Personally I think it would be better to prefer curl, and fall back to file_get_contents if it isn’t present. Also, it would probably be good to use `strtolower(ini_get(‘allow_url_fopen’))===’off’ to check if file_get_contents can’t fetch urls, and if so (and curl’s not available), skip the shortening altogether.

The only problem with modifying this would be backwards compatibility – I’m working on a new version of the plugin, though, so I can look at this.

Re the curl idea – isn’t there an additional problem in that curl may not be active on some peoples servers? Happy to add it though as a fallback to file_get_contents.

Options panel… no. My “Simple” range of plugins are designed to be just that, and that includes not providing option screens

Also, using file_get_contents to get an external resource is a security risk, and it isn’t enabled on many servers for that reason. You should use curl instead (or at least check if file_get_contents can get http resources and use curl in that case).

It would also be nice if there was a plugin options pane where I could add a shortening endpoint and service name/token so I can add my own services.

Thanks!

Please let me know the URL of your site, so that I can see what’s happening. Also, please send me (use my contact form!) the code that you’ve added to your site. With all that I should be able to get to the bottom of your problems.