At Big Nerd Ranch, we set up our lita clone (a ruby based chat bot similar to hubot) so that it would generate Google hangout links for us that would allow us to quickly share the URL with a co-worker or client. But times, they be a changin’.
Our bot functionality was ultimately based on a hack of Google hangout URLs… which no longer works.
The “old” implementation of nerdbot hangouts depended on the fact that G+ hangouts attached to events have static URLs. The “trick” was to create a G+ event far in the future and copy the URL to the attached hangout to a list maintained in the Nerdbot’s environment.
Now it seems that G+ event hangout links expire just like “regular” hangouts after some time. :sob:
We have a few ideas floating around about how to recreate the bot functionality but they are a bit involved. One of the key challenges is that you must be authenticated with Google to request a hangout.
Today, I realized that one of my favorite tools, Alfred, should be able to help out.
A few shaved yaks later and :boom:, a new alfred workflow for creating a google hangout. Download it directly. Enjoy!