Documentation

Menia

Enamul Haque

Dec 4, 2024 — 14 min read

Getting Started

Menia is a responsive minimal and clean ghost blogging theme specially designed for Magazine, Blog, personal. It is a totally new design, extreme features and supported all the features of Ghost 5.x.x. This theme is built with SASS, Handlebars, and a lot of options.

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

Menia theme setup is very easy. If you have already installed a server for Ghost you can easily set up Menia theme. If you don’t have a server supported 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 the ghost dashboard. to do this

Download theme file from ElectronThemes Dashboard
Log in to your Ghost admin panel.
Go to Settings > Theme > Upload a theme and upload “menia.zip“
Click Activate.

Uploading the theme via (FTP)

Follow the instructions

Login to your FTP account.
Unzip the menia.zip file and copy menia 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 the theme “menia“
Click Save.

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

General Setup

Publication Info

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

Title
Description
Site Timezone
Publication Language

Logo

We have used SVG Logo for the theme . You can change SVG Logo from Dashboard > Settings > 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

Favicon Icon

Ghost shows his ghost logo in your site by default. You can change Favicon Icon or Publication Icon from Dashboard > Settings Icon > Design > Brand > Publication Icon

Publication Cover

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

Language

You can use the publication in your native language. To change the language of your publication site, your theme must have support for translation. To change language:

Go to Settings > General > Publication Language and click on Expand
Change the default language en with your language code
You can find all the language code here: HTML Language Code Reference

Site Meta Settings

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

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

The social account section is for showing Facebook, Twitter links to your site. Go to Dashboard > Settings > Social Accounts

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

Create a Post

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

Feature Image
Post Title
Post content

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 an 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 in this post

Create Tag

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

Create Author

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

Click on Invite people and you will get a new popup. You have to add your 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 fields for code injections. 1. Site Header and 2. Site Footer

The site Header is for loading the scripts or style in the header
Site Footer will load the scripts or style in the footer

Go Dashboard > Settings > Code Injection

Integrations

Integrations are another cool feature of Ghost. You can connect a lot of third-party plugins or APIs using integrations. To check the integrations,

Login to the Admin panel
Go to Dashboard > Settings > Integrations.
Click on + Add custom integration button and add a name for creating integration
You can use Content API Key or Admin API Key or API URL

Labs

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

Import Content
Export your content
Delete All Content
Redirects
Routes

Members

If you want to get subscriptions and paid customers, you can use the Members option in this panel. When you click on this you will get in details

Migration Options

You will get some options here like Import content, export content, and delete content options

Routes

Routes are another important part. When you want to use different path links or custom files for pages and different homepages, you can use routes.yaml files to do that. Here is the default .yaml for a ghost.

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

Dark, Light, and Auto Mode

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

If you want to use the Light and Auto version for default, you can change it from your custom settings. The auto version depends on your device's color scheme mode. if the device has selected dark mode, you will get auto dark and device has selected light mode, you will get auto-light. You will find the settings Settings > Design > Site Design > Site-WIde > Select Color Scheme

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

Secondary Menu
Footer Social Profiles

Footer Social Profiles

Change footer social profile links at partials > footer.hbs and you can add more links after copying this. Change # with your links. Line numbers 11 to 27

<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

Secondary menu

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

Copyright text

You can change footer copyright text from Dashboard > Settings Icon > Design > Site-Wide > Site Footer

if you change the site footer box text . you will get the output on the footer copyright text.

Homepage

On the homepage, you will get some sections.

Featured Posts
Daily Update News

Featured Posts

We have shown a slider on the homepage will the featured posts. If you set a post as featured, it will be added automatically in the slider.

Daily Update News

Daily update news comes with the latest posts on the dashboard. We have shown 9 the latest posts.

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 Templates

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

Page Template

Membership
Account
Contact
Authors
Tags
Signin
Signup

Selecting page template

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

Page url

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

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

Membership and Subscriptions

The 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

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

Create Tiers and show them on the membership page

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

Create Account Page

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

Search Options

From Ghost 5.7, they released a Ghost Native Search. We implemented this feature on this

If you install this theme in your ghost dashboard, Ghost Native Search will be activated automatically.

We have created third-party real-time search options for the theme file also. You can activate the search easier. When you install the theme file, you have configured and add the content API key on the code injection

Create a custom integrations
Copy Content API Key from your created custom integration

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

Contact form

In the contact form, we have used Formspree for getting form data.

You need to create a Formspree account
Collect form endpoint
Add this to Settings > Design > Site Wide > Contact form endpoint URL

Comments

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

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

If you want to use other comment features like Cove or Disqus. You can use it. This theme supports both comment box. You will find both comment boxes in the partials folder in the theme file.

Cove Comment

Cove is popular comment system for ghosts. You can easily manage comments for members and paid members' posts. It is a premium comment system. We have a setup for cove comments. You easily change with your comments.

Create an account in Cove.chat and Login
Click on +Create a New Account and add a name
Copy the publication ID and paste it in Settings > Design > Site Design > Post
Publication ID. Copy this ID and paste to Cove publication field.
Replace publication id with your account code

Disqus Comment

We have used discus comments for this theme. We have used our own Disqus account. You can change easily with your Disqus shortname. Follow the process to create your Disqus account and get a short name.

