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Aspire Documentation

Current Version:1.5.9 — 22 March 2021 Changelog →

Theme Editing & Tools

Edit the theme files mentioned here with your text editor of choice. For example, you can use Visual Studio Code ↗ or Sublime Text ↗.

Once you finish making your changes, zip the theme files, and upload the final zip file to your Ghost website.

If you are looking for Ghost hosting, I recommend Ghost(Pro) ↗.

Watch the following short video tutorial about theme editing.

Table of Contents

Theme Installation

The first step is to unzip the downloaded package. Inside the new directory aspire, you will find the zipped theme and a documentation file.

Follow these steps to upload the theme to your website:

  1. Log in to your Ghost website admin (example.com/ghost).
  2. Click the settings icon ( ) at the bottom of the left hand side.
  3. Go to Themes.
  4. Scroll down to the INSTALLED THEMES section.
  5. Click Upload a theme.
  6. Select the theme file (aspire.zip).
  7. Once uploaded, click Activate now to activate the theme immediately. If you want to activate it later, click Close.

Upload the routes.yaml File (⚑ Required)

The routes.yaml file is required for member sign up, and subscription flows.

To upload the file, follow these steps:

  1. Unzip the aspire.zip theme file.
  2. Go to the Labs page in Ghost admin (/#/settings/labs).
  3. Scroll down to the Routes section and click the Upload routes YAML button.
  4. Select and upload the routes.yaml file inside the theme folder.

Upload a routes file in Ghost

Note: upload routes.yaml after uploading the theme zip

There will already be a default routes.yaml file uploaded to Ghost. You need to upload your theme’s routes.yaml to override the default.

Do this separately after uploading your theme zip file.

Create a New Content API Key (⚑ Required)

To enable certain features, like Search, you’ll need to create a new Content API Key. Follow these steps to create your key.

In the left-side menu of your Ghost admin, click Integrations then + Add custom integration.

Add new Ghost Custom integrations

Give the new integration a name, like “Search”, and click Create.

Name for the Ghost Custom integrations

A new content API Key will be created. When you hover over it, a Copy button will appear. Click the button to copy the key to the clipboard.

Copy Ghost Custom integrations Content API Key

Next, click Code injection from the left-side admin menu.

After replacing the API_KEY value with your API Key, add the following code to the Site Header box:

<script>
  var search_api_key = 'API_KEY';
</script>

It should look like this:

Inject Ghost Custom integrations Content API Key

Click Save.

Members / Subscriptions

Aspire has different user interface elements for membership feature.

  • Login In and Subscribe links in the sidebar.
  • Footer subscription forms
  • Sidebar subscription form
  • Article subscription form after content

Edit Plan Features

To edit plan features, edit the partials/signup-plans.hbs file.

Subscription plans in aspire

Remove ‘Log in’ and ‘Subscribe’ from Header

To remove Log in and Subscribe from the header, open the partials/header.hbs file and remove lines 28 to 34. This will also remove the Account and Log out links.

Membership Troubleshooting Tips

If for any reason the subscribe form does not work, or there is an error message, the following tips might help:

  1. If you are self-hosting your website, make sure to set up the mail config ↗. After doing that, restart your Ghost server.

  2. The website config URL should match the URL used to access the website, as described in the Ghost docs ↗.

Enter the URL that is used to access your publication. If using a subpath, enter the full path, https://example.com/blog/. If using SSL, always enter the URL with https://..

For more information about Members, connecting Stripe, and setting the package price, check the official Ghost documentation ↗.

You can add, edit, delete, and reorder menu links on your Ghost blog in the NAVIGATION section (Admin > Settings > Design).

Ghost navigation menu

To include a static page on your navigation menu, follow these steps.

First, type the page’s name as you’d like it appear on your menu in the label field.

Ghost label field

Next, click on the item’s URL. The blog URL will already be auto-populated. Add the page slug after the final /. When you’re satisfied with your page configurations, click the blue Save button to add the page to the navigation menu.

Secondary Navigation

Currently, the theme shows the Ghost Primary Navigation in both the header and footer.

