Advant Documentation

Using the theme

To use the theme extract the main downloaded zip file.

After extracting you will find a folder named similar to theme name. That folder is the production ready ( live site ready ) theme. After the required setup you will make a zip of this folder's content ( all files and folders within this folder ) and upload it to your ghost site.

To set up the theme properly with several setting options, please read through the documentation.

Please edit theme files using a proper code editor. There are lots of free and opensource code editor available. You can choose any of those, some popular free code editor Visual Studio Code , Atom

Light and dark mode

This theme comes with toggle-able light and dark mode. This option let your user choose whether they prefer dark color or light color. There preference will be saved in their browser locally. Whenever they visit your site in future, they will see their preferred mode.

By default the theme is in dark mode. In site design settings options, there is an option to select theme mode.

Choose light option there for enabling light mode.

If you wish, you can also hide the theme mode switcher button for your visitors. In Setting you will find Show theme mode switcher icon option. Disable that, the button will no longer be visible.

Logo settings

As this theme has option to toggle dark and light mode. You have to provide, 2 different logo for 2 different mode.

I recommend to make your logos in svg format, but the format is not absolute requirement.

At first prepare 2 version of your logo ( each for dark background and light background ).
Go to ghost dashboard and then Settings > design.
Under brand section you will see the Publication logo option.
Upload the logo which is made for default mode (Dark) background ( i.e. light color logo for dark background).
Now close the brand section and open Site-wide section. There is an option named Logo for light mode.
Upload the second logo ( dark logo for light background ) there.

Intro section on home page

This theme comes with a custom intro section. Which will be shown on home page.

You can hide this section entirely or modify it from the dashboard under settings option.

Go to site design setting options and expand the homepage settings options section.

To hide the intro section entirely Turn off the Show home hero section option.
Add any text in Home hero title option. It will be shown as the title of this section.
Add any text in Home hero description option. It will be shown as the description of this section.
Upload an image to Home hero head shot image option to show at this section.

Post list narrow width layout

At theme version 3.0.0 a new option has been added for post list layout width.

By default it is set to narrow which make the post list narrow width (same as hero area content) on home page, tag page and author page on large screen (width 1200px an above) device.

If you don't want this narrow width layout and prefer to use the original full width layout chage it from the Post list container width option under Site-wide section.

Single post setting options

In this theme there are few option for single post. Go to Site design settings option and then expand Post section.

Disable Show share buttons to hide share buttons below the post content.
Disable Show author info card to hide the author info card below the post content.

Disqus shortname option is required for Disqus comment. If you don't want to show comment option then just keep this option text box blank and comment will be disabled.

If you want to show the comment as the demo site and setup the Disqus comment then you need to put your disqus shortname in the above mentioned Disqus shortname option text box.

To setup and get the disqus shortname please follow the steps below.

Go to disqus.com and sign up.
After log in go to admin dashboard.
Then follow the instruction and add your website there.
At the time of adding your site you will get a disqus shortname, copy that.
Now put that shortname in the Disqus shortname option text box.

API key for search function

After release of Ghost API version 2, we have to generate an API key and set that key in our theme. Without this the search, custom author archive and custom tag archive functionality will not work. Please follow the steps below.

Go to your admin dashboard and visit "Integrations" setting page.
Scroll Below and click on the "Add custom integration" button.
Give it a name ( anything you want, it does not matter). You can just name it "search"
Save that and copy the "Content API key".
Now open "api-key.hbs" file which is located in partials folder.
Remove everything in that file and paste the API key you have copied from your admin dashboard. Save the file.

API key for search

To add the your social links to the icons in footer, please follow the steps below.

From your ghost dashboard, Go to general setting page and scroll down. In social account option, you can add Facebook and Twitter link there. This Facebook and twitter will be linked with the icons in footer.

There is no option to add other social links directly from dashboard. Following are the steps to add other links.

open social-links.hbs file located in partials folder.
From line number 10, you can add different social links. Replace the # for each href value with your own profile links.
If you want to add other social links or want to remove one, please see all the available icons in "partials > icons" folder.

The code in social-links.hbs file, where you will add your links, will look like below.

