Horace Documentation

  • Ghost version: 6.x
  • Theme version: 4.2.0
  • Last updated:

First of all a huge thanks for purchasing this theme! If you have any questions that are not answered here, please feel free to contact us via email.

Theme Installation

To install Horace, follow these steps:

  1. Log in to your Ghost Admin at yoursite.com/ghost.
  2. In the left sidebar, go to Settings → Theme.
  3. Click on Change theme.
  4. Click on Upload theme.
  5. Drag and drop your theme’s .zip file, or click to browse and select it.
  6. Once the upload is complete, click Activate to apply the theme immediately, or Close to activate it later.

Getting Started

Uploading a Favicon

To add a favicon:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design & branding in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Click on Customize.
  3. Click Upload icon next to Publication icon.
  4. Save changes.

Publication icon setting

To add a logo:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design & branding in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Click on Customize.
  3. Click Upload logo next to Publication logo.
  4. Save changes.

Publication logo setting

Uploading a Publication Cover

The publication cover image is displayed in the background of the homepage hero and error pages.

To add a publication cover:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design & branding in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Click on Customize.
  3. Click Upload cover next to Publication cover.
  4. Save changes.

Publication cover setting

Adding Navigation

The theme supports both primary and secondary navigation menus. The primary navigation appears in the site header, while the secondary navigation is displayed in the footer.

To set up navigation:

  1. Go to Settings → Navigation in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Click on Customize.
  3. Add your navigation items by entering a page name in the label field and a destination URL in the URL field.
  4. Once finished, click Save.

Setting up navigation

The social media links are displayed in the hero section and footer of the site.

To add Facebook and X links:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Social accounts in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Enter the URLs of your Facebook and X profiles.
  3. Save changes.

Adding Facebook and X links

To add Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and YouTube links:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design & branding in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Click on Customize.
  3. Switch to the Theme tab.
  4. Enter the URLs of your Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn profiles.
  5. Save changes.

Adding Instagram, Bluesky, LinkedIn, and YouTube links

All other social media links can be added manually in the social-links.hbs file located in the partials folder of the theme. For instance, if you want to add the link to your GitHub account use the following code:

<a href="GITHUB_LINK" class="btn btn-icon btn-secondary" target="_blank" rel="noopener" aria-label="GitHub">{{> "icons/github"}}</a>

To see the available icons, please check the /partials/icons folder of the theme.

Editing Hero Section

The hero section appears on the homepage and can be customized or disabled.

To edit the hero section content:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design & branding in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Click on Customize.
  3. Switch to the Theme tab.
  4. Turn on Show hero.
  5. Fill in the hero text fields and upload the avatar and background images.
  6. Save changes.

Customizing hero section

Featured posts appear in a highlighted list with large featured images on the homepage, displayed above the regular post feed. Simply mark any post as featured in its settings to make it stand out.

Members

Ghost members feature allows you to turn your site into a membership business with member signup, paid subscriptions and email newsletters.

If members feature is enabled on your site, Subscribe and Sign in links appear in the header and sidebar, connecting visitors directly to the Ghost Members portal.

Enabling Comments

Horace supports Ghost native or Disqus comments.

To enable Ghost native comments:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Access in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Select the suitable option from the Who can comment on posts? dropdown.
  3. Save changes.

To enable Disqus commenting:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design & branding in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Switch to the Theme tab.
  3. Turn on Enable Disqus and add your shortname in the Disqus shortname field.
  4. Save changes.

Disqus comments

Editing Sidebar

The theme sidebar contains the site navigation menu for small screens, “About” section, recent posts and tag cloud.

To disable or edit the “About” section:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design & branding in your Ghost Admin.
  2. Switch to the Theme tab.
  3. Turn on Show about in sidebar and fill the about fields.
  4. Save changes.

about info

You can edit the copyright information via the .json translation file located in the /locales folder. Or you can edit it directly in the/partials/footer.hbs file using a code editor.

Adding Google Analytics

To add Google Analytics to your site, please follow the Google Analytics Integration guide by Ghost.

Theme Customization

Changing Accent Color

To change the theme accent color:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design & branding in your Ghost admin.
  2. Switch to the Brand tab.
  3. Choose your color.
  4. Save changes.

accent color

Changing Posts Per Page Number

You can set the number of post displayed per page in the package.json file of the theme. The default post number is set to 8:

"config": {
    "posts_per_page": 6
}

Theme Translation

The Horace theme is ready for translations. You can find the default file in the locales folder. Copy locales/en.json to locales/[language_code].json where “language_code” must be replaced with a valid code. You can edit the renamed translation file with any plain text editor.

Even if your site is in English, you can customize any theme texts by simply editing the default English file ( locales/en.json ), without modifying the theme templates.

You can find more information on how to translate the theme in Ghost documentation.

Adjusting Style

To customize the theme style, use the Code injection tool and place your CSS rules in the Site Header field.

For instance, to adjust the site title size:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Code injection in your Ghost admin.
  2. Click on Open.
  3. Add the necessary CSS rules to the Site headerfield.
  4. Save changes.

style adjustments

Credits

Support

The documentation included provides all the information needed to get the theme installed and customized. However, if you have any questions you can email us, and we will be happy to help you.

If you have any bug reports, or feature requests, please let us know!