URLify

A simple macOS app and command-line tool to create valid file and url names from clipboard text.

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Installation
  • macOS App
  • Command-Line Tool
• CLI Usage
  • Basic Usage
  • Available Commands
  • Input Sources
  • Output Options
  • Command Aliases
  • Help and Documentation
• Launching app
• Building locally

Introduction

If you ever need to take text like this:

Fastest drivers' times

And convert it to something you could use in a URL or filename, such as:

fastest-drivers-times

Then here's a simple macOS menubar app and command-line tool that does text transforms such as these with a single click (GUI) or command (CLI). It just takes the text in the clipboard and replaces it with a filename friendly version.

Installation

macOS App

Just download the latest release .zip file, uncompress it and copy urlify.app into your Applications folder.

Latest release at: github.com/mikeckennedy/urlify/releases

If you want URLify to start when you login, just follow these steps:

1. Open System Preferences
2. Click Users & Groups
3. Click Login Items
4. Click the '+' sign and find urlify.app
5. click the Add button

Command-Line Tool

For the CLI version, clone this repository and install the dependencies:

git clone https://github.com/mikeckennedy/urlify.git
cd urlify
pip install -r requirements.txt

Then you can run the CLI directly:

python cli.py --help

CLI Usage

The command-line interface provides all the same functionality as the GUI app, with convenient defaults and multiple input options. Perfect for automation, scripting, and power users who prefer the command line.

Basic Usage

By default, URLify will read from your clipboard and perform URL-friendly conversion:

# Convert clipboard text to URL format (default behavior)
python cli.py

# Convert specific text to URL format
python cli.py --text "Hello World! This is a Test"

# Pipe text through URLify
echo "Some Title Text" | python cli.py

Available Commands

All the GUI transformations are available as CLI commands:

# Text transformations
python cli.py urlify --text "Hello World!"           # hello-world (default command)
python cli.py lowercase --text "HELLO WORLD"         # hello world
python cli.py uppercase --text "hello world"         # HELLO WORLD
python cli.py trim --text "  spaced text  "          # spaced text
python cli.py capitalize-first --text "hello world"  # Hello world
python cli.py capitalize-all --text "hello world"    # Hello World

# URL operations
python cli.py remove-query --text "https://example.com?param=value"  # https://example.com

# Data extraction
python cli.py excel-friendly --text "abc123.45def"   # 123.45

Input Sources

The CLI accepts input from multiple sources (in priority order):

1. Direct text: --text "your text here"
2. Stdin pipe: echo "text" | python cli.py command
3. Clipboard: (default when no other input provided)

Output Options

# Quiet mode (only output the result)
python cli.py --quiet --text "Hello World"

# Copy result back to clipboard
python cli.py --copy-to-clipboard --text "Hello World"

# Combine options
python cli.py --quiet --copy-to-clipboard --text "Hello World"

Command Aliases

Many commands have convenient short aliases:

python cli.py lc --text "HELLO"          # same as lowercase
python cli.py uc --text "hello"          # same as uppercase  
python cli.py rq --text "url?param=val"  # same as remove-query
python cli.py cf --text "hello world"    # same as capitalize-first
python cli.py ca --text "hello world"    # same as capitalize-all

Help and Documentation

python cli.py --help              # Show all commands and options
python cli.py urlify --help       # Show help for specific command
python cli.py --version           # Show version information

Launching app

The first time you download the app, macOS may give you a warning that the developer is not verified and it can't run. You're welcome to heed that warning, but if you trust it enough, right-click and choose open rather than double-clicking it and then you'll get a prompt where you can run anyway.

After running once, macOS will allow it to run without complaining afterwards.

Building locally

If you want to build from source, it's pretty standard Python:

For the CLI tool:

# Clone and set up
git clone https://github.com/mikeckennedy/urlify.git
cd urlify
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Use the CLI directly
python cli.py --help

For the macOS app:

# Create and activate a virtual environment
pip install -r requirements.txt
python build_app.py py2app 

The output .app file will be in the dist folder.