<li><a href="#" title="Dribbble" rel="noopener">{{> icons/dribbble}}</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="Instagram" rel="noopener">{{> icons/instagram}}</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="medium" rel="noopener">{{> icons/medium}}</a></li>
<li><a href="#" title="github" rel="noopener">{{> icons/github}}</a></li>

Members

Go to Settings > Membership and create membership tires. Those tires will be shown on the sign up page as pricing table.

AMP

This theme comes with a custom design of AMP template to match with the color and style of the theme

By default the amp is in dark mode like the actual theme. If you want to load the light mode then follow the steps below.

Open amp.hbs file located in theme folder.
At line number 19 yow will see following code

{{> styles/ampstyle-dark}}

Change ampstyle-dark to ampstyle-light in that line and save the file.

Installation

Ones the necessary configuration is done, make a zip of the modified theme folder.

Now login to your admin area and go to Design. In that page scroll down and you can find "Upload a theme" button. Upload the theme zip which you have created while ago. After finishing upload, activate the theme.

You also have to upload another file routes.yaml in your ghost site to work all the membership related page correctly.

Go to lab page in your dashboard, scroll down and you will see an option for routes. There is a button to upload routes YAML and a link below that button to download the routes.yaml which is being used currently. Download that file and and keep as a backup.

In the downloaded zip you will find a routes.yaml file which comes with this file and specific for this theme.

Upload that file. Using "upload routes YAML" button.

routs yaml upload

Please note, if you are using self hosted Ghost then may be a you need to restart ghost to take effect the new routes file. If you are using Ghost (pro). then you don't need to do anything here.

If you want to install the demo data to make your site as the preview then you can go to your-site-url/ghost/settings/labs/ and then import the advant.ghost.demo.json file there. This file is located in demo data folder in main download folder.

To add links to you static page please follow the steps below.

Create a new page in your dashboard.
Copy the URL for this page from the page settings panel.
Go to Design page in your admin dashboard.
Add a label and the URL and save it.
Now the theme will show newly added link in navigation.

Author and tag archive

In this theme there are 2 custom template for Tag archive and Author Archive. To use those template please follow the steps below.

Create a new page.
Add a Title ( example: Authors or Authors Archive or any thing else you want).
Open page settings panel by clicking on the gear icon at top right corner of the page.
You can add an page image or keep it blank as it is.
Below that there is an dropdown selectable option called "template". Choose "author Archive" template option there.
Now save and publish the page.
Copy The "post-URL" and use it to create a menu link in design page in your admin area, as you normally do for other static page.
Save it and visit your site. If you did everything right then you will see your newly created link in your menu bar. Open to see all available author list.

For Tag archive page follow the same steps as author archive setting. At step 6 choose "Tag archive" option from dropdown select option. Then Follow all the remaining steps and you will be able to add a tag archive page in you site.

Featured image in post

Ghost supports featured/cover image in post natively, and this theme handle that nicely. Recommended image size is, minimum 1024px wide.

Theme translation

This theme supports translation. Please follow the steps below to translate this theme in your language.

Within theme folder, there is a folder named "locales". In that folder by default you will find a file named "en.json". This is the default file for English language and you have to use this file to create your own language file.
make a copy of en.json and give a name following this format [language_code].json ( example: for French fr.json for German i.e. Deutsch de.json for Russian ru.json etc. )
If you are not sure about what is you language code then you can visit this wiki page and see. Use the two letter (ISO 639-1) code.
Now open the newly created <your_language>.json file in text editor. You will see "KEY": "VALUE" format in each line.
In English language KEY and VALUE are same. Now you read the left part of the : i.e. KEY part and change the tight part i.e. VALUE part to your own language.
After finishing the translation Save the file and upload the theme to your site.
Go to your admin area, Visit "General setting" page and change the "publication Language" option. By default there is "en" for English. Add your own language code there in place of "en" and save the settings.
Visit your site, If everything goes right, you will see all the theme related text in your site is in your translated language.

If you translate the theme in any language, then please consider to share ( feel free to send me via email ) that language file. I will add that file to the theme, so that it will available to other users.

