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Penang Documentation

Current Version:1.2.1 - 14 October 2020 Changelog →

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 Ghost.

Looking for Ghost hosting? I recommend Ghost(Pro) ↗.

Table of Contents

Theme Installation

The first step is to unzip the downloaded package. Inside the new directory penang, you will find the zipped theme and a documentation file. Follow these steps to upload the theme to your blog:

  1. Log in to your Ghost website admin (example.com/ghost).
  2. Click Design in the left-side menu.
  3. Scroll down to the INSTALLED THEMES section.
  4. Click Upload a theme.
  5. Select the theme file (penang.zip).
  6. 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 penang.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 zip file.

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’s 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

Make sure to Upload the routes.yaml file.

Enable subscribers by checking the Enable members checkbox on the Labs page in your Ghost admin panel.

enable subscribers

Once enabled, different parts of the theme will appear on the website:

  • Login In and Subscribe buttons in the header
  • Footer and Hero subscription forms
  • A post subscription form
  • If the post is set to Members Only, a Call to Action section on the Post page to encourage visitors to subscribe

Edit Plan Features

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

Subscription plans in penang

Members / Subscriptions Theme Files

To edit the /signup page, you can edit the members/signup.hbs file.

The members/signin.hbs file for the /signin page.

The members/account.hbs file for the /account page.

Changing the Subscribe Forms Behavior

You can find many subscription forms in different places like Footer and Post page for example. These forms will just subscribe the user without redirecting them to the payment plan. However, the form in the /signup page will subscribe the user and also direct to the payment page.

Until here, we have two new use cases.

1. Make the /signup page form to enable free subscription

You can change this behavior from members/signup.hbs file by changing data-members-form='signup' to data-members-form='subscribe' ( line 37).

2. Make all forms have the same flow as the /signup page form

To do this, open the partials/subscribe-form.hbs file and change data-members-form='subscribe' to data-members-form='signup' ( line 1).

You can read more about this at the Ghost official documentation Extending forms.

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 19 to 19

Embed the Subscribe Form in the Middle of a Blog Post

To add the Subscribe Form in the middle of a blog post, click on the + button and choose the HTML card.

Ghost HTML CARD

Then paste the following code into the editor field and save your post.

<form data-members-form="subscribe" class="c-subscribe-form">
  <div class="form-group">
    <label for="subscribe-email-footer" class="u-hidden-visually">Your email address</label>
    <input type="email" name="email" class="c-subscribe-form__input" id="subscribe-email-footer" placeholder="Your email address" data-members-email="">
    <button type="submit" value="Subscribe" class="c-btn c-btn--action c-subscribe-form__btn">Subscribe</button>
  </div>

  <div class="u-alert u-alert--success u-mt-16">Please check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription.</div>
  <div class="u-alert u-alert--invalid u-mt-16">Please enter a valid email address!</div>
  <div class="u-alert u-alert--error u-mt-16">An error occurred, please try again later.</div>
</form>

Subscribe Form Embed

You may be asking, how I got the form HTML code above? Well, you can copy it from your blog or the theme demo source code. You can do this by opening your browser DevTools and select the form element and copy it. Like the following screenshot.

Subscribe Form Embed Source Code

You can use Chrome DevTools or Firefox Developer Tools. To open the DevTools, right-click on an element on the page and choose Inspect, then the Elements panel will open. Also, you can press Command+Option+C (Mac) or Control+Shift+C (Windows, Linux, Chrome OS) to open the Elements panel.

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.

Dark Mode

The dark mode is automatically activated based on the Operating System mode. Also, the user can switch between dark and light mode from the header button.

Disable Dark Mode

To disable Dark Mode, do the following steps.

Another solution to disable the dark mode is to insert this CSS code into the Ghost admin Code Injection (Site Header) section.

Disable Light Mode

To disable the Light Mode and make Dark Mode the default, do the following steps.

