52 - Link Shortener

• 

  Home page

Inspiration

We wanted to learn flask and bootstrap by recreating a service we both knew about (bit.ly).

What it does

Shortens links.

How we built it

We used a database to match provided url ids with generated strings of ASCII charactes/numbers and return a new link that would redirect the user to the corresponding url. There are various measures in place to validate the provided url (make sure it's an actual website).

Challenges we ran into

It was tricky to figure out how to format the frontend website. We struggled for a while to get a bootstrap template working.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Visually appealing. Works. Used a database/flask for the first time.

What we learned

We learned flask as well as how to link html to a backend to include logic.

What's next for Link Shortener

With a few modifications, we could allow the user to decide what the suffix of their string would be, as well as specify the number of characters.

Built With

• bootstrap
• css
• flask
• html
• python