How to shorten URLs directly in Opera
7 CommentsPublished January 23rd, 2010 3:34 PM EST By BAMAToNE
Back, in October, I wrote a blog post detailing how to shorten URLs using the Opera address bar. I use Twitter, and most of the time I use the Twitter Opera widget to do it. (Here is the newer version of the widget.) The widget will shorten URLs for you, but you have to be inside of the 140 character max or the “tweet” button is grayed out.
In that case, you must shorten the URL yourself before tweeting, which is a pain. Your next step will be to browse to a site like tinyurl.com, shorten your URL, then paste it back into your Twitter client. This can be a pain. And now there’s a better way!
Method 1: Shorten URLs via the Opera address bar using custom search
It’s easy to create a custom search in Opera. But here I prove you can use it for more than searching! Create a custom search that posts to http://is.gd/create.php using URL=%s as your query string. Click OK, and you can now create a shortened URL directly from the Opera address bar by typing u <URL> and hitting Enter, assuming you used “u” as the shortcut key.
Here is my original blog post with more detailed instructions:
http://my.opera.com/BAMAToNE/blog/2009/10/04/how-to-shorten-urls-from-the-opera-address-bar
Method 2: Shorten URLs via custom Opera button
After my blog post became famous (thanks, Espen!), Opera Community member mistressEVIL furthered my idea and showed us a way to shorten URLs using a custom button. I think it’s a great idea because not everyone is comfortable customizing Opera the way I have shown. But using a custom button is easy because it just takes a click. 
Here is mistressEVIL’s blog post with more detailed instructions on how to create custom buttons:
http://my.opera.com/missevilat/blog/2010/01/15/shorten-url-with-a-button
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using
Nice tip thank you.
using
I was a bit surprised that you didn’t shorten some of the links in this article. Tsk tsk.
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Most of the good shortening services provide bookmarklets, the best way imho. It may be used as button od personal bar, but i prefer short name for bookamark. So I:
• press F2
• type “bit”
and I get shortened url (with bit.ly). Done.
using
Nice tips
Custom search is really great. I’m used to use it for translation with leo.org (works just with the right click “Create search” on the input field)
ResearchWizard
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Wow I randomly checked this site and it is alive! Good to see.
Very handy for Twitter users like myself.
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It’s realy nice tips
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I specially like Custom search and these all are great tips to keep in mind.I think these are helpful for using twitter as well.