  • Make sure that you run the Theme Development mode.
  • After you run gulp, open the assets/sass/settings/__all.scss file and remove line 7 (@import 'colors';)
  • Open the assets/sass/settings/_colors-dark.scss file and replace the file content with the following code.
:root {
  --color-brand:   #e7131a;
  --color-white:   #FFFFFF;
  --color-dark:    #010101;
  --color-text:    #FFFFFF;
  --color-gray:    #E5EFF5;
  --color-error:   #CC3C64;
  --color-success: #1BA672;
  --color-border:  #383B40;

  --bg-color:        #111016;
  --bg-gray:         #18181d;
  --bg-white:        var(--color-white);
  --bg-transparent:  rgba(31, 32, 35, .7);

  --bg-code-block:     #F6F9FC;
  --bg-code-inline:    var(--bg-gray);
  --color-code-inline: var(--color-text);
  --bg-post-card:      var(--bg-gray);
  --bg-tag-list:       linear-gradient(to left, var(--bg-color), rgba(31, 32, 35, 0));
  --bg-gradient:       --bg-gray;
}

Remove the Header Dark Mode Switch Button

If you want to remove the header dark mode switch button. Open the partials/header.hbs file and remove lines from 28 to 33.

Add Different Logo Images for Light and Dark Modes

1. Add the Logo Files to the Theme

In your theme, add two different log files inside the /assets folder, one for light mode and the other for the dark mode. Please name each file as follows:

  • light-logo.png to be visible for light mode.
  • dark-logo.png to be visible for dark mode.
2. Change header.hbs file

Open the partials/header.hbs theme file and replace lines from 4 to 12 with the following code snippet.

<a href='{{ @site.url }}' class='c-logo'>
  <span class='u-hidden-visually'>{{ @site.title }}</span>
</a>
3. Add Custom CSS Code

Using Ghost Code Injection admin tool, add the following CSS code to the Site Header section.

<style>
  :root {
    --logo-image: url('/assets/light-logo.png');
  }

  @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
    :root:not([data-user-color-scheme]) {
      --logo-image: url('/assets/dark-logo.png');
    }
  }

  [data-user-color-scheme='dark'] {
    --logo-image: url('/assets/dark-logo.png');
  }

  .c-logo {
    width: 40px;
    height: 40px;
    display: block;
    background-size: contain;
    background-position: center;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-image: var(--logo-image);
  }
</style>

Note

  • You might want to change the logo width and height by changing the value of 40px to match your logo preference and to get the best result.
  • You will probably need to remove the browser cache for things to take effect.
  • This way will ignore the logo uploaded from the Ghost admin and the theme now will use the logos located in the theme.

Add Different Hero Image for Light and Dark Modes

1. Add the Image Files to the Theme

In your theme, add two different image files inside the /assets folder, one for light mode and the other for the dark mode. Please name each file as follows:

  • light-hero.png to be visible for light mode.
  • dark-hero.png to be visible for dark mode.
2. Change hero.hbs file

Open the partials/hero.hbs theme file and replace lines from 15 to 19 with the following code snippet.

<div class='o-grid__col o-grid__col--4-4-s o-grid__col--2-4-m'>
  <div class='c-hero-image'></div>
</div>
3. Add Custom CSS Code

Using Ghost Code Injection admin tool, add the following CSS code to the Site Header section.

<style>
  :root {
    --hero-image: url('/assets/light-hero.png');
  }

  @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
    :root:not([data-user-color-scheme]) {
      --hero-image: url('/assets/dark-hero.png');
    }
  }

  [data-user-color-scheme='dark'] {
    --hero-image: url('/assets/dark-hero.png');
  }

  .c-hero-image {
    max-width: 350px;
    height: 350px;
    background-size: contain;
    background-position: center;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-image: var(--hero-image);
  }
</style>

Note

  • You might want to change the image max-width and height by changing the value of 350px to match your image preference and to get the best result.
  • You will probably need to remove the browser cache for things to take effect.
  • This way will ignore the image uploaded from the Ghost admin and the theme now will use the images located in the theme.

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 name of the page as you’d like it to 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 20 with the following line.

{{ navigation type='secondary' }}

That’s all you need to do.

Home Hero

Home Hero

The hero section shows the site Publication cover and the site description. You can edit them from the Ghost admin General settings admin page.

For Publication cover:

  • Settings > General > PUBLICATION IDENTITY > Publication cover

For site description:

  • Settings > General > PUBLICATION INFO > Title & description

You can add normal HTML tags to the description like links or headings. The theme will automatically render them on the browser. For example, the demo description is the following:

<h3>Hello, <br>I'm Penang </h3><p>Create a subscription Ghost blog with a beautiful & minimalist design.</p>

Site Description

Remove Home Hero Section

If you want to completely remove the Hero section, open index.hbs file and remove line 4 {{> hero }}.

Make sure to create a new Content API Key.

The theme uses ghostHunter.

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.

Pages

Manage pages for Tags, Authors, and Contact from the Pages section of Ghost admin.

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.