To show the Secondary Navigation items in the footer section, open the theme partials/footer.hbs file and replace line 6 with the following line.

{{ navigation type='secondary' }}

That’s all you need to do.

Make sure to create a new Content API Key.

The theme uses ghostHunter.

The search goes through the Post title and the content. It supports only Posts, not Pages.

The supported languages are German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Finnish, Dutch, Turkish, and Danish.

If you have a large amount of content on your website, the search might become slow.

The issue is that Ghost does not have a built-in search feature ↗ so, to solve this and add search, a third-party library is used. In this case, the ghostHunter ↗ library.

This solution works well for most websites, but if the content is too large, it becomes a bit slow as the search happens on the user browser side, and all the data will be loaded before the search is happening.

There are currently two solutions:

1. Search only on the post title and ignore the content

This will improve search performance and reduce the loaded content. If this sounds fine, download this app.min.js ↗ file and replace it with your theme assets/js/app.min.js.

For reference, what I did was removing the post text from the request API in the assets/js/ghosthunter.js theme file. So line 108 becomes the following.

var url = site_url + "/ghost/api/v4/content/posts/?key=" + search_api_key + "&limit=all&fields=id,title,url,created_at,feature_image";

Instead of.

var url = site_url + "/ghost/api/v4/content/posts/?key=" + search_api_key + "&limit=all&fields=id,title,url,created_at,feature_image&formats=plaintext";

This is done in the theme development mode to generate the final app.min.js file loaded in the theme.

2. Using another search tool

Use another tool like Google Search, Elasticsearch, or Algolia. I have not tried them out, but here are a few resources at Ghost ↗.

Tags Page

Follow these steps to create the Tags page:

  1. From the Ghost admin Pages section, create a new page and give it a title, like “Tags”.
  2. From Page settings, select the Tags template.
  3. Publish the page.
  4. To add the page to the navigation, please check the Navigation section above.

Ghost Tags Page

Note for Self-hosters

If you are self-hosting your website, you may need to do a server restart. This should get the Tags option to show up in the Template dropdown.

Disqus

To enable Disqus ↗ as a comments system, open the partials/disqus.hbs file. Replace the aspirethemes-demos value with the disqus_shortname variable to match your Disqus account shortname.

var disqus_shortname = 'aspirethemes-demos';

So, if your Disqus shortname is exampleone, the final code above should be:

var disqus_shortname = 'exampleone';

Once you finish, zip the theme files, and upload the final zip file to your Ghost website.

From the theme side, that’s all you need to set up Disqus. If you have any issues with comments not loading, make sure you have registered your website with Disqus (Step 1) ↗.

If you still have issues, check the Disqus troubleshooting guide ↗.

Disable Disqus

To disable Disqus comments, open the post.hbs theme file and comment or delete the line containing the {{> disqus}} text (line 98).

Once you finish, zip the theme files, and upload the final zip file to your Ghost website.

Disable Disqus Recommendations

Checkout the Disqus Recommendations ↗ documentation.

Disable Recommendations

If you have any issue with Disqus redirecting to any advertising pages, please disabled Tracking and Affiliate Links from your Disqus account.

Check out Keegan Leary’s blog post about this issue at https://keeganleary.com/disqus-is-evil-trash/ ↗.

Also, be aware of Disqus trackings. Check out https://supunkavinda.blog/disqus ↗.

So, you might want to use another commenting system.

Thanks for sharing, Keegan!

Twitter

To set up the Twitter feed:

  • Go to publish.twitter.com.
  • Enter a Twitter URL into the input box and press Enter.
  • Select Embedded Timeline.
  • You will see a Timeline preview and you can customize it as required.
  • Copy the code by clicking the Copy Code button.
  • Open partials/sidebar/widget-twitter.hbs file and replace line 4 with the copied code.
  • Save and you are done.
 

If you want to add an advertisement widget to your sidebar, this widget is the way to go. This will enable you to add an image and a URL associated with it, all you need to do is:

  • Replace your custom image with the image located in the theme directory (assets/images/ads.jpg).
  • Update partials/sidebar/widget-ads.hbs file with the URL (href) value.
  • Add an alternative text to the image (alt value) like the following image.

