A few weeks ago, I decided to address a pain point I kept hearing about from my clients, friends, and experienced myself constantly: the ability to create a new post from the Block Editor. That’s why I created QuickPost.
I have no idea if I’m in the majority or the minority here, but I prefer to use the Block Editor in fullscreen mode. I appreciate the immersive experience and focus it brings to my work. However, when you have the Block Editor in fullscreen mode, you lose the ability to create new posts quickly, and this becomes a point of frustration pretty fast.
I have multiple clients who create a lot of content, very consistently, in the Block Editor. Think, teams (big and small) publishing and scheduling multiple pieces of content in sprints. Think, teams (big and small) populating content for a new event website. Think newsrooms. Think daily bloggers. Think documentation housed in WordPress. I could keep going.
So I made it. QuickPost is a button in the toolbar that not only helps you create new posts, it also helps you duplicate your current one. I’ve been using this button internally for a week now, and it honestly feels like magic.
The button is keyed to the state of the post, just like the Save draft, and Publish button are. So when the post is saveable, the button is enabled, otherwise it greys out. This means, if the content is being autosaved, the button will grey out so you don’t accidentally lose any data, or if there’s no content at all, then you are already in a new post, and don’t need a new one or have anything to duplicate.
But Aurooba, this should be in Core
Yeah, I agree, I’ve even made an issue about it, and there has been discussion around it. However, for various reasons, this functionality is not likely to make it into Core any time soon.
I believe this is an important feature. Sometimes you don’t know what you’re missing until it’s presented to you. Sometimes you get used to a level of friction but when it’s removed, you realized how annoying it truly was. Sometimes you stick with the Classic Editor because you really hate this friction (more than one person has mentioned this to me). I think that’s the case with an easily accessible way to create new posts from the Block Editor.
Now, I’ll readily admit that the toolbar is not necessarily the best place for the button, or maybe it is, but it should take a different form. I’m actively exploring different ways to provide this functionality in a way that feels intuitive and seamless. But for now, I think the existence of this feature trumps perfect form, which is why I decided to release QuickPost as soon as I could.
The ability to duplicate posts should be in Core too!
Again, I agree. But this feature has never made it into Core, and there are multiple plugins that provide this functionality with installs in the millions. Plugin install numbers are not indicative of a feature being core-worthy, of course. But this functionality is core to anything that provides a content creation experience (excluding social media). Can you imagine Microsoft Word without the “Save As..” feature, that essentially serves as a way to duplicate documents? Or the “Open a copy” feature they later introduced?
So do I understand why this is considered plugin territory? No. I think it’s plugin territory to be able to duplicate more than just post_content , default post attributes, and meta. So I believe Core should provide a way to duplicate posts, but make it easily extensible, so plugins can hook into it to offer more customizations.
But again, I think the likelihood, at this point, of this making it into Core is slim. So I decided to provide this basic functionality as well with QuickPost. It fits the mandate of the plugin really well: it allows you to create a new post from the Block Editor. That post could be brand new and completely empty, or it can be a duplication of your current post. Plus it’s one less plugin to install.
Some more interesting features I’d like to explore with this plugin
I’m actively thinking and coming up with more ways to improve this plugin. Think, batch duplication. Think, ability to create new posts with a keyboard shortcut. Think, providing a custom name for the duplicate post. Some are new features and some others are possible UI improvements or changes to make the button feel more intuitive and seamless in the Block Editor.
Stay tuned.
I hope you find this plugin useful
If you have any questions or issues to discuss about it, you can get in touch in the support forum. 🙂 If you do like this plugin, consider leaving a review, I’d appreciate it a bunch!