Documentation

Arkai

Enamul Haque

Enamul Haque

— 18 min read
Arkai

Getting Started

Arkai is a multipurpose, modern and minimal ghost blogging theme specially designed for Magazine, Blog for personal. It is a totally new design, with extreme features, and supported all the features of Ghost 5.x. This theme is built with SASS, Handlebars, and a lot of options. This is a fully responsive, hand-coded and fully translation-ready theme.

If you are a programmer, do you write blog or teach programming to people. You can choose this theme. Arkai comes with code-highlighting features.

Support

If you have any questions that are beyond the scope of this help file, please feel free to send your questions to our support email: support@electronthemes.com Our support team will reply to you as soon as possible.

Theme Setup

Arkai theme setup is very easy. If you have already installed a server for Ghost you can easily setup Arkai theme. If you don’t have server suported with Ghost, you can set up reading Ghost Install. When you have the server, follow the instructions for setting up the theme.

Upload the theme

You can upload the theme file from ghost dashboard. to do this

  • Download theme file from ElectronThemes Dashboard
  • Log in into your Ghost admin panel.
  • Go to Dashboard > Settings icon > Design > Change theme > and upload
  • Click Activate.

Uploading the theme via (FTP)

Follow the instructions

  • Login to your FTP account.
  • Unzip the arkai.zip file and copy arkai folder to your /ghost_installation/content/themes
  • Restart your installation if necessary. You can ask for help from your hosting provider if you don’t know how to do this step.
  • Login to your ghost admin panel.
  • Go to settings (general) and select theme “Arkai“
  • Click Save.

Here I have used Cyberduck to upload file on server and I used subdomain. That is why I used Docslab Folder

General Setup

Publication Info

To change publication info, go to Dashboard > Settings Icon > General > Publication Info. Here you can change the followings:

  • Title
  • Description
  • Site Timezone
  • Publication Language

Favicon Icon

Ghost shows it’s ghost logo in your site by default. You can change Favicon Icon or Publication Icon from Dashboard > Settings Icon > Design > Fav icon

You can change Logo from Dashboard > Settings Icon > Design > Publication Identity

Publication Cover

This is for showing site bookmark image. If you upload a cover image, it will in your site bookmark. To upload publication cover image, Go to Dashboard > Settings Icon > Design > Publication cover

Site Meta Settings

This is for Meta data. It will help to get on search using search engine. You can add also Twitter and Facebook card image, content here.

You can add/edit the content from Dashboard > Settings Icon > General > Site Meta Settings

Social Accounts

Social account section is for showing Facebook, Twitter links of your site. Go to Dashboard > Settings Icon > General > Social Accounts

Primary Navigation

Ghost only supports two types of Navigation. Primary and Secondary Navigation Menu. On header, primary navigation is showing and On Footer secondary navigation is showing. Go to Dashboard > Settings Icon > Navigation

Secondary Navigation

You can change menu item on secondary Dashboard > Settings Icon > Navigation

Create a Post

Ghost has a beautiful dashboard design. You can easily create a post. Go to Dashboard > Posts > New Post

  • Post Title
  • Post Contents
  • Feature image
  • Tags
  • Authors

Create a page

As like as post, you can create a new page from Dashboard > Pages > New Page. You can add:

  • Title
  • Contents
  • Tags
  • Authors
  • Feature Image
  • Excerpt
  • more…

Featured Post

Ghost has awesome featured posts option to show some of your chosen posts as featured for the visitors. To add a post as featured, go to Post > Settings and scroll down. Select the checkbox Feature this post

Create Tag

To create a new tag, go to Dashboard > Tags > New Tag

Create Author

You can create multiple authors in your site from the dashboard. Go to Dashboard > Settings Icon > Stuff > Invite people

Click on Invite people and you will get a new popup. You have to add Email Address and select the staff Role. Lastly click on Send Invitation now button. An email notification will be sent to create an account on the specific Role.

