BitMaker – Desktop Interface for bit.ly using AIR
Update 2: Just uploaded a new version that includes the ability to drag and drop a bit.ly URL and get a Pie chart with the source information. Done with the experiment. Took me ~3 hours to do the whole thing. It isn’t pretty, but I think it’s semi-useful for me and I learned a limitation of AIR (no drag and drop to the dock). This version also includes some bad AS3 parsing code and classes for handling bit.ly urls that any of the various AIR twitter clients are more than happy to take, use, and/or modify so we can replace TinyUrl.
Update: Of course, if you’re smart, you’ll just use the bookmarklet that they added to the front page. If I ever get around to incorporating the analytic data then the AIR app might be more useful than it is right now.
Marshall blogged about bit.ly, a new URL-shortening service (ala tinyurl.com) that not only provides smaller URLs but also has a tracking feature so you can see how many people have clicked on one of bit.ly URLs that you’ve put out there. Being able to track it is a nice feature and I wanted to see how quickly I could whip up an AIR app based on their APIs, so I’ve created BitMaker (you may have to do a right-click and save as). BitMaker lets you drag and drop URLs onto the app and it turns them into bit.lys for you.
A couple of notes. I found out that AIR can’t really do drag and drop to the system tray or dock icon, so the application isn’t as useful as I was hoping. I wanted to be able to let people leave it running and drag their urls down to it. Instead, it’s always on top but you can minimize it. Also, I know the close/minimize buttons suck. I need to learn how to make icons because I get tired of the Silk Icons but I’m not good enough to make my own.
This is version alpha-lame. bit.ly’s APIs actually include the ability to get the tracking information in XML or JSON so for the next version (if I get around to it) I’ll incorporate a way to see the tracking information for a URL. For instance if you drag a bit.ly URL instead of a regular URL it will show you the tracking screen. Maybe I’ll get around to it.
The project is up on my SVN repository and you can check out the source on Trac or the zip file here.
Posted in Adobe
July 8th, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Ryan, I get
“The application could not be installed because the AIR file is damaged. Try obtaining a new AIR file from the application author.”
when I try to install the application.. any idea why?
July 8th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
I couldn’t even get to the file when I tried on another machine, so I added a .zip extension. Try downloading it now and installing it.
Thanks for the heads up.
=Ryan
July 8th, 2008 at 10:43 pm
@Matthew Keefe Pray that was a mistake on Ryan’s part and not an indication of a larger problem some of us suffer from. You can read more about that problem at http://bit.ly/32FczR
July 8th, 2008 at 10:45 pm
@Ryan Before you updated with the pie chart version I had created a version that shows the referrers, clicks and page thumbnails. I’d be happy to turn this code over to you if you’d like. Do you mind if I post it on my blog (giving you credit, of course)?