Bypassing the URL shortener

[benjaminleighton]

By default opening the "share" button sends data to the URL shortener. As I understand it local data doesn't get sent but metadata about user added data services will be sent. In some cases this might not be desirable for example if I'm accessing "http://my.intranet/some_sensitive_project_name/data_service". Is there a way through the start parameter and an init fragement to disable this? Otherwise is it worth opening an issue?

[na9da]

Hi @benjaminleighton,

The only two options I can think of right now are:

1. If you are the map owner and can modify the server configuration, then you can disable the URL-shortening service for the entire map by removing or setting newShareUrlPrefix option to null. You can check your current config settings by loading example.com/serverconfig. Here is an example config for our CI server - newShareUrlPrefix is set to s.

2. The other option is to disable the URL shortener from the UI. The app remembers your selection and so will not call the shortener unless you enable it again.
   

Are these workable in your case? Otherwise we might have to consider adding a URL option like disableUrlShortener=1 (similar to the hideWorkbench option)

[benjaminleighton]

Thanks for your quick response. We want to provide an "Open in National Map" button in another application and use nationalmap.gov.au. Likely neither option would be workable for us, I'm not the map owner and users are unlikely to have opened National Map prior and disabled the Shorten option and it would be unreliable to ask them to do that. A disableUrlShortener option would be great I think! It looks like some useful logic might exist at

terriajs/lib/ReactViews/Map/Panels/SharePanel/BuildShareLink.ts

Line 252 in b14835b

export function isShareable(terria: Terria) {

[na9da]

That sounds like a valid use case @benjaminleighton.
I have created a new issue here.