CVHS.me is a URL shortener that I built for my high school.

Another URL shortener?

Yup. However, this one solves a specific problem. Most URL shorteners are designed to reduce the URL length. They are hard to remember. This project solves a unique pain point that exist for a lot of students and teachers: most school website platforms/templates/services have difficult-to-remember URLs. For students to access a teacher's page, they often need to click through a plathora of links in the navigation bar. This project allows a teacher to simply use their last name as the URL slug. For example, (CVHS.me/lepell)[http://cvhs.me/lepell] goes to the website of my favorite teacher of all time, Ms. LePell. The short URL allows students to remember it more easily and teachers to share them more comfortably.

How does it work?

index.php: everyone can see all the avaliable short URLs and click to go to a teacher's website.

add.php: a school administrator can manually add an entry by providing the long URL, the short slug, and the teacher's name.

url.php: redirects from the short URL to the correct long URL

"Ew, it is in PHP."

I know. PHP was the first language I learned, and the only language I knew when I was in 10th grade. And I built this when I was a Sophomore at Castro Valley High School.

Even though PHP was not a beautiful language, it has taught me if statements and while loops, what a POST request looks like and how to do a MySQL query.

"Can I use it for my high school?"

Of course. All you need is an Apache server that runs PHP and a MySQL database. Additionally, you need to purchase a domain for the URL shortener. Remember to edit your school name and URL throughout the code base.

"Can I use it for anything?"

Sure. This works best as a URL shortener for a school, but feel free to modify it in any ways you like.