Gazette documentation

A bold, colourful Ghost theme for news magazines, with a live blog, save-for-later and follow-a-topic feeds.

Thank you for choosing Gazette. This guide covers everything from uploading the theme to setting up paid memberships. If something is not covered here, write to support@codememory.com — we answer within one working day.

• Version1.0.0
• Ghost6.0.0 or later
• Live demogazette.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com
• AuthorCode Memory

Highlights

• Colour-coded sections: each tag's accent colour runs through its kicker, section block, tag page and reading bar
• Front page with a cover story, two side stories and a Just in list with times like "2 hours ago"
• Editor's picks: featured posts in a numbered black band
• For you: readers follow sections and get a personal row of their newest stories, no account needed
• Section blocks on the homepage for your four biggest sections, with Follow buttons
• Live blog post template: timestamped updates, key events, newest/oldest order and a new-updates alert
• Save for later: a bookmark on every story and a reading list drawer in the header
• Masthead with a date bar, centred wordmark and section navigation that compacts on scroll
• Serif reading text with a coloured drop cap, pull quotes, tables and toggle FAQs
• Co-author bylines with stacked avatars
• Sections page with colour tiles and latest headlines, and a journalists page
• Membership page with tiers and a monthly/yearly switch
• Styled paywall for members-only and paid stories
• Sign in, sign up and account pages
• Light, dark and system modes with a reader toggle
• Button text switches between black and white to suit your accent colour
• Reading progress bar in the section's colour, image lightbox
• Self-hosted fonts (Archivo variable, Source Serif 4)
• Fully translatable, 18 theme settings, no jQuery

What is in the download

themeforest-gazette-ghost-theme/
├── documentation/                          ← you are here
└── gazette_1.0.0_for_ghost_6.0.0_or_later/
    ├── gazette.zip                          ← upload this file to Ghost
    └── gazette/                             ← the same theme, unzipped, with source files

You only need gazette.zip to use the theme. The unzipped folder is there for developers who want to change the code (see Development).

Installation

1. Sign in to your Ghost admin (yoursite.com/ghost).
2. Go to Settings → Design & branding → Customize → Change theme.
3. Click Upload theme and choose gazette.zip from the gazette_1.0.0_for_ghost_6.0.0_or_later folder. Do not upload the whole download.
4. Click Activate.

Updating

When a new version is released, download it from your ThemeForest Downloads page and upload the new gazette.zip the same way. Ghost asks whether to overwrite the existing theme — choose Overwrite. Your content, navigation and theme settings are kept.

If you edited the theme files yourself, keep a copy of your changes first: an update replaces every file.

Quick setup (10 minutes)

To make your site look like the demo, do these steps in order. Each one is explained in detail further down.

1. Brand: Settings → Design & branding → set the Accent colour, upload a logo and a site icon.
2. Navigation: Settings → Navigation → add your main links (see Navigation).
3. Pages: create the pages in Pages and templates and pick the matching template.
4. Membership: Settings → Membership → turn on signups; add paid tiers and connect Stripe (see Membership).
5. Theme settings: Design & branding → Theme tab (see Theme settings).
6. Section colours: in Tags, give each section tag an accent colour (use strong, darker colours: white text sits on them). Posts use the colour of their primary (first) tag.
7. Editor's picks: mark up to 4 posts as Featured.

Logo, colours and fonts

Accent colour

Settings → Design & branding → Accent colour. Gazette uses it for buttons, links, highlights and the reading-progress bar. Gazette's accent is highlighter yellow (#FFE600 by default), used for Subscribe buttons, badges, the logo dot and link highlights. Button text turns black or white automatically so any accent stays readable. Section colours come from each tag's own accent colour.

Logo

Upload a logo in Design & branding → Brand. Without a logo, Gazette shows the site title in the theme's display font. A transparent PNG or SVG around 400 × 100 px works best. If your logo is dark, upload a light version in the Theme tab under Logo for dark mode.

Fonts

Gazette ships its own fonts (Archivo Normal, Source Serif 4 Italic, Source Serif 4 Normal), hosted inside the theme — no requests to Google. To use different fonts, pick a Heading font and Body font in Design & branding → Brand. The theme follows your choice everywhere. Choose Theme default to go back.

Light and dark mode

In the Theme tab, Color scheme sets the default: Light, Dark or System (follows the reader's device). Readers can switch with the moon/sun button in the header or the switch in the menu; their choice is remembered on that device.

Navigation

Settings → Navigation. Primary navigation appears in the header and the full-screen menu. Secondary navigation appears in the footer. Links from the demo:

Tag pages have the address /tag/<tag-slug>/, author pages /author/<author-slug>/.