Theme customization

If you need to add only small CSS then you can add using Ghost's Code Injection feature. In "blog header" box you can add CSS like below example. replace the CSS with your own CSS between the <style> tag.

<style>
    .header-wrapper .text-logo {
        color: #076eff;
    }
</style>

Detail customization prerequisite

This theme is built using Gulp to compile JavaScript and CSS. CSS is written in SCSS. So if you want to modify the theme color, styles or appearance or anything you want to customize, before doing that you need to setup development environment setup.

Please follow all the steps below one by one to do it.

You need to have installed node js and gulp installed in your local machine.

If you don't have NodeJS installed in your machine then visit nodejs.org and download and install latest LTS version of NodeJS.
After installing NodeJS open a command prompt or terminal. Then type node -v. If it shows a version number then NodeJS is installed correctly. Also enter this command npm -v to see npm ( comes with node js) is installed properly.
After installing node js you need to install Gulp CLI globally in your machine. So in your terminal or command prompt enter this command. npm install gulp-cli -g. It may take some time, it will install Gulp CLI globally in your machine. Now you have done the environment setup.
At this point go to the development theme folder. In downloaded zip there is a folder named "development". Within that folder you will see a folder named as the theme name. Enter in that folder and run command prompt / terminal here. Or you can navigate to this folder within already running terminal.
Now enter command npm install. It may take some time. It will install all the development dependency within the project. It may show some warning, don't worry those are OK.
At this time you are ready to modify theme, Run one more command gulp in the terminal. It will initially compile all files and star to watch file changes. Keep the terminal open and start customizing the theme.

How to change color or CSS

If you just want to change the accent color then you can do that from the dashboard. No need to edit theme files. Go to site setting option. Under brand section you can find the option to change accent color.

In the theme folder you will find "assets > scss" folder which contains all the theme styles written in SCSS.

To change any style / CSS you need to modify here. In SCSS folder you will find a folder named "components" which contains a bunch of .scss files which are part of the whole theme's style. and all those files are imported in a specific order in "screen.scss" file located in "scss" folder root outside of "components" folder. please don't edit that file if you do not need.

To change the Theme color please follow the steps below.

Open the _color-and-font.scss file in your code editor.
Now you have to change the color hexcode (#xxxxxx) in this file and save the file.
If you have followed the above section of instruction ( Detail customization prerequisite), and already running terminal with the gulp command then the file changes will be detected and if there is no error in your file then it will be automatically compiled.

The _color-and-font.scss file looks like below.

/*=====================================================
    Fonts
=====================================================*/
$accent-color: var(--ghost-accent-color); /* theme highlight/primary color */

$theme-light: (
    bg-color: #FFFFFF,
    text-title: #161616,
    text-body: #313131,
    text-light: #929399,
);

$theme-dark: (
    bg-color: #252733,
    text-title: #FFFFFF,
    text-body: #D5D5D5,
    text-light: #929399,
);

/*=====================================================
    Fonts
=====================================================*/
$font-body: 'Noto Sans', sans-serif;
$font-title: 'Playfair Display', serif;

/*=====================================================
    Please don't edit below code if you are not sure
=====================================================*/
:root { 
    @each $name, $value in $theme-dark {
        --#{$name}: #{$value};
    }
}

[data-theme="light"] {
    @each $name, $value in $theme-light {
        --#{$name}: #{$value};
    }
}

After modifying the theme css when you are done and want to install the final theme in your live site, do the following.

Go to running terminal ( terminal is navigated to development theme folder and running gulp command to watch the file changes )
Press Ctrl + C or Cmd + C in your keyboard to end the running task.
After ending running task enter this command, gulp build. This command will build the production ready ( live site ready ) theme package within a folder named "build".
After doing the gulp build if you need you can configure the theme options ( such as disqus shortname, social links etc ) then use this command gulp zip. It will make a folder named "dist" and make a zip of the contents of "build" folder within "dist" folder.
Now you can upload this newly created zip in your ghost admin panel.

Changelog

V 4.1.0 - October 07, 2022

Added secondary navigation in footer.