Advertise Widget Code

If you want to remove the Advertise Widget, you can remove or comment the {{> sidebar/widget-ads}} line inside the partials/sidebar.hbs file.

Sidebar Partials Code

Posts Per Page

You can control how many posts display per page from the package.json file.

"config": {
  "posts_per_page": 12
}

The theme default value is set to 12 posts per page.

If other posts share the same tags, related posts will be visible at the bottom of a post.

Google Analytics

To integrate Google Analytics, I recommend using the Google Analytics ↗ integration by Ghost.

Update Favicon

You can change the favicon in Ghost from Admin > General > PUBLICATION IDENTITY > Publication icon.

Update Ghost CMS favicon

–

Social Sharing Icons

You can customize and update a post’s social media sharing icons from the partials/share.hbs theme file.

Sidebar social media links are placed in the partials/sidebar.hbs file.

The Ghost CMS supports adding Facebook and Twitter profile URLs from the admin panel, go to General > Social accounts and add your URLs, this will update the Facebook and Twitter URLs within the location mentioned above.

social-accounts

For using other social accounts, the theme is using Evil Icons, which contains very simple and clean icons. Here you can find a list of the social media icons to use:

Facebook

<span data-icon='ei-sc-facebook' data-size='s'></span>

GitHub

<span data-icon='ei-sc-github' data-size='s'></span>

Instagram

<span data-icon='ei-sc-instagram' data-size='s'></span>

LinkedIn

<span data-icon='ei-sc-linkedin' data-size='s'></span>

Odnoklassniki

<span data-icon='ei-sc-odnoklassniki' data-size='s'></span>

Pinterest

<span data-icon='ei-sc-pinterest' data-size='s'></span>

Skype

<span data-icon='ei-sc-skype' data-size='s'></span>

SoundCloud

<span data-icon='ei-sc-soundcloud' data-size='s'></span>

Telegram

<span data-icon='ei-sc-telegram' data-size='s'></span>

Tumblr

<span data-icon='ei-sc-tumblr' data-size='s'></span>

Twitter

<span data-icon='ei-sc-twitter' data-size='s'></span>

Vimeo

<span data-icon='ei-sc-vimeo' data-size='s'></span>

VK

<span data-icon='ei-sc-vk' data-size='s'></span>

Youtube

<span data-icon='ei-sc-youtube' data-size='s'></span>

To edit or update other existed and static social links, let’s take an example from partials/sidebar.hbs file, for example, the Instagram code block:

<li>
  <a href='https://instagram.com/{{! Add Instagram handle }}' target='_blank'>
    <span data-icon='ei-sc-instagram' data-size='s'></span>
  </a>
</li>

The code above contains the ICON code from the above list and the social media link (a) within a list element (li).

Next, replace your Instagram username with {{! Add Instagram handle }} value, so if your Instagram username is ghost, the new code will be:

<li>
  <a href='https://instagram.com/ghost' target='_blank'>
    <span data-icon='ei-sc-instagram' data-size='s'></span>
  </a>
</li>

If you want to remove Instagram altogether, you can delete all the code blocks, the li, a, and the icon.

Update Favicon

You can change the favicon in Ghost from Admin > General > PUBLICATION IDENTITY > Publication icon.

Update Ghost CMS favicon

Languages

East ships with many languages already. But if you’d like to add another one, you’ll be able to do that too.

Theme Translation

East supports Ghost i18n and comes with German, Italian, Spanish, French Finnish, Portuguese Dutch, Turkish and Danish translation.

To use a language other than English, go to Admin > General > PUBLICATION INFO > Publication Language and enter the ISO Code.

  • da for Danish
  • de for Germany
  • du for Dutch
  • en for English
  • es for Spanish
  • fi for Finnish
  • fr for French
  • it for Italian
  • pt for Portuguese
  • tr for Turkish

Ghost Publication Language Setting

Add a New Language

To add a new language, follow these steps.

