def strip_long_text(text, max_len, append=u'…'):
    """Returns text which len is less or equal max_len.
    If text is stripped, then `append` is added,
    but resulting text will have `max_len` length anyway.
    """
    if len(text) < max_len - 1:
        return text
    return text[:max_len - len(append)] + append