Code Injection

Code injection is a great feature on Ghost. You can easily write styles and scripts for your site without editing the theme file. You can add various plugins code here like Google analytics

Here you will two text field for code injections. 1. Site Header and 2. Site Footer

Go to Dashboard > Settings Icon > Code Injection

Site Header

If you write scripts on site header, it will show in <head> tag of header. It will load first in your site

Site Footer

If you write scripts on site footer, it will show at the closing of <body> tag. It will load last in your site

Integrations and Custom Integrations

Integrations are another cool feature of Ghost. You can connect a lot of third-party plugins or API using integrations. To check the integrations, go to Dashboard > Settings Icon > Integrations. You will get some inbuilt integrations and custom integrations options

Custom integrations

To create custom integrations, click on + Add custom integration at the bottom of the page and you will get a popup and add a name of the integration and Create. I have create here Search and Github Deploy integration

Labs

Labs is another very important and beta tester parts of Ghost. Here your will get some core features as follows: Go to Dashboard > Settings Icon > Labs

  1. Import Content
  2. Export your content
  3. Delete All Content
  4. Tiers
  5. Redirects
  6. Routes

Routes

Routes is another important part. When you want to use different path link or custom files for pages and different homepage, you can use routes.yaml file to do that. Here is default .yaml for ghost.

routes:
collections:
 /:
   permalink: /{slug}/
   template: index
taxonomies:
 tag: /tag/{slug}/
 author: /author/{slug}/

Headers

For header, we have used {{> header}} partials in folder partials/ header.hbs. In this file you can change the followings:

  1. Primary Navigation
  2. Social Icons
  3. Search
  4. Dark/Light
  5. Logo

Dark and Light version

We have used dark version by default. When you will install the theme file on your ghost server, you will get your website as dark version.

If you want to use Light version for default, you can change it from your custom settings. You will find the settings Settings > Design > Site Design > Site-WIde > Select Color Scheme

Logo

You can change the site main logo follow the instruction: Settings > Design > Site Design > Brand > Publication Logo

Dark Logo Mode

If you want to use Dark logo, you can change it from your custom settings. You will find the settings :

Settings > Design > Site Design > Site-Wide > Dark Mode Logo

We used very minimal footer in our theme. You will get all footer code partials > footer.hbs file. Here are the following parts:

  1. About Text
  2. Links
  3. Tag Cloud
  4. Connect

About Text

In the footer, it shows About Text. You can change about the text from partials > footer.hbs

<p>{{t "Arkai is a modern & minimal ghost blogging templates. We design and develop based on our customers demand. You can use this theme for your personal blog, portfolio site and other purposes."}}</p>

Footer Social Profiles

Change footer social profile links at footer.hbs and you can add more links aftre copying this. Change # with your links.

<li> 
	<a href="#"> 
		{{> icons/social-icons/instagram}} 
	</a> 
</li>

If you want to add new social icons, go to partials > icons > social-icons folder. I have used svg icons from Feathericons. Download icons from here and add it in the folder. Change the icon’s extension .svg to .hbs

facebook.svg --> facebook.hbs

Instagram & Linkedin icon will be visible , when we follow the below instruction and get the icons on right side of footer.

If you want to use Instagram and Linkedin for default, you can change it from your custom settings. You will find the settings: Settings > Design > Site Design > Site-WIde > Instagram Link or Linkedin Link

Note: we can also use this social icon single . Just empty the box then, that icon will be hide.

Tag Cloud

We have showed 10 tags in the footer. If you want to change limit, you change limit="15" or limit="all" at line number 18.

{{#get "tags" limit="10" include="count.posts" order="count.posts desc" filter="visibility:public"}}

Footer Links

Useful Link comes from secondary menu. You can change secondary menu link from Dashboard > Design > Secondary Menu

Copyright text

You can change at footer.hbs file line number 41

<p>{{t "All copyright reserved by Electronthemes. Published with "}}<a href="https://ghost.org/">{{t "Ghost"}}</a></p>

Change the text inside {{t ""}}

Homepage

On the homepage, you will get some sections.