  1. Create a new file in the theme’s locales folder with the language ISO Code ↗ code. So, if the new language is Arabic, the new file name will be ar.json.
  2. Copy the en.json file content into your new file and start to translate, as shown in the following section.
  3. Go to Admin > General > PUBLICATION INFO > Publication Language and enter the language code (ar in this example).

Edit a Translation

To improve or edit a translation in a specific available language, you can open the language file in the locales folder:

|____locales
| |____da.json
| |____de.json
| |____du.json
| |____en.json
| |____es.json
| |____fi.json
| |____fr.json
| |____it.json
| |____pt.json
| |____tr.json

For example, the German translation file looks like this:

{
  "Next": "Weiter",
  "Previous": "Zurück",
  " (Page %)": " (Seite %)",

  "Featured Post": "Featured Artikel",
  "Page Not Found": "Seite nicht gefunden",
  "Comments": "Bemerkungen",
  "Newsletter": "Newsletter",
  "1 min read": "1 minuten gelesen",
  "% min read": "% minuten gelesen",
  "Published with {ghostLink}": "Veröffentlicht mit {ghostLink}",

  "Share on Twitter": "Auf Twitter teilen",
  "Share on Facebook": "Auf Facebook teilen",
  "Share on Pinterest": "Auf Pinterest teilen",
  "Share via Email": "Teilen Sie per E-Mail",

  "Search": "Suche",
  "Type to Search": "Tippe um zu suchen",

  "Account": "Konto",
  "Log In": "Einloggen",
  "Log Out": "Ausloggen",
  "Continue": "Fortsetzen",
  "Subscribe": "Abonnieren",
  "Subscribe Now": "Abonniere jetzt",
  "Your email": "Deine E-Mail-Adresse",
  "Please check your inbox and click the link to complete the login.": "Bitte überprüfen Sie Ihren Posteingang und klicken Sie auf den Link, um die Anmeldung abzuschließen.",
  "Please check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription.": "Bitte überprüfen Sie Ihren Posteingang und klicken Sie auf den Link, um Ihr Abonnement zu bestätigen.",
  "Please enter a valid email address!": "Bitte geben Sie eine gültige E-Mail-Adresse ein!",
  "An error occurred, please try again later.": "Ein Fehler ist aufgetreten. Bitte versuchen Sie es später erneut.",

  "Already have an account?": "Hast du schon ein Konto?",
  "Don't have an account yet?": "Sie haben noch keinen Account?",

  "This post is for paying subscribers only": "Dieser Beitrag ist nur für zahlende Abonnenten",
  "This post is for subscribers only": "Dieser Beitrag ist nur für Abonnenten",

  "Choose your subscription": "Wählen Sie Ihr Abonnement",
  "Unlock full access to {siteTitle} and see the entire library of members-only content & updates.": "Schalte den vollen Zugriff auf {siteTitle} frei und sieh dir die gesamte Bibliothek mit Inhalten und Updates nur für Mitglieder an.",
  "Subscribe to {siteTitle}": "Abonnieren bei {siteTitle}",
  "Get access to premium content": "Erhalten Sie Zugang zu Premium-Inhalten",
  "Choose this plan": "Wählen Sie diesen Plan",
  "Monthly": "Monatlich",
  "Yearly": "Jährlich",
  "month": "Monat",
  "year": "Jahr",

  "Welcome back!": "Willkommen zurück!",
  "Log Into your account again.": "Melden Sie sich erneut in Ihrem Konto an.",
  "Send login link": "Anmeldelink senden",

  "Nice, you're a subscriber!": "Schön, dass Sie Abonnent sind!",
  "You have an active {siteTitle} account with access to all posts.": "Sie haben ein aktives {siteTitle} Konto mit Zugriff auf alle Posts.",
  "You're a subscriber to free members updates": "Sie sind Abonnent der kostenlosen Mitgliederaktualisierungen",
  "You are subscribed to free updates from {siteTitle}, but don't have a paid subscription to read all the posts.": "Sie haben kostenlose Updates von {siteTitle} abonniert, haben jedoch kein kostenpflichtiges Abonnement, um alle Beiträge zu lesen."
}

Each line consists of a left key ("Next") and a right value ("Weiter").

