When entering a URL in the text entry area, do not make original URL inaccessible

[Mary Gardiner]

This bug is about *sending* a shortened URL, not viewing one in other people's entries like bug 380842 and bug 384223.

Scenario:
1. I have a URL in my clipboard http://example.com/
2. I have "Automatically shorten pasted URLs" turned on
3. I paste http://example.com/ into the text entry bar, but I'm wrong about what's in my clipboard (this is especially easy for X users), I *meant* to paste http://example.net/
4. This immediately turns into a shortened URL without giving me any chance to see I pasted http://example.com/ when I didn't intend to.
5. The short URL looks as meaningless as any other short URL, so I send the message out.
6. I at best confuse my readers by sending them a meaningless link, or at worst embarrass myself by sending them a revealing link.

I would therefore like URL shortening not to be totally transparent. I am not sure what the UI should be. I am happy with automatic, ie I don't want to have to paste the URL into some dialog box and hit 'OK'. Perhaps there could be some kind of separate status area displayed during composition that shows something like this for all short URLs currently in the text entry area?

http://is.gd/XXXXX translates to http://example.com/
http://is.gd/YYYYY translates to http://example.org/

gwibber wouldn't need to look these up again since it requested the URLs in the first place.

[Daniel Rodrigues (danyr)]

This isn't really related to it, but, as i do, you could use parcellite, a clipboard manager that says on your notification area. You click there and you have all your copied links and you can alternate trough all them.
It's not an intuitive solution as yours, but with that i've never posted a "revealing", embarassing link to Gwibber.
Other idea could be that after the url shortening, if we putted our mouse over the link, gwibber could "reveal" the link beyond that shortened one, even in the editor mode. It's simple and not strikes usability with more GUI's and options.
These are my just my thoughts...

[Mary Gardiner (puzzlement)]

Given that Gwibber provides the automatic shortening functionality, I think the best place for the functionality that displays the original URL somehow is also in Gwibber, third party applications are not as good a solution.

[Ryan Paul (segphault)]

@Mary,

I agree that this is problematic. Another issue that I run into sometimes is that I accidentally delete the last character of the shortened URL without realizing it and then send a busted link. It would be nice to have a good solution for these problems.

I'm open to suggestions for how this should be exposed through the UI. I like the idea of showing the original URL when the user hovers the mouse over a shortened URL, but I'd prefer something that can be done entirely with the keyboard. What about possibly showing the original URL in the statusbar immediately after it is converted?

[J. Austin Rodriguez (jeanaustinr)]

If it's possible to show the original URL in the Stream, is it also possible to show it on the Editor--- perhaps, while typing or when you hover on the link... like a tooltip?

[J. Austin Rodriguez (jeanaustinr)]

Like this feature request: https://bugs.launchpad.net/gwibber/+bug/384223