  1. Featured Posts
  2. Latest Posts

This section comes from the featured post. If you add a post as featured, the post will add automatically in the featured slider. You can check how to add featured post

Latest Posts

The latest posts come from the latest articles. You can control the color of the card with internal tags. If you use the internal tag #blue, it will generate a class tag-hash-blue. You will get 11 color tags.

  • blue: #blue
  • purple: #purple
  • pink: #pink
  • carrot: #carrot
  • nevy: #nevy
  • violet: #violet
  • lightgray: #lightgray
  • rosepink: #rosepink
  • space: #space
  • azure: #azure
  • grape: #grape

You will find these colors with previews here

If you don’t want to use a featured image, you can use the color tag to show a nice postcard.

Home page Layout

Now we can control our home page layout settings follow the instructions. You will find the settings: :

Settings > Design > Homepage > Homepage Layout

Now we can off/ on our featured post slider settings follow the instructions. You will find the settings: :

Settings > Design > Homepage > Hide featured post slider

Pagination Type

If you want you can change the pagination type ( Button Mode default ) just select one. You will find the settings: :

Settings > Design > Homepage > pagination Type

Custom Settings

From v4.0.0, we have released custom settings for Site-Wide, Homepage, Post. You can easily select your options from Settings > Design > Site Design

Site-Wide Settings

  • Dark Mode Logo: You can Upload from here Dark Mode Logo. For enable dark mode logo you have upload first publication logo (light mode logo) for default.
  • color scheme: You can change your theme color from Dark to Light or Light to Dark for default
  • Search content API: Add your content API for the search field. When you add to this field, your search option will show and work.
  • Instagram Link : Add your Instagram link in this field
  • Linkedin Link : Add your Instagram link in this field

Homepage Settings

  • Homepage layout: You can Select Post grid, Post by category & Post with sidebar . Post grid (default) from Homepage Layout.
  • Hide featured post slider: You can off/on hompage featured slider by this option.
  • Select pagination: You can select Pagination or Load More. By default, Load more option will work

Post Settings

  • Post layout: Select default post layout from there. This layout will be applied for all the posts.
  • Comments Type: By default we are use cove comment for the posts. You can change your comment Disqus or Cove.
  • Disqus shortname: If you select Disqus Comment for your comment option, you need to add Disqus Shortname. You can learn more from [Comments Section]
  • Cove publication id: Add your cove publication ID from this field. To get cove publication id, create account to Cove
  • Related posts title: You can change title of relates articles section

Post Layout

If you want you can change the Post Layout ( Right sidebar default ) just select one. You will find the settings:

Settings > Design > Post > Post Layout

Related Post Title

You can change the Related Post Title from custom settings. You will find the settings:

Settings > Design > Post > Related Post Title

You get the change output below single post page :

Custom Templates

Custom template is a default setting on Ghost. It can be page template and a post template. We have created some custom pages and post templates for the theme. The page template are as follows:

Page Template

  • Membership
  • Account
  • Contact
  • Authors
  • Tags
  • Blog
  • Blogwithsidebar
  • Portfolio
  • Signin
  • Signup

Selecting page template

  1. Create a new page
  2. Click on Settings to the right side and scroll down
  3. Select page template i.e. “Membership”

Page url

When you create page, please keep page slug like this.

Page titlePage URl
Membership/membership/
Account/account/
Signin/signin/
Signup/signup/

For other custom pages, you can add Authors, Tags, Contact, Portfolio, Blog, Blogwithsidebar page.

