Nobody likes itchy pants, do you? Neither do I. 😏
That's why these shorts are seamlessly woven into the NodeBB experience, your users won't feel a thing.
- Preferably, install SmoothShorts from the list of available plugins in your NodeBB ACP.
Manual installation via npm install nodebb-plugin-smoothshorts is possible, but doesn't guarantee compatibility with your NodeBB version.
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Activate the plugin in ACP/Extend/Plugins.
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Setup plugin (and hash already existing posts/topics) in ACP/Plugins/SmoothShorts.
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Go click 'em! :D
Given that the client's browser supports the execCommand('copy'), SmoothShorts will add an icon next to post links, which copies the short URL with a single click. The context menu method is always available.
NOTE: If you are using NodeBB >=1.0.0, you have a more suitable icon (.fa-hashtag) available. The plugin's default .fa-external-link ensures backwards compatibility. You can change the icon in the settings.
Once a user opens the browser's context menu upon a topic link, the href value of that link gets replaced with its assigned hash:
This also works on posts:
(Not all themes have those links; same goes for teasers. Posts are hashed, regardless of used theme.)
The now copied address is of the form https://yourNodeBB.org/ss/:hash (default, see URL Format). Visiting it will redirect to the associated post or topic:
###- Modifier key
Users would have to press Ctrl/Alt/Shift while opening the context menu to replace the link. ###- URL Format
Define the format of your short URLs! Use :hash as a placeholder for topic/post hashes.
(e.g. short.com/ss/:hash, short.com/:hash, short.com/:hash/yolo)
NOTE: Changing the URL format requires a NodeBB restart to apply the route hashes are accepted on.
###- Copy Button
Pick the icon for the copy button from the fontawesome icon set.
###Why not use a service like bit.ly or goo.gl?
For two reasons:
1. While investigating bit.ly, I noticed that they impose limits on calls to their API. No need to hate them for it; in fact, they have every right to do so, protecting themselves against bots and such. But unfortunately, as hashing is triggered by every user creating a topic/post, a single spam attack on your NodeBB could make you run out of those API calls; just like that.
2. Links to posts in NodeBB are not structured like /topic/topicslug/postID, but rather /topic/topicslug/positionInTopic. Which means that if you purge a post, your already created short urls would get all mixed up.