You can create your Disqus code in the next url: http://disqus.com/admin/create/
Add a short-name for Website Name
Your unique “Disqus URL” is your short name copy that name and click finish registration.
Go to Settings > Design > Site Design > Post and Select Disqus from Select comment select option.
Go to Settings > Design > Site Design > Post > Disqus shortname;
Change with your shortname, in this case ‘example-shortname’;
Save.

Disable Comments from site

If you want to disable comments from your posts, select Disable from Settings > Design > Site Design > Post > Select Comment. If will disable comments from your site

Github Deployment

Menia theme is ready for deployment 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:

Unzip newsportal.zip (this is the template-only file) and remember where is the folder location.
Install a SASS compiler, we recommend you to use Prepos 6, you can download it here.
Click on “Browse” to add a 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, for example:

// Primary and Secondary Color
:root {
   --color-primary: #1e272e;
   --color-text: #4f5b6d;
   --color-heading: #192536;
}

Changelog

VERSION – 4.1.2: Release on 04 October 2023

* ADDED: Header card improvements feature
* ADDED: Twitter new icon
* FIXED: FX Light box gallery image issues
* Small css issues fixed and improvement performance

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

    [+] NEWLY ADDED FILES
    assets/scss/_prism.scss

VERSION – 4.1.1: Release on 12 June 2023

* ADDED: Added FX Light box gallery image view feature
* Removed all deprecated code
* Small css issues fixed and improvement performance

[+] CHANGED FILES
    assets/css/style.css → partials/css/style.hbs
    assets/js/scripts.js
    .github/workflows/deploy-theme.yml
    partials/icons/chevron.hbs
    partials/blog-social-meta.hbs
    partials/navigation.hbs
    partials/author-box.hbs
    partials/featured-slider.hbs
    partials/header.hbs
    partials/footer.hbs
    partials/social-share.hbs
    post.hbs
    default.hbs
    package.json

[-] REMOVED FILES:
    assets/scss/style.css

VERSION – 4.1.0: Release on 14 November 2022

* ADDED: Compatible with ghost version 5.0
* ADDED: Added support for public preview posts for members only posts
* ADDED: Native search, Native comments
* ADDED: Support for new price plan helper
* ADDED: Table of content support
* ADDED: Auto color scheme (dark/light) support
* Updated deprecated functions
* Small css issues fixed
* performance improvements

[+] CHANGED FILES
    assets/css/style.css
    assets/scss/style.scss ( All scss file included)
    assets/js/scripts.j
    partials/footer.hb
    partials/comments/cove-comments.hb
    partials/header.hb
    partials/logo.hb
    partials/footer.hb
    partials/post-loop.hb
    partials/related-posts.hb
    partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-free.hb
    partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-table.hb
    partials/members/subscriber-information.hbs
    partials/navigation.hbs
    partials/members/paid-post-box.hbs
    partials/featured-slider.hbs
    partials/post-card.hbs
    partials/author-card.hbs
    custom-account.hbs
    custom-membership.hbs
    custom-contact.hbs
    default.hbs
    index.hbs
    tag.hbs
    post.hbs
    page.hbs
    package.json
        
[+] NEWLY ADDED FILES
    partials/comments/disqus-comment.hbs
    custom-subscribe.hbs
    partials/blog-social-meta.hbs
    partials/comments/cove-comments.hbs
    partials/comments/disqus-comment.hbs
    partials/post-full-content.hbs
    partials/page-header.hbs
    partials/post-header.hbs
    partials/comments/native-comments.hbs

[+] DELETED FILES
    partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-monthly.hbs
    partials/members/pricing-tables/pricing-yearly.hbs

Version 3.0.2: Release on 25 August 20

[+] Dark Version added

CHANGED FILES
[+] _variables.scss
[+] All SCSS files
[+] assets/js/scripts.js
[+] partials/header.hbs
[+] partials/author-card.hbs
[+] partials/search.hbs
[+] partials/featured-slider.hbs
[+] partials/footer.hbs
[+] post.hbs
[+] error.hbs
[+] custom-authors.hbs
[+] custom-tags.hbs
[+] default.hbs
[+] assets/js/plugins.min.js
[+] assets/js/scripts.js

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/paid-post-box.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/disqus-comment.hbs
[+] _dark-version.scss
[+] custom-signin.hbs
[+] custom-signup.hbs
[+] custom-membership.hbs
[+] custom-account.hbs
[+] custom-contact.hbs
[+] partials/icons/dark.hbs
[+] partials/icons/light.hbs

DELETED FILES
[-] routes.yaml
[-] gulpfile.js

Version 3.0.1 – 09/04/2020

------------------
New Features
------------------
- Pricing table for membership
- Signin page
- Signup page
- Paid post feature
- Member only post feature
- Bookmark added
- Gallery zoom
- Secondary Menu

------------------
Fixed: issues
------------------
- Style guide issues fixed
- post card style 
- Footer instagram removed

Version 1.0 – 12 June 19

- initial release