We have showed some elements on Post sidebar

  1. About Us
  2. Featured Posts
  3. Tag Clouds

1. About us

You will find it in the file partials > sidebar.hbs If you want to remove it from the sidebar, go to sidebar.hbs in the partials folder and remove line 1

{{> sidebar-about}}

These posts are featured posts as like as featured slider. We have showed 3 limited posts in featured posts of sidebar. If you want to change, go to partials > sidebar-featured-posts.hbs and change limit

{{#get "posts" filter="featured:true" limit="3" include="tags"}}

2. Categories

Here we have shown 10 tags based on the count of posts. If you want to change the in the file, you will get the file partials > sidebar-categories.hbs. If you want to change the limit, you can to it: limit="10". If you want to remove category from sidebar, remove this {{> sidebar-featured-post}} from sidebar.hbs file

{{#get "tags" limit="10" filter="visibility:public" include="count.posts" order="count.posts desc"}}

Membership and Subscriptions

he membership page is helping your customer to understand the plan and compare the differences between your offers. Here are the step by step instructions:

Create Membership page

  1. Create a new page and open the page settings panel from the right side of the page
  2. Select the page template: Membership at the bottom dropdown
  3. Publish the page

Create Tiers and show on membership page

  1. Go to Settings > Membership in your Ghost Admin
  2. Go to MEMBERSHIP TIERS at the bottom
  3. Connect your Stripe Account if you don’t have Stripe connected
  4. Expand Premium position and click on +Add tier to add new tier name, description, list of benefits, price for monthly and yearly.
  5. Add tier to activate
  6. Now, go to portal settings, you can control enable and disable tiers appearing on the membership page.

Create Account Page

  1. Create a new page and open the page settings panel from the right side of the page
  2. Select the page template: Account at the bottom dropdown
  3. Publish the page

Search Options

We have created real-time search options the theme file. You can activate the search easily.

search option & icon will be visible , when we follow the below instruction and get the search icon on right side of header.

We have used Fuse.io for creating real time search. When you will type, you will get instant results. When you install the theme file, you have configure and add content api key on condeinjection

  1. Create a custom integrations
  2. Copy Content Api Key from your created custom integration
  3. Go to Code Injection > Site Header as follows

After collect the Content Api Key we go to : Settings > Design > Site-Wide and insert to below search content API box.

Ghost has a native comment system. Only members of your website can comment on your post. To activate native comment:

  1. Go to the Settings > Membership > Commenting in the Ghost Admin.
  2. Change the Commenting level to All members or Paid-members only.
  3. Click on Save button

Contact form

To change contact information, go to custom-contact.hbs file. You change all of the information.

In contact form, we have used Formspree for getting form data. Change your email in <form> tag in partials > contact-form.hbs file at line number 6.

<form class="row" action="https://formspree.io/youremail@domain.com" method="POST">

Google Map Embedded Code

You can add your google map embedded code at line number 8 in the file custom-contact.hbs. You can create your own location map from this url

After getting your location, you can click on Get HTML Code. You will get HTML and replace the code in your file.

Github Deployment

Arkai theme in ready for deploy on github easily. You can read the articles on Github deployment

Development and Customization

In this theme, we have used SCSS to develop and style fast. You must have installed Nodejs and SASS on your computer.

  • Open theme file in your editor like VSCode or Sublime Text
  • Open terminal in the theme folder
  • Run command npm run sass

Alternatively, You can easily do it using Prepros. To edit SCSS code, follow the instruction:

  1. Unzip arkai.zip (this is the template only file) and remember where is the folder location.
  2. Install a SASS compiler, we recommend you to use Prepos 6, you can download it here.
  3. Click on “Browse” to add project on the middle side.