Authors Page

To create the Authors page:

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

Ghost Authors Page

Note for Self-hosters

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

Contact Page

To create the Contact page:

  1. Create a new Page and give it a title, like “Contact”.
  2. Add your content and the contact form code using FORMSPREE as a service. Please check the code example below.
  3. Publish the page.
  4. To add the page to the navigation, please check the Navigation section above
<form action="https://formspree.io/your@email.com" method="POST">
  <input type="text" name="name" placeholder="Name">
  <input type="email" name="_replyto" placeholder="Email">
  <textarea name='message' placeholder="Message"></textarea>
  <input class='c-btn c-btn--small c-btn--active' type="submit" value="Send">
</form>

For more information, check out How to Add a Contact Form to Your Ghost Blog.

Comments

The theme supports comments from Disqus, Commento and CommentBox.

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';

From the theme’s 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 file and comment or delete the line containing the {{> disqus}} text (line 28).

Autoload Disqus

If you want to autoload Disqus without clicking the Comments button, open the partials/disqus.hbs file and replace the file content with the following code.

<div id='disqus_thread'></div>
<script>
  var disqus_shortname = 'aspirethemes-demos'; // required: replace `aspirethemes-demos` with your Disqus shortname

  // DON'T EDIT BELOW THIS LINE
  var disqus_config = function () {
    this.page.url ='{{url absolute="true"}}'
    this.page.identifier = 'ghost-{{comment_id}}';
  };

  var d = document, s = d.createElement('script');

  s.src = 'https://' + disqus_shortname + '.disqus.com/embed.js';

  s.setAttribute('data-timestamp', +new Date());
  (d.head || d.body).appendChild(s);
</script>

CommentBox

To enable CommentBox as a comments system, open post.hbs file and replace line 29 replace with {{> commentbox}}.

The next step is to create a CommentBox account. From the dashboard, create a new project by filling your site information. You will then receive a Project ID.

Copy that Project ID, open the partials/commentbox.hbs file, and replace the my-project-id value with it. That’s it.

Commento

To enable Commento as a comments system, open the post.hbs file and replace line 29 with {{> commento}}.

The next step is to create a Commento account and register your domain with it.

Home Page Posts by Tag

Penang Ghost theme Home Page Posts by Tags

With this feature, you can show posts at the home page by a specific tag. To do this, open the partials/index-tag-columns.hbs file and you fill find 2 code blocks, everyone looks like the following screenshot:

Penang Ghost theme Home Page Posts by Tags

They are already configured with some tags but you will need to change them according to your own existed tags.

  1. Tag slug
  2. Tag slug
  3. Tag Name

Home Page Authors

The home page Authors section shows 3 authors ordered by posts count.

To remove this section, open the index.hbs file and remove line 26 ({{> index-authors }}).

Posts Per Page

You can control how many posts display per 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

Responsive Tables

Responsive tables are required and essetial for adding tabular content and allowing tables to be scrolled horizontally. You can make any table responsive across all viewports by wrapping a table with .responsive-table, for example:

<div class='responsive-table'>
  <table>
    ...
  </table>
</div>

Social Sharing Icons

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

Footer social media links are placed in the partials/social-icons.hbs file.

Ghost supports adding Facebook and Twitter profile URLs from the admin panel. Go to General > Social accounts and add your URLs. This will update Facebook and Twitter URLs within the footer social media section.

social-accounts

For other social accounts, the theme uses Evil Icons to provide 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>

As mentioned above, Ghosts supports adding only Twitter and Facebook links from the admin. But the theme comes with other social icons in the sidebar. Edit or update these in the partials/sidebar-social-icons.hbs file. For example, here’s the Instagram code block:

<li class='c-social-icons__item'>
  <a href='#' aria-label='Instagram' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>
    <span class='c-social-icons__icon' 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 full URL with the link href value. If your Instagram URL is:

https://www.instagram.com/ghost/

Then the new code will be:

<li class='c-social-icons__item'>
  <a href='https://www.instagram.com/ghost/' aria-label='Instagram' target='_blank' rel='noopener'>
    <span class='c-social-icons__icon' data-icon='ei-sc-instagram' data-size='s'></span>
  </a>
</li>

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

Languages

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

Theme Translation

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

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:

