Preview the “Press This” Bookmarklet Redesign, Alpha Plugin Now Ready for Testing

The “Press This” browser bookmarklet in WordPress is on its way to a complete redesign via the features-as-plugins development path. If you’ve never used it before, the feature allows you to make quick posts to your WordPress site from anywhere on the web. It’s actually a pretty smart tool for posting and can automatically detect media and grab the proper embed codes.

The redesign project, led by Michael Arestad, is currently in the design stage, but an ultra alpha public release of the Press This plugin is now available for testing. Here’s a sneak peak of the redesign progress thus far:

Press This redesign progress

Parts of the design are still in flux (placement and behavior of WYSIWYG, modal pop-out, embeds, etc), as the bookmarklet is being completely rebuilt with a focus on automation and speed. Arestad posted a 30-second video demo that walks you through posting with the redesigned bookmarklet:

https://wptavern.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/press-this-progress.mp4

This iteration of Press This is currently powered by AJAX, but Arestad reports that it’s ready to be switched to use the WP-API endpoints as they become available. It’s also backward compatible with the old bookmarklet but is built to override /wp-admin/press-this.php and the bookmarklet JS code in /wp-admin/tools.php with the new behavior.

The complete overhaul of the bookmarklet, with its speedy 2-step publishing capabilities, is bound to win the feature some new users. The contributors working on it are aiming for “lightning fast posting” and the progress so far looks promising.

When testing the alpha plugin, be advised that it’s currently undergoing heavy development and will undoubtedly have some bugs. If you want to join in the discussion, feel free to jump in on the Press This Working Group blog.