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Lightshare – Lightweight Social Sharing

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Lightshare – Lightweight Social Sharing

by Nazim Husain

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Description

Lightshare is a very lightweight social sharing plugin built with performance in mind. It provides essential social sharing functionality without the bloat commonly found in other sharing plugins.

Key Features

  • Lightweight and fast – minimal impact on page load times
  • Support for major social networks
  • Clean, modern design with multiple style options
  • Share count display (where available)
  • Customizable button placement
  • Mobile-friendly and responsive
  • No third-party scripts loaded by default
  • Support for custom post types
  • Shortcode support for manual placement

Performance First

Lightshare is built with performance as a top priority:

  • Minimal CSS/JS footprint
  • SVG icons instead of icon fonts
  • Internal click tracking for counts (no API calls)
  • Assets are only enqueued when needed
  • No third-party tracking scripts

Shortcode

You can manually place sharing buttons anywhere using the shortcode:

[lightshare]

With custom options:

[lightshare networks="facebook,twitter,linkedin" style="rounded"]<h3>Block</h3>

Lightshare includes a block for the block editor:

  • Block name: “Lightshare Buttons”
  • Allows selecting networks (comma-separated), label visibility, and label text
  • Rendered server-side for accurate output

Developer Friendly

  • Well-documented code following WordPress coding standards
  • Extensible through filters and actions
  • Clean, semantic HTML output
  • Customizable through CSS classes

External services

Lightshare does not call third-party APIs in the background. External requests only happen when a visitor clicks a share button. When a share button is clicked, the destination service receives the share data in the URL query string (for example: current page URL, page title, and for Pinterest also an image URL when available).

The plugin can connect to these third-party services:

  • Facebook (facebook.com) for sharing links.
    Data sent on click: page URL.
    Terms: https://www.facebook.com/terms.php
    Privacy: https://www.facebook.com/privacy/policy/

  • X / Twitter (twitter.com) for sharing links/text.
    Data sent on click: page title and page URL.
    Terms: https://x.com/en/tos
    Privacy: https://x.com/en/privacy

  • LinkedIn (linkedin.com) for sharing links.
    Data sent on click: page URL.
    Terms: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/user-agreement
    Privacy: https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy

  • WhatsApp (api.whatsapp.com) for sharing links/text.
    Data sent on click: page title and page URL.
    Terms: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/terms-of-service
    Privacy: https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy

  • Pinterest (pinterest.com) for creating pins from your page.
    Data sent on click: page URL, page title, and featured image URL (if available).
    Terms: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/terms-of-service
    Privacy: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/privacy-policy

  • Reddit (reddit.com) for sharing posts.
    Data sent on click: page URL and page title.
    Terms: https://www.redditinc.com/policies/user-agreement
    Privacy: https://www.reddit.com/policies/privacy-policy

  • Bluesky (bsky.app) for sharing links/text.
    Data sent on click: page title and page URL.
    Terms: https://bsky.social/about/support/tos
    Privacy: https://bsky.social/about/support/privacy-policy

  • OpenAI ChatGPT (chat.openai.com) for opening a prefilled prompt.
    Data sent on click: generated prompt text that includes the page title and page URL.
    Terms: https://openai.com/policies/terms-of-use/
    Privacy: https://openai.com/policies/privacy-policy/

  • Google Search AI mode (google.com) for opening a prefilled query.
    Data sent on click: generated prompt text that includes the page title and page URL.
    Terms: https://policies.google.com/terms
    Privacy: https://policies.google.com/privacy

  • Perplexity (perplexity.ai) for opening a prefilled query.
    Data sent on click: generated prompt text that includes the page title and page URL.
    Terms: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/legal/terms-of-service
    Privacy: https://www.perplexity.ai/hub/legal/privacy-policy

  • xAI Grok (x.com) for opening a prefilled query.
    Data sent on click: generated prompt text that includes the page title and page URL.
    Terms: https://x.com/en/tos
    Privacy: https://x.com/en/privacy

  • Email client (mailto:) for composing an email draft.
    Data sent on click: page title (as subject) and page URL (as body) passed to the visitor’s local email client.

Support

For support, feature requests, or bug reports, please visit the plugin support forum.

License

This plugin is free software, released under the GPLv2 or later.

Privacy Policy

Lightshare does not collect personal data. When visitors click a share button, they are sent to the selected third-party sharing service (for example, Facebook, X, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, WhatsApp, BlueSky, or the AI services listed above). No third-party scripts are loaded by the plugin itself.

  1. Upload the plugin files to /wp-content/plugins/lightshare directory, or install directly through WordPress
  2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress
  3. Go to Settings > Lightshare to configure the plugin
Which social networks are supported?

Lightshare supports Facebook, Twitter/X, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, WhatsApp, BlueSky, ChatGPT, Grok, Perplexity, Google AI, and Email sharing.

Will this plugin slow down my site?

No, Lightshare is built with performance in mind. The total size of CSS and JavaScript is less than 30KB, and assets are only loaded when needed.

How do I display share counts?

Share counts can be enabled in the plugin settings under the “Share Button” tab. Lightshare uses a lightweight internal click-tracking mechanism to ensure performance and privacy, so no external API keys are required.

Can I customize the button styles?

Yes, Lightshare comes with multiple pre-built button styles and colors.

Can I use the sharing buttons anywhere on my site?

Yes, you can use the [lightshare] shortcode or block to display sharing buttons anywhere in your content.

Does it work with custom post types?

Yes, you can enable sharing buttons for any public post type in the plugin settings.

1.0.0

  • Initial release
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