Long urls in messages

Proposals - seeking feedback.

[Brett_Tabke]

I need to figure out a long term solution to the long url problem.

Idea 1: Text portion of link, limited max XX chars:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Idea 2: Text portion of link, limited max XX chars, with trailers:
[webmasterworld.com...]

Idea 3: Text portion of link displayed as domain only in brackets (aka slashdot):
[webmasterworld]

On all 3 the real url would display in a title attribute mouse over.

[Macguru]

I like # 2

[Marcia]

3 looks too much like frames, 1 seems kind of incomplete.

2 is very clear that it's shortened, can't be mistaken for an error. I like 2 much better.

[Lisa]

I like 2! Sames reason already stated.

[Woz]

two too!

[Brett_Tabke]

That's probably the best. Any other ideas on it?

[ggrot]

I prefer 2 from the 3 options, but you might also want to consider urls with alot of trailing variable garbage such as ?pageid=q3ti8oy5voi8636, etc. That data is generally worthless to me, so ...'ing it wouldn't be a bad thing.

[jatar_k]

a combo of #2 and also straight cutting everything after and including "?"

[bird]

You'll need a pretty strong AI to figure out which of the CGI parameters contain useful information... ;)

Failing that, I think solution 2 with the proposed slash-off after any "?" would be close to optimal (leaving the "?" itself in place to show that it *is* a CGI URL).

Not sure if it's worth the effort to optimize, so that you remove only as many path elements as necessary, and only from the middle of the path string if possible.

Optimal:
http://www.example.com/some/really/.../very/long/path.html

Slightly less nice:
http://www.example.com/.../unusually/very/long/path.html
http://www.example.com/some/really/extremely/.../path.html

[bird]

Maybe you also want to check this thread [webmasterworld.com] for yet another idea... ;)

[Knowles]

I like number 2.