Subtle Documentation

  • Ghost version: 5.x
  • Theme version: 3.1.0
  • 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 Subtle on your Ghost site, follow the steps:

  1. Log into the admin section of your Ghost site: yoursite.com/ghost.
  2. Go to Settings → Designand click on Change theme located at the bottom of the left hand column.
  3. Click on Upload theme.
  4. Drag-and-drop or click and locate the zip file for your theme.
  5. Once it is uploaded, click on either Activate to activate the theme immediately or Close if you want to activate it later on.

Getting Started

Uploading a Favicon

To add a favicon:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design in your Ghost admin.
  2. Expand the Brand section.
  3. Click Upload icon next to Publication icon.
  4. Save changes.

favicon

To add a logo:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design in your Ghost admin.
  2. Expand the Brand section.
  3. Click Upload logo next to Publication logo.
  4. Save changes.

logo

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 in your Ghost admin.
  2. Expand the Brand section.
  3. Click Upload logo next to Publication logo.
  4. Save changes.

cover

Adding Navigation

The theme supports primary and secondary navigation. Primary navigation is displayed in the slide-out sidebar, while the secondary navigation is displayed in the site footer.

To set up primary and secondary navigation:

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

navigation

The social media links are displayed in the footer of the theme.

To add Facebook and Twitter links:

  1. Navigate to Settings → General in your Ghost admin.
  2. Click Expand next to Social accounts.
  3. Enter the URLs of your Facebook and Twitter profiles.
  4. Save changes.

social 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 Instagram account use the following code:

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/" class="button button-social" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
  <span class="screen-reader-text">Instagram</span>
  {{> "icons/instagram"}}
</a>

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

Editing Hero Section

The hero section is displayed on the home page.

To edit the hero section title and subtitle:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design in your Ghost admin.
  2. Expand the Homepage section.
  3. Fill the Hero title and Hero text fields.
  4. Save changes.

hero

Adding Cover Images

You can add cover images to all of your posts, pages as well as tag and author archive pages.

To add a post/page image:

  1. Navigate to Posts (Pages) in your Ghost admin.
  2. Create a new post (page) or open an existing one.
  3. Click Add feature image located above the post (page) title and upload your image.
  4. Save changes.

post image

To add a tag image:

  1. Navigate to Tags in your Ghost admin.
  2. Create a new tag or open an existing one.
  3. Click Upload tag image and upload your image.
  4. Save changes.

tag image

To add an author image:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Staff in your Ghost admin.
  2. Select the author you want to edit.
  3. Click Change Cover and upload your image.
  4. Save changes.

user image

Creating Landing Page

If you have enabled Ghost’s new Beta Editor, it’s now possible to remove the title and feature image from a page. Then, using Header and other cards you can create a unique look for your pages without having to know how to code.

To hide the title and feature image from a page, open the Page Settings and turn off the Show title and feature image toggle.

Landing page

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, the theme displays Subscribe and Sign in links in the header and sidebar which opens the Ghost members portal.

Enabling Comments

Subtle supports Ghost native or Disqus comments.

To enable Ghost native comments:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Membership in your Ghost admin.
  2. Select the suitable option from the Commenting dropdown.
  3. Save changes.

Native comments

To enable Disqus commenting:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design in your Ghost admin.
  2. Expand the Post section.
  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 your blog navigation, “About” widget and tag cloud widget.

To disable or edit the “About” widget:

  1. Navigate to Settings → Design in your Ghost admin.
  2. Expand the Site-wide section.
  3. Turn on Enable about in sidebar and fill the About title and About text fields.
  4. Save changes.

About widget

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 in your Ghost admin.
  2. Expand the Brand section.
  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 Subtle 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. Add the necessary CSS rules to the Site headerfield.
  3. 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 at support@justgoodthemes.com, and we will be happy to help you.

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

Updates

As Ghost platform grows, so will this theme. We’re dedicated to keeping our Subtle up to date.