Theme settings

Settings → Design & branding → Customize. Theme settings are split between the Site wide, Homepage and Post tabs. Every setting:

Running a live blog

1. Create a post and choose the Live blog template in the post settings.
2. Add the internal tag #live while it is running. The post shows a pulsing LIVE badge everywhere, and readers' pages check for new updates every minute (turn this off with Live refresh). Remove #live when it ends; the post then says Updates have ended.
3. Write a short summary at the top. Then write each update under a heading that starts with a time: 14:32 — Title (24-hour or 2:32 pm). Use H3 for normal updates and H2 for key events; key events are listed in the side rail.
4. Add new updates at the top (newest first). Readers can switch to oldest first.

Save for later and For you

Both features work without accounts and keep their data in each reader's browser.

• Save for later — every card and story has a bookmark. Saved stories appear in the reading list drawer (bookmark button in the header). Turn off with Show save buttons.
• Follow — sections have Follow buttons on the homepage, the tag page, the Sections page and at the end of each story. The homepage For you row shows the newest stories from followed sections. Turn off with Show follow buttons or Show For you.

Homepage

1. Front — your newest post as the cover, the next two beside it and posts 4–9 in Just in.
2. Editor's picks — featured posts (Show picks, Picks title).
3. For you — follow buttons and the personal row (Show For you, For you title).
4. Section blocks — your four biggest sections (Show section blocks).
5. More stories — the rest, with a More stories button. Gazette shows 12 posts per page.

Pages and templates

Gazette includes page templates for the pages every membership site needs. Create a page in Ghost (Pages → New page), set its URL in the page settings, then choose the Template in the same panel.

Tip: the membership page shows your tiers automatically. Anything you write in the page body appears underneath — the demo uses toggle cards for a FAQ.

Post templates

Choose a template per post in the post settings panel → Template.

Membership, tiers and payments

Gazette is built for Ghost's members features: free and paid signups, tiers, a paywall and the Portal popup.

1. Turn on signups

Settings → Membership → Access → Who should be able to subscribe? → Anyone can sign up.

2. Connect Stripe

Settings → Membership → Tiers → Connect with Stripe. Use test mode first, then switch to live mode when you are ready to take real payments.

3. Create tiers

Settings → Membership → Tiers. Add a name, monthly and yearly prices, a description and benefits. Gazette shows every public tier on the membership page with a monthly/yearly switch, and marks the second tier as Most popular.

4. Members-only content

In a post's settings set Post access to Members only, Paid-members only or specific tiers. Readers without access see the start of the post and a paywall box that invites them to join or upgrade. To choose where the preview stops, add a Public preview divider in the editor (type /public).

5. Sign-up forms and buttons

Subscribe forms in the theme create free members and send a confirmation email. Every Subscribe, Sign in and Account button opens Ghost's Portal popup, so members can change plans, update cards and cancel without leaving your site.

Newsletters, comments and search

Newsletters: Settings → Newsletters. Posts can be sent by email when you publish. The theme's subscribe forms subscribe readers to your default newsletters.

Comments: Settings → Membership → Commenting. When on, comments appear under every post that the reader has access to.

Search: works out of the box. The search icon in the header opens Ghost's search; readers can also press Ctrl/⌘ + K.

Reading features

• Reading progress bar on posts, in the post's topic colour (can be turned off in the Post tab).
• Image lightbox: click any image or gallery photo in a post to see it full screen; use the arrow keys to move through a gallery.
• Every editor card is styled: images (regular, wide, full), galleries, quotes, callouts, toggles, bookmarks, buttons, videos, audio, files, products, headers and signups. Create a page with every card to check your brand — the demo's style guide shows them all.

Posts per page

The home, tag and author pages load 12 posts, then a Load more button fetches the next set without reloading the page. To change the number, edit "posts_per_page" in package.json, zip the theme folder and upload it again.

Translation

Every word in the theme can be translated.

1. In the unzipped theme folder, copy locales/en.json to a new file named after your language code, for example locales/fr.json.
2. Translate the values (the text on the right). Keep the keys (the text on the left) and anything in {curly braces} unchanged.
3. Zip the theme folder and upload it.
4. Settings → General → Publication language → enter the same code (fr).

Custom CSS

Small style changes do not need a new theme upload. Settings → Code injection → Site header:

<style>
.sect-head { border-radius: 12px 12px 0 0; }
.logo-dot { background: #ff2d55; }
</style>

Development

For larger changes, work on the unzipped gazette/ folder. You need Node.js 20 or later.

cd gazette
npm install        # once
npm run dev        # rebuild CSS/JS on every change
npm run build      # one-off build
npm test           # check the theme with gscan
npm run zip        # dist/gazette.zip, ready to upload

CSS lives in src/css (one file per area, joined by main.css); JavaScript in src/js. Built files go to assets/built. Templates are Handlebars files in the theme root and in partials/.

Questions

Support

Support is included with your purchase and covers: answering questions about the theme's features, and fixing bugs. It does not cover custom changes or problems with third-party code.

Email support@codememory.com with your purchase code and your site address. See the changelog for what changed in each version and third-party materials for credits.