A worked example

Eight characters instead of your server address

If you run your own content server, its address is long, case-sensitive and miserable to type on a television remote. A code stands in for it. Here is what that looks like in a real app.

The Add Playlist screen of the Vizi Player app. The second field reads
"Playlist URL, or LinkACode.com ID", with a QR scanner button beside it,
and below it a note explaining that a LinkACode ID is a short code standing in for
a server address, entered with the username and password for that server. — Adding a playlist in **Vizi Player**. The address field takes a code just as readily as a URL.

What happens here

You point a code at your server. Once, on this site, in the box that asks for a server address.
You type the code where the address would go. Eight characters instead of a URL. Everything else about setting up the playlist is unchanged — the username and password are your server's own, and you enter them exactly as before.
The app asks us what the code stands for and connects to your server. That question and its answer are the entire extent of our involvement.

Why bother, if it is your own server

Your own devices, set up once each

A phone, a tablet, a television, a box in another room. Eight characters each, typed on whatever remote that device has, instead of a full address every time.

Move server without touching any of them

Change the host and you would normally re-enter the address on every device you own. Repoint the code instead and they all follow on the next check.

Nothing to read over your shoulder

The address is not on the screen while you type it, not in the app afterwards, and not recoverable from the code.

Or scan it

Every code comes with a share card — the code and a QR, nothing else. Apps with a scanner can take it straight off the card, so there is nothing to type at all.

Your username and password are your server's, not ours. A code stands in for the address and nothing else — we never see, store or need the credentials you use to sign in to it.

Whose server it has to be

Yours, or one you are authorised to use. A code is a shortcut to an address you already have the right to connect to — it does not come with content, and it does not give you access to anything you could not already reach.

Get a code A different example: school printing

Vizi Player is shown as an example of an app with the field built in. Other apps may label it differently.