Narwhal Microblog

Narwhal Microblog adds a minimal front-end posting form on any page with the shortcode, [narwhal]. It’s meant for short updates or microblogging.

The form submits without refreshing the page and then redirects to the post that was created. If you don’t quite like this behavior, check out the FAQs.

Unlike other front-end forms that have you type out the title, post content, and tags separately, this plugin takes an original approach by using a special format. Think of it like using markdown in a way (if you’re familiar with that). Once you commit the format to memory it makes posting updates even faster.

What you type into the textarea is:

(Title in parentheses)
Content on a new line with any word #hashtagged.

Example:

(This is an amazing title)
But, the #content is even better!

The above would create a post titled, “This is an amazing title,” with “content” as a tag.

1. Go to the plugins page within your admin dashboard
2. Select the Add New button
3. Search for narwhal
4. Install & Activate
5. Use the shortcode [narwhal] on any page
6. Go to Settings, and then Writing. Confirm which post type and category combination to use, and save the settings.

1. 

   Post form on a mobile device with Twenty Twenty-One theme.

3.3

• Further refinements and updated version numbers

3.2.1

• Refined hashtag detection further so that the # character is not saved as part of the tag name

3.2

• Fixed parentheses title detection bug in certain situations
• Made hashtag detection more robust (multilingual)

3.1.1

• Correct readme typos.

3.1

• Added the ability to change categories and post types.

3.0

• Brand new version which is compatible with more themes, is more minimal and utilizes Ajax (less page re-loading). See the plugin description for how to use it.
• If you prefer things the way they are and the plugin still works for you, do not update. 3.0 is very different!

2.2

• Fixed new PHP warnings if PHP 7.2 or 7.3 is used. Only tested with PHP up to 7.3.x. Also, removed JavaScript which was no longer being used and tweaked the minimal default styling. Tested on WordPress 5.6 with Twenty Twenty-One theme.

2.1

• Removed an unnecessary HTML bold tag that was hanging out in the post form’s intro, and added a success message which will appear after successfully publishing a post.

2.0

• All new plugin essentially. Version 2.0 adds a title, category, and draft post option, along with admin settings.

1.0

• First release. A simple textarea and tag field.