Changing Primary and Secondary colors

You can change easily primary, secondary, text color and other colors from _variable.scss file. Open assets/scss/_variables.scss file and change the color that you want, example:

:root {
   --color-primary: #002b41;
   --color-text: #3f6172;
}

Credits

Fonts and Icon Fonts

Images

Plugins and libraries

Changelog

VERSION – 4.5.2: Release on 30 September 2023

* ADDED: Header card improvements feature
* ADDED: New twitter Icon
* Small css issues fixed and improvement performance

[+] CHANGED FILES
    assets/css/style.css
    partials/icons/social-icons/twitter.hbs
    page.hbs
    package.json

VERSION – 4.5.1: Release on 09 July 2023

* ADDED: FX Light box image popup feature
* FIXED: Image height issues for post page
* Removed all deprecated code
* Small css issues fixed and improvement performance

[+] CHANGED FILES
    assets/css/style.css
    .github/workflows/deploy-theme.yml
    partials/featured-slider.hbs
    partials/post-card.hbs
    partials/icons/dots.hbs
    partials/footer.hbs
    custom-authors.hbs
    custom-post-left-sidebar.hbs
    custom-post-no-sidebar.hbs
    custom-post-right-sidebar.hbs
    custom-post-with-table-of-content.hbs
    custom-tags.hbs
    post.hbs
    tag.hbs
    page.hbs
    package.json

[-] REMOVED FILES:
    partials/comments/cove-comments.hbs
    partials/comments/disqus-comments.hbs

VERSION – 4.5.0: Release on 13 November 2022

* ADDED: Multiple fonts support
* ADDED: Table of contents added
* FIXED: Dark Light issues fixed for dark devices
* Small css issues fixed

[+] CHANGED FILES
    assets/css/style.css                 
    assets/css/style.css.map             
    assets/js/plugins.js                 
    assets/scss/_author.scss             
    assets/scss/_blog.scss               
    assets/scss/_component.scss          
    assets/scss/_content.scss            
    assets/scss/_dark-version.scss       
    assets/scss/_footer.scss             
    assets/scss/_gallery.scss            
    assets/scss/_membership.scss         
    assets/scss/_post.scss               
    assets/scss/_reset.scss              
    assets/scss/_responsive.scss         
    assets/scss/_search.scss             
    assets/scss/_signin.scss             
    assets/scss/_tags.scss               
    assets/scss/_variables.scss          
    custom-post-left-sidebar.hbs         
    custom-post-no-sidebar.hbs           
    custom-post-right-sidebar.hbs        
    custom-post-with-table-of-content.hbs
    default.hbs                          
    error.hbs                            
    package.json                         
    partials/comments/cove-comments.hbs  
    partials/comments/native-comments.hbs
    partials/home/post-grid.hbs          
    partials/navigation.hbs              
    partials/post-content.hbs            
    partials/post-navigation.hbs         
    partials/postcard.hbs                
    partials/related_posts.hbs           
    post.hbs                             
    tag.hbs     

[+] ADDED FILES:
    partials/google-fonts.hbs

VERSION – 4.4.0: Release on 23 August 2022

* ADDED: Ghost Native Comment Support
* ADDED: Ghost Native Search Support
* ADDED: Contact form endpoint option in dashboard
* FIXED: Logo issues fixed
* Small css issues fixed

[+] CHANGED FILES
    assets/css/style.css
    assets/scss/_post.scss
    assets/scss/_content.scss
    assets/scss/_responsive.scss
    assets/scss/_variables.scss
    assets/scss/_header.scss
    assets/js/scripts.js
    partials/contact-form.hbs
    partials/footer.hbs
    partials/header.hbs
    partials/post-content.hbs
    partials/header.hbs
    partials/comments.hbs → partials/comments/cove-comments.hbs
    partials/disqus/comment-box.hbs → partials/comments/disqus-comments.hbs
    default.hbs
    package.json
    post.hbs
    locales/en.json

[+] ADDED FILES:
    partials/comments/native-comments.hbs

VERSION – 4.3.0: Release on 09 June 2022

* Added Support for Ghost 5.0
* Removed all deprecated code
* Small css issues fixed
* Updated English translation file

[+] CHANGED FILES
    assets/scss/_membership.scss
    assets/css/style.css
    custom-membership.hbs
    custom-account.hbs
    default.hbs
    package.json
    partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-free.hbs
    partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-monthly.hbs
    partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-yearly.hbs
    locales/en.json

