Is it possible to put tags and category information in the post area, so one doesn't have to click the appropriate fields and use the mouse? Ideally I just want to type "#art" "cat:painting" in the text editor and word press automatically assigns these values to the post once I hit "Post".
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3One possibility would be to hook into WP at the moment a post gets created. There you may extract the tags from your post_content and save them into the post_category. Have a look at wp_post_insert and save_post. Maybe this answer will help you. – leymannx Sep 28 '15 at 20:09
There's a plugin for using hashtags in the post - hashtagger. It will override the normal way you'd add tags which has caused confusion for some of my users but it works.
You can also look at the process around creating tags/posts via shortcode through the Jetpack post via email option.