For the first month of 2024, I wanted to challenge myself to release something as open source. Rather than building a package, I went with a self-hostable Short URL service that you can run on your own hardware.
The GitHub is below if you'd like to check out the project!
HarrkWhy Short URLs?
I didn't want it to be too large a project that I risked burnout and ended up abandoning, so I decided to go with Short URLs as the idea. It was a simple idea that I could quickly get a proof of concept for and then later build on as necessary.
What Can It Do?
You can create short URLs for starters! 🤪
But seriously, it's still in the MVP stage right now. You can generate short URLs, generate a QR code, and view some analytics on the clicks.
To summarise what is there so far:
- Manage Short URLs.
- Analytics.
- User Management (admin, super users, regular users).
- Multiple domains.
- Toggle user registration / default user role.
What's Next?
Since I let Shortie sit for the majority of January, I just decided to ship it and get it out there. This meant cutting a few things I left incomplete or unpolished.
Here are a few ideas I have written down that I'd like to add. Not to say these will happen, but it's a reference to where my head is at currently.
- GeoIP lookup for reporting on locations.
- Temporary Short URLs (expire after x uses / or time).
- Password protected URLs.
- Fallback URLs if the source is no longer available.
- Notifications if the source URL is no longer available.
- Validate the source URL by pinging it.
- Theming. (mostly there already thanks to DaisyUI)
- Allow guests to create Short URLs.
- Websockets for live analytics.
- Tagging / Categories.
- Search and additional filters.
- API.
- Browser extension to quickly add/manage short URLs.
So that's it, just a short announcement post on what I'm up to!
