I’ve been a long time fan of YOURLS, a small set of PHP scripts that will allow you to run your own URL shortening service, you know, just like bit.ly and I’ve grown very acustomed to Tweetdeck as my main Twitter client.
If you have the latest version of YOURLS (version 1.4.3 at the moment) running somewhere on a server you can now set it up with Tweetdeck so Tweetdeck will use your favorite URL shortening service.
You will need to go to your admin panel of your YOURLS install, which should be something like http://sho.rt/admin Via your menu go to tools and there you will find your personal secret signature token under the heading called ‘Secure passwordless API call’. This is like a password so don’t be sharing it anywhere you shouldn’t 
.
Now go to Tweetdeck and go to Settings > Services and select Other when asked to select the service you wish to use to shorten URLS with.
All you need to do now is create a very specific url including your secret key from your YOURLS tools admin.
[html]http://sho.rt/yourls-api.php?signature=XxXxXxXxXx&action=shorturl&format=simple&url=%@[/html]
Of course you do need to replace the xx’s with your secret keys, but really this is all you need to paste into that settings box.
Happy shortening!
[...] to Joeke-Remkus de Vries and his great blog post that helped me figure this [...]
+1
This is a great tutorial. Thanks! Used it with my cmc4.us short link.
You’re welcome Scott.
Any support for the Google Apps url shortening service for my own domain ?
What do you mean Glenn? Is it possible or do I give support? Because the answer to the latter is no
Did you see this blogpost btw?
Yes i did but it doesn’t help me with my own Google Apps domain url shortening (google labs) service implementation.
But i’m sure i’m the problem here with my lack of knowledge on this subject
I’m just trying to find out if it’s possible using the Google Apps own domain url shortening service
Would be the perfect automatic url shortening service in Tweetdeck
ps: your reply speed is amazing !
Thanks
This one took longer, lol. I’m not familiar yet with the Google Apps version so I can’t help you out with that, sorry. Are you sure YOURLS isn’t something you’d like?
This was very helpful! Thanks a lot for the information.
You’re welcome Eric.
Good post. Been searching for this
Thanks.
Thank you! Just got YOURLS working on my server, and with this tip I’ve got Tweetdeck playing along. Cheers!
Very nice. I had the majority of it but what I was missing was the format=simple. Sometimes its the little things that make it all work.
Thank you
Glad I could help
Works great. Thank you.
You’re welcome Nick.
URL Shortening at your finger tip.
I can’t get this to work at all.
It works if I paste the command into firefox’s address bar with a url (returns a string of the shortened url) – but tweetdeck just wont do anything with a typed in url.
I’ve tried everything, clicking the link (supposed to toggle between the short/long) doesn’t, tried turning shortening off/on
any ideas?
SC
You are using the last version of Tweetdeck? The whole process shouldn’t be more than a copy and paste action minus the editing of your own key..
Yup, just downloaded the newest version v0.35.1 to make sure.
If I look at the yourls admin page I can see the created short link, so that’s working but Tweetdeck just never replaces it’s text with it.
SC
Sorry man.. must me something else then…
Found the problem. One of my plugins had a new line after the closing <?php which meant that I got a blank line as output before the shortened link ie:
"
http://doma.in/shortlink"
Took it out, problem solved. I have to say tweetdeck was no help in solving the problem. Even after turning debug on it didn't even mention the short link error (although it was reported on screen – there was no detail
)
SC
Hello all,
Remkus, many thanks for this post! Very useful, exactly what I was looking for.
But I had the same problem as you, ScaredyCat ; I read your last comment but I dont understand what kind of plugin you’re talking about… I haven’t installed any plugin on TweetDeck. Or have I ?
Thank you for answering if you still follow this topic
OH YEAH ! I just understood that you were talking about YOURLS plugins.
For info, none of them were active when I had this problem. I activated “Allow Hyphens in Short URLs” (and “Random Backgrounds” for fun;-) ), and everything is OK.
Thanks !
Hi Remkus,
do you know, is it possible to use keyword parameter of yourls in tweetdeck?
-salco
If I understand your question correctly, yes. You can use any kind of link you want and Tweetdeck will shorten it for you via your YOURLS installation.
I want to use the get-parameter “keyword” of yourls like
http://sho.rt/yourls-api.php?signature=XxXxXxXxXx&action=shorturl&format=simple&url=%@&keyword=MYKEYWORD
to get
http://sho.rt/MYKEYWORDTherefore I need to enter MYKEYWORD dynamically in tweetdeck anywhere.