{
  "Loading": "Wird geladen",
  "More Posts": "Weitere Artikel",

  "Recent Posts": "kürzliche Artikel",
  "Featured Post": "Featured Artikel",
  "Page Not Found": "Seite nicht gefunden",
  "Load Comments": "Bemerkungen",
  "You might also like": "Das könnte Sie auch interessieren:",
  "Tags": "Stichworte",
  "Authors": "Autoren",
  "Navigation": "Navigation",
  "Published with {ghostLink} & {themeLink}": "Veröffentlicht mit {ghostLink} & {themeLink}",

  "Share on Twitter": "Auf Twitter teilen",
  "Share on Facebook": "Auf Facebook teilen",
  "Share on LinkedIn": "Auf LinkedIn teilen",
  "Share on Pinterest": "Auf Pinterest teilen",
  "Share via Email": "Per E-Mail teilen",
  "Copy link": "Link kopieren",
  "Link copied to clipboard": "Link in die Zwischenablage kopiert",

  "Search": "Suche",
  "Search {siteTitle}": "Suche {siteTitle}",
  "Type to Search": "Suchbegriff(e) eingeben",
  "Enable dark mode": "Schakel de donkere modus in",

  "Paid": "Bezahlt",
  "Members": "Mitglieder",
  "Public": "Öffentlichkeit",

  "Account": "Konto",
  "Log In": "Einloggen",
  "Log Out": "Ausloggen",
  "Continue": "Fortsetzen",
  "Subscribe": "Abonnieren",
  "Subscribe Now": "Abonniere jetzt",
  "Your email address": "Deine E-Mail-Adresse",
  "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.",

  "You've successfully subscribed to {siteTitle}": "Sie haben {siteTitle} erfolgreich abonniert.",
  "Great! Next, complete checkout for full access to {siteTitle}": "Toll! Schließen Sie als Nächstes die Prüfung ab, um vollen Zugriff auf {siteTitle} zu erhalten.",
  "Welcome back! You've successfully signed in.": "Willkommen zurück! Sie haben sich erfolgreich angemeldet.",
  "Success! Your account is fully activated, you now have access to all content.": "Erfolg! Ihr Konto ist vollständig aktiviert, Sie haben nun Zugriff auf alle Inhalte.",
  "Success! Your billing info is updated.": "Erfolg! Ihre Zahlungsinformationen werden aktualisiert.",
  "Billing info update failed.": "Aktualisierung der Rechnungsinformationen fehlgeschlagen.",

  "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",
  "This page is for paying subscribers only": "Diese Seite ist nur für zahlende Abonnenten",
  "This page is for subscribers only": "Dieser Seite ist nur für Abonnenten",

  "Join the newsletter to receive the latest updates in your inbox.": "Treten Sie dem Newsletter bei, um die neuesten Updates in Ihrem Posteingang zu erhalten",

  "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!",
  "Your subscription will expire on": "Ihr Abonnement läuft am ab",
  "Your plan": "Dein Plan",
  "Card": "Karte",
  "Expires": "Läuft ab",
  "Next bill date": "Nächstes Rechnungsdatum",
  "Edit billing info": "ERechnungsinformationen bearbeiten",
  "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 ("More Posts") and a right value ("Mehr Artikel").

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.

RTL

RTL means right to left. Turning on RTL makes the theme readable for languages that are written from right to left, like Arabic or Hebrew.

To enable the RTL option, open the default.hbs file and change line 10 to {{> compiled/inline-css-rtl }}.

Krabi Ghost Theme Activate RTL

Save the file and upload the theme to your Ghost blog.

Syntax Highlighting

You can add a fenced code block by placing triple backticks ``` before and after the code block. For example:

```
pre {
  background-color: #f4f4f4;
  max-width: 100%;
  overflow: auto;
}
```

Will produce the following gray look:

Penang Ghost Theme Syntax Highlighting

To highlight a code block, add the language alias like css or js to the code block. For example, the CSS code in the previous example will wrap between ```css and ``` as follows:

```css
pre {
  background-color: #f4f4f4;
  max-width: 100%;
  overflow: auto;
}
```

This will produce the following colored look:

Penang Ghost Theme Syntax Highlighting with prismjs

To add inline code, wrap the text between two backticks ` `.

Prism

Penang ships with Prism.js, a lightweight, robust, and elegant syntax highlighter.

The initial Prism package includes some languages, like Markup, CSS, C-like, and JavaScript.

You can add support for more languages. For example, to add support for PHP, get the PHP component script from Prism CDN.

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/prism/1.13.0/components/prism-php.js"></script>

From the side admin menu, go to Code Injection and add the script to the Site Footer section. Be sure to click Save.