VERSION – 4.1.0: Release on 06 Mar 2021

* Added new feature:
    - color scheme dark and light mode
    - dark mode logo
    - search API key input box
    - post layout
    - comment option disqus & cove added
    - social link instagram & linkedin input box
    - pagination or load more select option
    - featured posts slider on/off option
    - related posts title text change option
. Mejor changes on style section style.css and style.scss
. Updated deprecated functions
. Small bug fixes and performance improvements

CHANGED FILES
[+] style.css (All css file)
[+] style.scss (All scss file)
[+] default.hbs
[+] index.hbs
[+] post.hbs
[+] account.hbs
[+] author.hbs
[+] tag.hbs
[+] custom-blog.hbs
[+] custom-post-with-sidebar.hbs
[+] package.json
[+] partials/header.hbs
[+] partials/postcard.hbs
[+] partials/post-loop.hbs
[+] partials/related_posts.hbs
[+] partials/members/paid-post-box.hbs
[+] partials/disqus/comment-box.hbs
[+] partials/pagination.hbs
[+] partials/footer.hbs
[+] assets/js/scripts.js


NEW ADDED FIELS
[+] assets/scss/_cove.scss
[+] custom-subscribe.hbs
[+] partials/logo.hbs
[+] partials/icons/social-icons/map.hbs
[+] partials/home/post-by-category.hbs
[+] partials/home/post-grid.hbs
[+] partials/home/post-with-sidebar.hbs
[+] partials/post-content.hbs
[+] partials/comments.hbs

VERSION – 4.0.0: Release on 07 Jun 2021

. Compatible with ghost version 4.0
. Added support for public preview posts for members only posts
. Support for new price plan helper
. Updated deprecated functions
. Small bug fixes and performance improvements

CHANGED FILES
[+] default.hbs
[+] account.hbs
[+] partials/navigation.hbs
[+] partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-free.hbs
[+] partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-monthly.hbs
[+] partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-yearly.hbs
[+] partials/members/subscriber-information.hbs
[+] partials/sidebar/sidebar-subscribe.hbs
[+] package.json

VERSION – 3.1.0: Release on 13 Jan 2021

[+] Dark Version added

CHANGED FILES
 [+] _variables.scss
 [+] All SCSS files
 [+] package.json
 [+] default.hbs
 [+] index.hbs
 [+] post.hbs
 [+] page.hbs
 [+] subscribe.hbs
 [+] account.hbs
 [+] author.hbs
 [+] error.hbs
 [+] error-404.hbs
 [+] custom-authors.hbs
 [+] custom-tags.hbs
 [+] signin.hbs
 [+] signup.hbs
 [+] tag.hbs
 [+] partials/footer.hbs
 [+] partials/logo.hbs
 [+] partials/author-card.hbs
 [+] assets/img/logo/logo-white.png
 [+] assets/img/logo/logo.png
 [+] scripts.js
 [+] locales/en.json

ADDED NEW FILES
 [+] partials/icons/moon.hbs
 [+] partials/icons/sun.hbs
 [+] partials/members/free-subscriber-information.hbs
 [+] partials/members/subscriber-information.hbs
 [+] partials/members/notification.hbs
 [+] partials/members/visibility-content.hbs
 [+] partials/members/pricing-tables/plan-free.hbs
 [+] partials/members/pricing-tables/plan-monthly.hbs
 [+] partials/members/pricing-tables/plan-yearly.hbs
 [+] partials/sidebar/popular-author.hbs
 [+] partials/sidebar/popular-posts.hbs
 [+] partials/sidebar/popular-tags.hbs
 [+] partials/sidebar/popular-subscribe.hbs
 [+] partials/sidebar/share-post.hbs
 [+] partials/disqus-comment.hbs
 [+] _dark-version.scss

VERSION – 1.0.0: Release on 13 April 2019

[+] Initial Release

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