V 4.0.0 - June 06, 2022

Fixed custom settings option typo.
Removed deprecated API version in package.json
Removed deprecated helper.
Modified pricing table to support pricing tires with newly released helpers.
Updated minimum required Ghost version to 5.

V 3.1.0 - February 10, 2022

Added support for all new cards available in the editor.
Added various custom settings so that those can be changed without editing theme files.
Updated all dependency packages.
Added support for Ghost accent color.

V 3.0.2 - March 22, 2021

Fixed typo for @site.locale
Fixed facebook and twitter social links.
Small css improvement for author profile image.

V 3.0.1 - March 23, 2021

Fixed image being stretched in post content.

V 3.0.0 - March 19, 2021

Updated all development dependency in the package.
Updated Ghost engines and API to v4
Replaced deprecated @site.lang with new @site.locale
Removed checking if member for reading time, now reading time shows to all posts.
Removed hard coded $ symbol and @price.currency_symbol helper, both are replaced with new price helper to show currency symbol.
Removed @lab.members condition checking members are always enabled in Ghost 4.0.
Updated single post view for properly showing the content preview above the subscription CTA.
Added a subscription form at the hero area on home page.
Added Option to make the post list width narrow. It will make post list narrow width ( same as hero area content) on home page, tag page and author page on large screen (width 1200px an above) device.

V 2.1.0 - October 13, 2020

Updated all dependency.
Added subscriber info in account page.
Updated loading spinner and fixed input field in small device.
Added new notifications.
Removed fuse Js and added searchinGhost for search.

V 2.0.0 - November 13, 2019

Replaced deprecated helper with helper.
Updated API uses to v3.
Updated search functionality to use API v3.
Added new Membership feature.
Modified Subscription widget to use new members feature.
Added new custom pages Account, subscribe, Sign in pages.
Custom Call to action for membership and paid membership in single post.
Added extra translation.
Removed old subscribe page and form.

V 1.1.2 - October 03, 2019

Added missing CSS class which are required in the latest version of ghost

V 1.1.1 - October 02, 2019

Fixed small css issue in bookmark card for mobile device.

V 1.1.0 - September 14, 2019

Added bookmark card support.

V 1.0.1 - August 27, 2019

Fixed - theme switcher button was not checked when set to mode to light by default.

V 1.0.0 - July 23, 2019

Initial release

On this page

Using the theme

Light and dark mode

Logo settings

Intro section on home page

Post list narrow width layout

Single post setting options

API key for search function

Members

AMP

Installation

Navigation links

Author and tag archive

Featured image in post

Theme translation

Theme customization

Detail customization prerequisite

How to change color or CSS

Changelog

V 4.1.0 - October 07, 2022

V 4.0.0 - June 06, 2022

V 3.1.0 - February 10, 2022

V 3.0.2 - March 22, 2021

V 3.0.1 - March 23, 2021

V 3.0.0 - March 19, 2021

V 2.1.0 - October 13, 2020

V 2.0.0 - November 13, 2019

V 1.1.2 - October 03, 2019

V 1.1.1 - October 02, 2019

V 1.1.0 - September 14, 2019

V 1.0.1 - August 27, 2019

V 1.0.0 - July 23, 2019

Advant Documentation

On this page

Using the theme

Light and dark mode

Logo settings

Intro section on home page

Post list narrow width layout

Single post setting options

API key for search function

Adding social links

Members

AMP

Installation

Navigation links

Author and tag archive

Featured image in post

Theme translation

Theme customization

Detail customization prerequisite

How to change color or CSS

Changelog

V 4.1.0 - October 07, 2022

V 4.0.0 - June 06, 2022

V 3.1.0 - February 10, 2022

V 3.0.2 - March 22, 2021

V 3.0.1 - March 23, 2021

V 3.0.0 - March 19, 2021

V 2.1.0 - October 13, 2020

V 2.0.0 - November 13, 2019

V 1.1.2 - October 03, 2019

V 1.1.1 - October 02, 2019

V 1.1.0 - September 14, 2019

V 1.0.1 - August 27, 2019

V 1.0.0 - July 23, 2019