Ever since the WordPress shifted from being a blogging only platform to a fully featured Content Management System, a void has been created in the blogging world. We cannot ignore the fact that still there is a section of tech enthusiasts who long for a simple and effective blogging platform (to write on the web) comprehending no inbuilt CMS features.
Here comes the new entrant- Ghost, hoping to meet the requirement of having blogging only platform.
Introducing GHOST
Ghost is an open source, lightweight(3.4 MB) blogging platform that is written in JavaScript. It is specifically designed to simplify the online publishing process of bloggers and publications.
This simple and free blogging framework is once again brought up to revamp the online publishing instead of just focusing on the website building.
Behind The Scenes Of GHOST Inception
John O™Nolan- the man behind Ghost, was formerly working as a deputy head, designer and developer of WordPress UX. He came up with this new design concept that was assumed to be simple, unique & original and supposed to bring waves in the worldwide blogging community. This concept was for his new blogging platform which he named Ghost.
It was in the year 2012 when the first draft about Ghost publicized and soon after, in October 2013, the first public version of Ghost was out. Receiving the overwhelming response, Nolan collaborated with Hannah Wolfe to create the first prototype version. In the initial funding campaign started by Kickstarter, it received an average funding of £25,000 in 11 hours that went up to a final total of £196,362 during the 29-day campaign.
Exemplary Features Of Ghost
Here are the features that a blogger can look for into Ghost as a professional blogging platform.
1.Develop unique and independent online publication: Ghost can be highly customized to create web publications right from a single blog to a newspaper. This platform can be utilized as per your designing needs.
2.Swift & effective writing: Experience the faster and better writing with Ghost. It comprehends split-screen editor that has Markdown syntax on the left side and the preview on the right.
3. Work collectively: Use the multi-user blog option to work with your entire blogger team together. Ghost lets you create your own scintillating customized blog with multi-blogger support function, where each of them can write and read together.
4. Easily manageable content: Ghost gives you the freedom of browsing and archiving the content exactly the same way you do in email. You can now totally control your workflow.
Benefits Of Using Ghost Over Any Other Blogging Platform
After knowing the features of Ghost, let us know the benefits of using this remarkable framework. Here are the features of Ghost:
1.Simple & Intuitive
Ghost prevents you from navigating through those complex boxes and functions during content publishing. If you want to experience the best ever developed writing editor, go for Ghost as it is specifically designed to render the never felt before writing experience. Use the Markdown feature endowed with the live-preview function to manage your content easily.
2.Inbuilt Social and SEO functionality
Ghost proffers an extensive support for search engine optimization and different social media sharings. There is no need to install or add a plugin or extensions or even coding, to activate this feature. As it provides an inbuilt support for this feature, it works efficiently. It comprehends optimized URLs, Facebook Open Graph tags, semantic markups, microformats, canonical tags and twitter card support. This automatic support eases your work of blogging.
3.Easy Installation
Ghost is so much easy to install as compared to WordPress. As in WordPress, first of all, you have to download the software and then find a hosting provider. Further, you have to sign up for the new account followed by files to be uploaded over FTP. And then you have to install a new MySQL database to actually begin the installation process. Well, in the case of Ghost, it comes with its official Ghost (Pro) official hosted service that gives a powerful self-hosting control. This saves a lot of time.
4.Ghost Is Fast
Since Ghost is powered with the advanced technology stack constituting Node.js, which is why it runs so swiftly such that it beats any other preceding blogging platform. The ranking and popularity of your blog depend on its loading speed, and in every way, Ghost can prove to be beneficial.
5.Easily Accessible and Affordable
Ghost(Pro) is a fully-managed hosting service that provides extensive infrastructure and support at an affordable cost. Here is a picture showing the comparison.
6. Be your own content manger
Unlike Tumblr, where you have to give up the rights to your content allowing them to change, remove, edit or even modify your content howsoever they want. Though it gives your work a vast exposure in people network but at the same time, you tend to have fewer rights to your content, which is not acceptable many of the times. On the other hand, Ghost comprehends an official hosted service that allows you to begin with your new blog in three easy clicks. This saves a lot of time in publishing a new blog.
How To Install Ghost
Here is a tutorial on how to install Ghost and start with it.
