p2phack.club-link-shortener

P2P Hack Club’s Airtable-Based Link Shortener, forked from hack.af by Hack Club.

This repository has information and set-up instructions that is only useful to P2P Hack Club coleads.

Want to make your own link shortener? Check out the template code here!

Setup

1. Ensure you have access to the P2P Hack Club Link Shortener Airtable.

2. Navigate to https://airtable.com/api, and click on the base.

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3. Grab the Airtable Base Key, and copy it for later.

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4. Grab your personal API key from your Airtable Account page at https://airtable.com/account.

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5. Clone the repository. There are many tools to do this, including Git and GitHub Desktop (reccomended for beginners).

   Cloning with GitHub Desktop

   • If you haven't already, download GitHub Desktop.

   • Then, click the green clone button at the top of this repository. Click "Open in Desktop".

   

   • Once GitHub Desktop opens, click "Clone".

   

   • When it asks you how you are planning to use this fork, click "For my own purposes".

   

   Cloning with Git

   • If you haven't already, install Git.

   • Next, open your terminal/command prompt (cmd)/git bash.

   • Navigate to a directory that you want to clone the repository into. You can use the cd command to move directories, and use the mkdir command to create folders.

   • Use this command to clone the repository into your current folder:

     git clone https://github.com/P2PHackClub/p2phack.club-link-shortener.git

6. Using your terminal, navigate to the cloned repository.

   If you are using GitHub Desktop

   At the top of the program (or in your menu), click Repository > Open in Terminal.

   

7. Use NPM to download project dependencies.

• If you haven't already, download NPM. (NPM comes bundled with Node.js)

• Use the command npm install to install dependencies for the project

8. Set enviornment variables

• Create a file where the repository is located called .env. Inside of it, you will paste the keys that you found eariler.

  • Set AIRTABLE_BASE to your Base ID, and AIRTABLE_KEY to your API Key.
  • Set LOGGING to on if you want to enable logging, off if otherwise. We reccomend you set this to on.
  • Set BOT_LOGGING to on if you want to enable logging for crawlers, off if otherwise. We reccomend you set this to on.
  • Set CACHE_EXPIRATION to the number of seconds you want the local cache to be valid. For our links, we should aim for under 2 minutes so that we can make fast changes during club meetings.

  Here is what a sample .env file might look like:

  AIRTABLE_BASE=#################
  AIRTABLE_KEY=#################
  LOGGING=yes
  BOT_LOGGING=yes
  CACHE_EXPIRATION=120
  

  WARNING: Never share this file with anyone, or commit it back to the repository.

9. Now for the fun part! Use the command node app.js to run the program! If you want to stop it, use the shortcut CTRL+C.

TODO: Figure out how to get the rest working 😉

Using

All links will be routed through a 302 (Temporary Redirect) because you're using Airtable. Simply visit example.com/slug to get redirected.

License

This project is released under the MIT license.