Blogs generally have somewhat simple and minimalist design compared to websites. The main purpose behind the simple design of a blog is to make it easy for bloggers to frequently post and update contents. Generally, a theme is a main design component of a blog. A well designed blog not only enhances the publishing experience, but is also appealing to the visitors.
The majority of personal blogs display a list of posts with summary on their home page. A nicely designed homepage and individual blog posts are important for your blog. You should choose a theme which does not have complex navigation menus so that the visitors can easily access the blog posts they want to see and read.
Ghost's default theme casper is nice and simple, but you can improve the overall look and feel of your blog by changing the theme. To get started you can choose a theme from several themes which are available at the Ghost Marketplace. Some themes require a payment while others can be downloaded for free.
Let's see, how to install a new theme in Ghost
1) Choose a theme from the Ghost marketplace
Go to http://marketplace.ghost.org, you will see many themes listed there. Generally, a theme is packaged and distributed as a compressed ZIP file. Select a theme which you want to use for your blog and download the ZIP file.
2) Extract the contents of the ZIP file
Extract the contents of the ZIP file on your computer. Some themes contain a README file with some specific instructions required for installing them. Read the README file or any documentation which is included with the theme to find out if there are any special installation instructions.
The image below shows a sample theme extracted from its ZIP file.
3) Upload the theme to the /content/themes folder in the Ghost directory
In the Ghost directory, themes are kept in the /content/themes folder. Ghost recognizes the themes located only in this folder, so upload the theme package(extracted from the ZIP file) to the themes folder of your Ghost installation located at
“....path-to-ghost-installation..../content/themes”.
If you are not sure whether you are doing it correctly, you should open and look inside your new theme folder. Every theme must contain an index.hbs file and a post.hbs file as shown in the image below.
4) Enabling the new theme
Now, start your Ghost blog (Restart Ghost if it was running already).
Log in to Ghost Admin dashboard, and click on SETTINGS. You can select and enable the newly uploaded theme from the General settings page.
Select the theme from the Theme drop-down and click on the SAVE button to save the settings.
Congratulations, you have installed and enabled a new theme in your Ghost blog. Now, if you visit to your blog's homepage(frontend), you will see your new theme in action.
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