Short-URL

Open source short URL maker

Usage

Fork this repo.

Forking and Using This Repo

To fork this repository and use it for yourself:

1. Fork the repository on GitHub.
2. Clone the forked repository to your local machine.
3. Update the CNAME file with your custom domain (if you have one).
4. Update the BASE_URL and TOKEN constants in index.html with your GitHub repository details and a personal access token.
5. Update the API call where this comment is located: Update "USERNAME" and "REPOSITORY" respectively
6. Enable GitHub Pages for your repository.
7. Push your changes to the main branch.

How It Works

This project is a proof of concept for a URL shortener that uses GitHub Actions to create short versions of URLs. The main components are:

1. index.html: The main web page where users can enter a URL to shorten. It includes a form to input the long URL and a button to generate the short URL. The page also handles redirection based on the short URL code.
2. data/urls.js: A JavaScript file that stores the mappings between short URLs and long URLs.
3. .github/workflows/update-url-mappings.yml: A GitHub Actions workflow that processes new URL entries from GitHub issues and updates data/urls.js with the new mappings.

Code Explanation

• index.html: Contains the HTML structure and JavaScript code to handle URL shortening and redirection. The shortenURL function sends a request to create a new GitHub issue with the long URL and the generated short code. The handleRedirect function checks if a short code is present in the URL query parameters and redirects to the corresponding long URL if found.
• data/urls.js: Stores the URL mappings in a JavaScript object format.
• .github/workflows/update-url-mappings.yml: Defines a GitHub Actions workflow that triggers when a new issue is opened. It extracts the short and long URLs from the issue body, updates data/urls.js, and commits the changes back to the repository.

License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. You are free to use and copy this work, but not for commercial purposes.

© 2024 Grant Hendricks.