iRadar: Two Plugins To Publish Quick Posts On WordPress

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Two Plugins To Publish Quick Posts On WordPress

Two Plugins To Publish Quick Posts On WordPress: "

quick posting wordpress Call me a fanboy, but I think WordPress is the best blogging platform available today. The biggest selling points would be the customizable look and functionality. But it also has its share of disadvantages. One of them is the fact that you need to go through several steps just to post a single blog entry.

WordPress developers came with a solution to this problem by providing users with “Press This” bookmarklet. This tool is great to help WordPress users do a quick blogging, but lacks the full functionalities of WordPress editor.

I’m currently in the process of finding a way to blog on the fly, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this quest. So far, I’ve found two plugins which will allow us to do quick posting on WordPress.

Press This Reloaded

For those who have already fallen in love with the WordPress “Press This” bookmarklet, you might not need to look for another alternative. All you need to do is to tweak the bookmarklet to perfection using “Press This Reloaded” plugin. As the name suggested, this plugins gives users the best of both world: the ability to post quick post and the full functionalities of WordPress editor.

You can get the plugin via “Install Plugins” menu at your WordPress’ side menu. Perform a quick search and click the “Install Now” link.

quick posting wordpress

After activating the plugin, you’ll have to add the bookmarklet to your browser’s bookmark bar. Go to the “Tools” menu from the sidebar and you will see the “Press This” link.

post wordpress quick

Click and drag the link to your bookmark bar.

post wordpress quick

And your browser will ask you to name the bookmarklet. Even though you can name it anything you want, it’s advisable to make it similar to your blog’s name (especially if you use more than one bookmarklet for several different blogs).

post wordpress quick

If you’ve already used the Press This” bookmarklet prior to activating the plugin, you have to discard the old one and use this new revitalized version instead.

Now you are ready to write a quick blog post. Whenever you find something worth blogging, you can just select the content and then click on the bookmarklet (or use the shortcut key if you are using Safari). And you will have all the goodies that you would normally have only from within the WordPress platform.

fast post wordpress

If you want to compare the Reloaded version and the original version to see the differences, here’s how the “Press This” interface will look without the plugin. The most obvious difference is the absence of other plugins.

fast post wordpress

Quick Press Widget

The second plugin that I found will allow its users to write quick posts directly from the pages of their blog. Some might say that the process is similar to tweeting from the web interface of their Twitter page. So this method is perfect for writing quick, text-only thoughts and not suitable for long posts with images (and videos).

One caveat, though: since this plugin will add a quick post widget to your blog, you have to use widget-friendly WordPress theme. But since almost all of the latest generation themes support widgets, this should not be a problem.

After going through the installation routine, go to the “Widgets” menu from the sidebar.

fast post wordpress

You should see the “Quick Press” widget among other available widgets. Drag and drop it to one of the “Widget Areas” that you want on the right side of the page. Please note that different themes might have different number of widget areas.

04b Widgets - Quick Press.jpg

With the Quick Press widget in place, go to your blog’s front page. You should see Quick Press in the widget area that you chose earlier.

quick posting wordpress

Write something, click “Post It” button, and hit refresh on your browser. That short thought will appear as your latest post.

The Quick Press area will disappear once you log out of your blog. So you don’t have to worry about security issues as the only one who is able to compose quick post from your blog pages is you. Your visitors won’t see any traces of it.

Other Alternatives To Quick Post

Plugins are not the only way to enable quick post. Any decent blogging client will also give you the same privilege and more. And for the times when you are away from your computer, you can utilize your smartphone to blog. WordPress has released blogging clients for iOS and Android.

Do you quick blog? What methods do you employ? Do you know other alternatives to the two plugins mentioned above? Share your stories using the comment below.

Image credit: Nathan Eal Photography

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