Winter made me a little stir-crazy. In order to deflect the brain spirals, I wanted to make a little side project. It breaks my current cycle while feeling happy I accomplished something. I placed tight time constraints to ensure I’d complete it.
Put in a URL that you’d like to hide. Enter the meta information you’d like to display on sites that show previews (like Slack). When you submit the form a new link will be generated with a copy function.
Pasting this link will display the information entered in the form.
Clicking it takes the person to the original URL you entered.
It’s not particularly clever but provides some requirements to build a fun little app.
The site is built using ASP.NET Core MVC. There’s an MSSQL database generated with Entity Framework to hold all the metadata posted by users. Base64 converting slightly decreases the size of the URL’s. When an unfurling bot hits the page all the metadata is returned to it making the site look like something else. When an actual person hits the URL though, Javascript redirects them to the real destination.
I’m not a designer, but I wanted the project to feel good. Startbootstrap.com has a few Bootstrap templates to use as a base. I pulled the grayscale theme, and cut it up into ASP.NET views. A bit of modifying was required to get the forms to look and place right, but overall it’s a cool looking theme. They did well.
Feel free to use it or host your own.
I'm currently the Co-Founder / CTO with an amazing team at Rentler. We build property management software for independant landlords and their renters using a plethora of technologies.
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