Great! It works perfectly. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the info. Most of the time I get a ” Shortening Problem ” message. Anyone else had this issue ?
Great post, this is just what I was looking for. Thanks for sharing this.
Thanks and you’re welcome
Thanks for this and the link
I am taking your lead and setting it up in my own tweetdeck!
Hi,
I’ve tried over and over again but I am getting the ‘shortening problem’ on Tweetdeck. I’ve checked and double checked my secret codes, my URL, etc and it all seems right.
FYI I am using YOURLS 1.5 with Tweetdeck v0.36.1
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Norwin
Incidentally, it does create the shortened URL in my YOURLS admin interface, but does not replace the long URL in Tweetdeck.
I’m also using GoDaddy, if that makes a difference?
I have no idea to be honest. Especially if your url’s are generated.. sounds like indeed a server setup issue or rather something funky going on with your Tweetdeck install.
Hi!
Did you try to add on tweetdeck domain without “http://” ?
For example I notice that YOURLS and tweetdeck cant shorten urls like:
google.com(I get an error message from tweetdeck that url not shortened)
or
http://www.google.com (I get a shortening complete message from tweetdeck while nothing was shortened)
Am I the only one with this issue?
Our API for tweetdeck doesn´t work when the original url ends in “.com” or “.com.br”
We noticed that it works perfectally with domains ended in “.br”
What´s is going on ? Could you please, help us to fix it ?
Best regards,
Alex Barbosa
Great. Works fantastically.
Hi mate – firstly, thank you for this walkthrough. It works perfectly for me
I have a question however. I’m not brilliantly acquainted with using api’s (my tech knowledge is limited to html and css!)
Quite a few people have asked me whether they can use it themselves with tweetdeck…obviously I don’t want to keep giving out my API key. What string would I have to add to tweetdeck, so that it works without an api key?
I appreciate all your help…and realise that this is a *little* off track :-S
Well, I’m not sure what you are asking here. Those few people that have asked you would need to have a YOURLS setup in place themselves for them to add a personal secret to the string. Is that what you’re asking?
Thank you I just followed these instructions and they worked great!
EXCELLENT post! Thank you… Exactly what I was looking for and worked the first time around!
awesome tutorial, but i am too getting “shortening Problem” with TweetDeck, but now i have figured out he problem
all you need to do is, just change the last letter of API
From It To:
http://sho.rt/yourls-api.php?signature=XxXxXxXxXx&action=shorturl&format=simple&url=%@TO
http://sho.rt/yourls-api.php?signature=XxXxXxXxXx&action=shorturl&format=simple&url=%UThank you very much.! I am also getting a same error, Now everything is all right
Such a nice tutorial, great work Remkus!
Thanks worked great in Tweetbot on iOS
I don’t have a Secure passwordless API call.
I’m not sure what you mean here Anthony?
In my tools page, I do not have “Secure passwordless API call” anywhere on the page.
I also do not have the Secure API call… I think must be a “feature” of V. 1.5?
Not sure. Are you and Anthony saying you are not using the latest version of Tweetdeck or YOURLS?
I’m definitely using the latest version of yourls, as in I downloaded it yesterday. I think they may have changed something. I can’t find an API key anywhere.
http://code.google.com/p/yourls/downloads/list
that’s the latest list of versions.
Thank you for the tutorial.
I too was having problems getting this to work with Tweetdeck however I noticed that when I would put in a URL to be shortened Tweetdeck would notify me that they were shortening it. But it never would be. That is until I actually clicked on the URL in the message. Then it turned into the shortened URL.
Great article, now I can finally use my own url shortener with my favorite twitter application
Regards
Such a nice and easy tutorial
What do we do with the NEW Twitter tweetdeck to make this work? There is no OTHER option.
Ha.. as far as I’m concerned there is no new Tweetdeck version until Twitter decides to disable the old one
Very nice writing. Thank you Remkus.
I wrote about Displaying Advertisements before redirection in Yourls. You should read it.
http://taimoorsultan.com/show-ads-before-redirection-in-yourls/
Thanks! Happy New Year
Remkus,
It seems that most of the options were removed from tweetdeck. Options to add custom Shortener, WordPress based sites were also disappeared.
May I know if you are using a different version which you are able to see those options?
Thank you!
I am using a different version now, yes. The old – yellow – version of Tweetdeck still supports this, but the new – blue – one does not anymore.