The key is plain English that exists in all translation files and should not be changed. You should change only the value.

If you have any suggestions to improve a current translation or add a new language, please contact me.

Theme Deploy with GitHub Actions

Aspire comes integrated with the Deploy Ghost Theme ↗ Github action.

Aspire Documentation GitHub Actions

I have written about this at How to Deploy Your Ghost Theme Using Github Actions. All you need to do is follow steps 1 and 2.

The Deploy Ghost Theme action is developed by Ghost and works with any Ghost install whether you self-host Ghost or using Ghost Pro.

Theme Development

If you are a developer and need to do heavy customization work, the theme uses Gulp ↗ to compile Sass ↗ and JavaScript. This improves the development flow and makes it much faster.

Note

Changing any hbs file, for example, the post.hbs file does not require being in development mode with gulp running. Just edit the file in your preferred editor and upload it.

First, make sure you have Node.js ↗, npm ↗, Gulp CLI ↗, and Bower ↗ installed. Check My Current Setup.

Run the following command in the theme root directory to install npm and bower dependencies.

npm install

To start Gulp, run:

gulp

This will compile Sass and JavaScript files and start watching changes as you edit files.

Gulp will produce two files:

➊ assets/js/app.min.js: The final main JavaScript file.

This file is generated from many other JavaScript files listed in the gulpfile.js file. Gulp will do all the work to create that file, so no manual work is needed.

Gulp will watch your changes in the assets/js/app.js or assets/js/ghosthunter.js (if exist) and will then generate the final app.min.js file.

➋ partials/compiled/inline-css.hbs: The final CSS file.

This file is generated from the assets/css/style-min.css file, which was generated by Gulp. It is used as an Internal CSS in the theme partials/head.hbs.

If you are working with Gulp, it’s recommended you avoid editing these files. Instead, do customizations in assets/sass for CSS or in assets/js/app.js JavaScript. This way, you can make sure the flow is going in the right direction and never lose any changes.

My Current Setup

In case you are wondering what my current environment set up is and which package versions I use, take a look at the following:

$ node -v
v10.16.0

$ npm -v
6.14.8

$ bower -v
1.8.8

$ gulp -v
CLI version: 2.2.0
Local version: 4.0.2

This environment works well for running Ghost and also for theme development.

I use macOS Big Sur.

Code Injection

Another choice for customization is to use the Ghost Code Injection settings in Ghost admin.

For a CSS example, you can use the following code in the Site Header section to change the logo color and font size.

<style>
  .c-logo__link {
    color: #4550E5;
    font-size: 32px;
  }
</style>

Watch the following short video about Ghost Code Injection, how it works, and how to use it.

Zip Theme Files

To create a zip file after your theme changes, you can use one of the following options.

Use one of the first two options if you are on a Theme Development mode.

Using the command line
zip -r aspire.zip aspire -x '*node_modules*' '*bower_components*'

This will exclude the node_modules and bower_components directories from the final zip file.

Using Gulp

If you are running gulp, you can type the gulp zip command to do this.

Using your computer program

You can compress it as a standard folder just like you do with any other folder on your computer. If you are on Mac, right-click on it to view the context menu. Then, click the “Compress” option.

Theme Update

You may be wondering: how can I update my theme to the latest theme version?

There are two choices:

  • Keep your current theme and replace only the changed files from the new version. You can find the modified files on the theme page Changelog
  • Use the latest version as a starting point and redo your theme changes and customizations

One way to reduce the need for redoing customizations is to use the Code Injection tool. This is very helpful for adding custom CSS and tracking code. Keeping your custom CSS code with Code Injection is always recommended.

Your feedback is very welcome ♥

I'm open to your feedback and to hear about your experience. If you have about one minute, please send your thoughts through this Google Form ↗.

Thank you for your time!

👋 Support

Have any questions? I'm here to help 😊

Contact Ahmad
Ahmad Ajmi Photo
Ahmad Ajmi
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