Lessn TextExpander Snippet 4/7/13

This weekend I setup chris.lt as a personal link shortening service using Shaun Inman’s Lessn. Lessn has a web interface and a bookmarklet, but I like using TextExpander to shorten URLs from the clipboard¹. So I just copy the URL, type the shortcut (I set mine up as “/lessn”) and TextExpander replaces it with the shortened URL.

This is the AppleScript for the snippet:

set api_key to "xxxxxxxxx"
set domain to "yourdomain.net"
 
set the longURL to (the clipboard as string)
 
if ((characters 1 through 4 of longURL as string) is not "http") then 
  return "Not a valid URL" 
else 
  set shellScript to ("curl --url \"http://" & domain & "/-/?api=" & api_key & "&url=" & longURL & "\"")
  set shortURL to (do shell script shellScript)
  return shortURL
end if 

If you have any bug fixes or changes, fork this gist.