Penang Ghost Theme Syntax Highlighting Code Injection PHP Prism

Theme Deploy with GitHub Actions

Penang Documentation comes integrated with the Deploy Ghost Theme ↗ Github action.

Penang 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.

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:

  • assets/js/app.min.js: The final main JavaScript file
  • partials/compiled/inline-css.hbs: The final CSS file

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.

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 to change the logo color and font size.

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

Changing Colors with CSS Variables

Using Code Injection, you can change the theme colors for the light and dark modes with CSS Variables.

For a list of available theme variables, check:

  • Light theme: assets/sass/settings/colors.scss
  • Dark theme: assets/sass/settings/colors-dark.scss

If you want for example to change the theme brand color. You can copy the color variable and add it inside each code block like the following example.

<style>
  :root {
    --color-brand: red;
  }

  @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
    :root:not([data-user-color-scheme]) {
      --color-brand: green;
    }
  }

  [data-user-color-scheme='dark'] {
    --color-brand: green;
  }
</style>

Notice that we duplicated the variable for dark mode in two blocks.

The color brand is used for buttons, links color, and links hover. In the above example, we changed the color for the light mode to be red and to green for the dark mode. You can override this for any other variable.

If, for example, you want to add another color that is not available in the available theme variables and wants to add another style to a new element. You can create a new variable and give it a name and value.

We can extend the previous example to add a new color for the logo color and assign that variable to the .c-logo__link class.

<style>
  :root {
    --color-brand: red;
    --color-logo: blue;
  }

  @media (prefers-color-scheme: dark) {
    :root:not([data-user-color-scheme]) {
      --color-brand: green;
      --color-logo: gold;
    }
  }

  [data-user-color-scheme='dark'] {
    --color-brand: green;
    --color-logo: gold;
  }

  .c-logo__link {
    color: var(--color-logo);
  }
</style>

The logo will then have a blue color for the light mode and gold color for the dark mode.

Customize Images Height

If you want to customize the height of the images on the home page and on the post page, you can use the following CSS code.

For the single post image. The theme default value is 56.25%. You can change this value to match your preference.

.c-post-image-wrap:after {
  padding-bottom: 56.25%;
}

For the homepage cards. The theme default value is 75%.

.c-post-card__image-wrap {
  padding-top: 75%;
}

The full code in Code Injection would be:

<style>
  .c-post-image-wrap:after {
    padding-bottom: 56.25%;
  }

  .c-post-card__image-wrap {
    padding-top: 75%;
  }
</style>

Customize Logo Size

If you are using an image as a logo (instead of the site name) and want to change the logo size, use the following code in Code Injection.

<style>
  .c-logo__img {
    max-width: 72px;
  }
</style>

The default value is 72px, so you can increase this value to match your preference.

If the logo image has a large white space around it, trim that space for better results.

Change Style Depending on the Screen Width

To change the style of any element depending on the screen size the thme provides 3 stages, the initial/mobile size, the medium size, and the large size. For examplle, if you want to change the color of the post title on the three different stages, use the following code.

<style>
.c-post-header__title {
  color: gray;
}

@media (min-width: 40em) {
  .c-post-header__title {
    color: red;
  }
}

@media (min-width: 64em) {
  .c-post-header__title {
    color: green;
  }
}
</style>

The title will start with gray on the mobile size, red on medium and green on large screens.

Three Columns Layout Display for Home Posts

Open the partials/post-card.hbs file and replace line one with the following code line.

<div class='js-grid__col o-grid__col o-grid__col--initial-grow o-grid__col--4-4-s o-grid__col--2-4-m o-grid__col--1-3-l js-post-card-wrap c-post-card-wrap {{ post_class }}'>

The result will look like this:

Penang Ghost Theme Three Columns Layout Display for Home Posts

If you want one column, use the following code.

<div class='js-grid__col o-grid__col o-grid__col--initial-grow o-grid__col--4-4-s js-post-card-wrap c-post-card-wrap {{ post_class }}'>

Remove the ‘Public’, ‘Members’ and ‘Paid’ Labels from a Post Card

Open the partials/post-card.hbs file and remove lines 28 to 34.

Zip Theme Files

To create a clean and small theme package, you can exclude different directories using the following CLI command:

zip -r penang.zip penang -x '*node_modules*' '*bower_components*'

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

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

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 changed files on the theme page Changelog
  • Use the new 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.

👋 Support

Have any questions? I'm always here to help 😊

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Ahmad Ajmi