was an S3 issue... anyways re-uploaded to another provider. I hope this one works! https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif https://gifyu.com/images/548oQzWj7s1.gif
woodrowbarlow 10y ago
> You can also use it as a link organization/searching utility. You aren't selling this feature hard enough -- definitely mention it in the extension description. If I were on Chrome (I'm on Firefox), that feature would make me install it and use it instead of bookmarks. Except... a 16-link limit? Seriously? That's not even enough to get a sense of whether it's something I'd enjoy using. Most people have more than 16 tabs open at any given time, not to mention bookmarks. If you're shipping this as a fremium thing, give users enough to get hooked.
- mikeshi42 10y ago
  Thanks for the feedback! I've found out that a lot of people use this differently and I'm definitely still pivoting into the use case of organization and search and out of "oh this will get to your URLs faster". Thank you though, I'll be editing my description in a bit :P As for 16, I hover under the limit myself, but I understand if that might seem a bit low and that's fair. I was just experimenting with the idea of freemium and didn't want to have a higher limit and lower it later and have more people upset. I'll be looking to bump up the limit in the future (or possibly remove it, since it might not even be a feature people care about.) In your opinion, what do you think is a reasonable limit to set? (Or is it just unreasonable to limit it at all?)
  - kinduff 10y ago
    In my honest opinion, this kind of tools should not be monetized through its core functionality. My opinion as a user/developer, this is awesome, but 16? I would build one myself. Try to search another way to monetize, some ads on your landing page or additional features, but would not go to limit the core functionality. Good luck!

discreditable 10y ago

Reminds me of the bookmark keyword feature from Firefox. It's possible to hack into Chrome by setting sites as search providers. http://lifehacker.com/5476033/how-to-set-keyword-bookmarks-in-google-chrome http://lifehacker.com/5476033/how-to-set-keyword-bookmarks-i...

mikeshi42 10y ago
Yup! I've tried this solution myself but just found it incredibly hacky and un-intuitive. I hope the nicer UX (hotkeys!) allows for a better experience. In the future I hope to plan to have better syncing (cloud, sync into a traditional bookmark for mobile use), x-platform, share w/ others, tighter omnibar integration, etc. But you're right that there are reasonable solutions out there currently, but I hope Shortlink provides a lower barrier to entry and less configurations to fuss over. As for Firefox, I'm not really a user myself, I've just tried it real quick and it seems like you have to type quite a bit to get the omnibar(?) to prioritize the bookmark result over the other autocompletes, as for shortlink you can type m/[shortlink] and be guaranteed to hop over to the site you saved. Good food for thought though!
- discreditable 10y ago
  > it seems like you have to type quite a bit to get the omnibar(?) to prioritize the bookmark result over the other autocompletes Not exactly. Once you set the keyword, you can type the keyword and press enter. Here I use hn to reach Hacker News and sd to reach Slashdot: http://imgur.com/a/EaRCo http://imgur.com/a/EaRCo
  - mikeshi42 10y ago
    Got it! Didn't realize you set them in properties. I guess to differentiate, I could work on shortlink-only search queries in the omnibar as well (and more powerful organization). Thanks for the demo!

orliesaurus 10y ago

"Currently has a 16 link limit, want more? Premium will be coming soon!" Mmmh - but why? Surely make the limit appear when you actually have PREMIUM not before?

mikeshi42 10y ago
To be honest, I was having serious trouble parsing through Chrome's absolutely terrible docs relating to paywalling features. I just gave up and decided I should validate a market for something like this exists before I invest into bothering to slog through the entire monetization process. If you hit the limit, let me know, I'd love it if you love it that much, and would love your feedback! I think I'll be looking for other venues of monetization, or bumping up the limit a bit. That being said, I use the Chrome store version of my extension too and I haven't hit the limit myself (yet!). tl;dr I'm still figuring out a lot of the aspects of this, but wanted some validation before moving forward with more iterations.
- orliesaurus 10y ago
  if you're thinking about monetizing something with 9 installs you're definitely a hustler ! good luck to you!

harrygallagher4 10y ago

I'm all for keyboard-centric navigation, but what makes this better than Holmes? It does the same thing, but lets you search all of your already existing bookmarks, and there's no premium version/limitations. Holmes: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/holmes/gokficnebmomagijbakglkcmhdbchbhn https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/holmes/gokficnebmo...

mikeshi42 10y ago
Just had a chance to check out Holmes, you're right in that right now the offerings are almost the same. I hope as I iterate a couple of times I'll have more features that would differentiate further. I would argue that my search is more complete than their 10 bookmark limit and shortlinks isn't based off of fuzzy finding (which is I guess a negative for some people).

ycmbntrthrwaway 10y ago

Just use dmenu [1] and surfraw [2] bookmarks. [1] http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ http://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/ [2] https://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/ https://surfraw.alioth.debian.org/

known 10y ago

Is it similar to archive.is

mikeshi42 10y ago
Not really, unless I've misunderstood what archive.is does. Shortlink allows you to create an "alias" for a URL you visit often. Say you have a GA dashboard that you go back to very often (something that you would usually bookmark). You can create a shortlink that will point to that (ex. "m/ga"). Using this shortlink, you can type it in the URL bar in your browser and it'll redirect you to the GA dashboard page.