First of all, download the zip file from the ghost.org account and get it unzipped. Upload the file and check it has been put up as /var/www.
Now go the /var/www and run these below mentioned commands:
sudo npm install –production
sudo npm install mysql
sudo npm install forever -g
Use Forever to keep Ghost running actively in the background. This will check and restart Ghost, in case it crashes or stops anytime. Now, start by creating a file in /var/www/ and name this file as starter.sh
sudo nano -w /var/www/starter.sh
Now paste the command in the script given below
#!/bin/sh
1 2 3 4 5 6 | <span style="color: #3366ff;">if [ $(ps aux | grep node | grep -v grep | wc -l | tr -s "\n") -eq 0 ]</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">then</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> export NODE_ENV=production</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> NODE_ENV=production forever start --sourceDir /var/www index.js >> /var/log/nodelog.txt 2>&1</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">Fi</span> |
Now enter this below mentioned command:
sudo chmod +x /var/www/starter.sh
Fix all the permissions by:
sudo chown -R www-data:www-data /var/www/
Add line to the command lists:
sudo crontab -e
If you have used crontab -e for the first time, then you will definitely be asked to choose the editor. You can go for nano, in the case you prefer simple edits. This line should be placed at the end of the line and save it:
@reboot /var/www/starter.sh
Now comes the Ghost config.js file. Open to edit it:
sudo nano -w /var/www/config.js
Replace the default URL with your own in the lines under development and production declarations.
1 2 3 4 5 | <span style="color: #3366ff;">development: {</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> // The URL to use when providing links to the site, E.g. in RSS and email.</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">url: 'http:// YOUR_DOMAIN',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">production: {</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> url: 'http:// YOUR_DOMAIN',</span> |
It™s time to edit the database configuration. Find the database block in the development and replace it completely with the code mentioned below. And, set the password of your choice.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | <span style="color: #3366ff;">database: {</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> client: 'mysql',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> connection: {</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> host: 'localhost',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> user: 'ghost',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> password: 'YOUR_PASSWORD',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> database: 'ghostdev',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> charset: 'utf8'</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> }</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> },</span> |
Repeat the same with the production database code:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 | <span style="color: #3366ff;">database: {</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> client: 'mysql',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> connection: {</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> host: 'localhost',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> user: 'ghost',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> password: 'YOUR_PASSWORD',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> database: 'ghost',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> charset: 'utf8'</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> }</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;"> },</span> |
This was all to install and start Ghost. You are now ready to work with it. To check, go into the /var/www directory and enter this command:
sudo ./starter.sh
This will start your Ghost!
More About Ghost Installation
Since Ghost has been developed as an application of node written in JavaScript, which makes the installation part slightly tricky as compared to its counterparts. But no worries, much of its setup can be accessed through automatic installers proffered by the third party sources.
Remember, Ghost uses SQLite3 as a default database, which would be automatically chosen for storing content. But you are free to choose your own backend by doing editing in the configuration file of the Ghost installation directory.
Take a look at the example of Ghost directory mentioning the use of MySQL as the database:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 | <span style="color: #3366ff;">database: { client: 'mysql', connection: {</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">host: 'localhost', user: 'ghostUser',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">password: 'ghostPass',</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">database: 'ghostDB', charset: 'utf8'</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">}</span> <span style="color: #3366ff;">}</span> |
Future Of Ghost
Lately, a number of assumptions have been aired about the future of Ghost with its counterparts. But comparing the future of the Ghost with other blogging-cum-CMS platforms is silly. Ghost is being specifically designed as a platform to write on the web. So one must understand that it comprehends different functionality only related to blogging and comparing it with a CMS-based platform will be of no use.
Ghost supposedly holds a bright future for all bloggers and definitely gives a number of reasons to think if the platform they are currently using is better than Ghost or not.
Conclusion
Still confused whether to go for Ghost or not! You already know the features and benefits of this new blogging platform. Now to know if it is actually useful, you must download it from Ghost™ homepage. There is an official WordPress Plugin facilitating the Ghost. This Ghost WP plugin allows the user to export WordPress data in a format which is compatible and can be easily imported to Ghost platform.
I would suggest you to download it first and then dive deeper into its functionality, to know all its pros and cons. Get it, Use it and Praise it!
