Pixel documentation

A sharp Ghost theme for tech reviews, with a bento homepage, review scores, price chips and automatic Pros, Cons and Verdict boxes.

Thank you for choosing Pixel. 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 demopixel.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com
• AuthorCode Memory

Highlights

• Bento homepage: one large lead story, two mid tiles and a Top rated panel in a rounded grid
• Review scores from an internal tag (#score 8.8): a score chip on every card and a score ring on the review
• Price chip from an internal tag (#price $899)
• Top rated panel that orders your featured reviews by score, best first
• Pros and Cons: two normal lists under "Pros" and "Cons" headings become a green and a red card, side by side
• Verdict box: the text under a "Verdict" heading becomes a dark panel with the score ring
• Score scale of 10, 5 or 100
• Floating pill header that stays in view, with search, a light/dark toggle and member buttons
• Sticky contents list beside long reviews, built from your headings
• Two post layouts: Review (image beside the title) and Cover (full-width image)
• Topic chips under the bento for fast browsing, plus Topics and Writers page templates
• Membership page with tiers and a monthly/yearly switch; styled paywall for members and paid posts
• Sign in, sign up and account pages
• Each topic has its own colour (tag accent colour) on cards and chips
• Light, dark and system modes with a reader toggle
• Reading progress bar, image lightbox, galleries, spec tables and toggle cards
• Large dark footer panel with your site name as a giant wordmark
• Self-hosted fonts (Space Grotesk, Geist, Geist Mono)
• Fully translatable, 17 theme settings, no jQuery

What is in the download

themeforest-pixel-ghost-theme/
├── documentation/                          ← you are here
├── sample-content/pixel-sample-content.json  ← optional demo posts (see Sample content)
└── pixel_1.0.0_for_ghost_6.0.0_or_later/
    ├── pixel.zip                          ← upload this file to Ghost
    └── pixel/                             ← the same theme, unzipped, with source files

You only need pixel.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 pixel.zip from the pixel_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 pixel.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. Scores: add an internal tag such as #score 8.8 to a review. Add #price $899 for the price chip.
7. Top rated: mark your best reviews as Featured. Pixel orders them by score.

Sample content

The download includes the demo's text as a Ghost import file: sample-content/pixel-sample-content.json. It holds 31 posts, 8 pages, 8 tags and the demo writers, with the same templates and settings per post as the live demo. Use it to see how Pixel looks with real content, or as a starting point you edit.

1. Use a new or test site — the import adds posts next to anything you already have.
2. Go to Settings → Advanced → Import/Export → Import content.
3. Choose pixel-sample-content.json and confirm.
4. Set up Navigation, page templates and theme settings as described below. Ghost does not import these from a content file.

Logo, colours and fonts

Accent colour

Settings → Design & branding → Accent colour. Pixel uses it for buttons, links, highlights and the reading-progress bar. Pixel uses your accent colour (electric indigo #5B4BFF by default) for buttons, links, the logo mark and the score ring. Button text turns black or white automatically so any accent stays readable. Each topic uses its tag's accent colour for its chip.

Logo

Upload a logo in Design & branding → Brand. Without a logo, Pixel 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

Pixel ships its own fonts (Geist Mono, Geist, Space Grotesk), 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:

Writing a review

1. Score: in the post settings, add an internal tag that starts with #score, for example #score 8.8. The score shows as a chip on cards and as a ring on the review and in the Verdict box. Choose the scale (10, 5 or 100) with Score max.
2. Price: add an internal tag such as #price $899. Any text after #price is shown as written.
3. Pros and Cons: write a heading Pros with a bulleted list under it, then a heading Cons with a bulleted list. Pixel places them side by side as two cards.
4. Verdict: write a heading Verdict followed by one or more paragraphs. Pixel turns them into a dark panel with the score.

The words Pros, Cons and Verdict come from the translation file, so they follow your site language. Posts without a score tag are normal articles: no chip, no ring. Turn the boxes off with Show review boxes.

Homepage

1. Bento — your three newest posts as one large and two mid tiles, plus the Top rated panel (Show bento, Show top rated, Top rated title).
2. Topic chips — your public tags with their colours (Show topic chips).
3. Latest — a card grid with a Load more button (Latest title). Pixel shows 9 per page.
4. Newsletter — a signup panel for visitors who are not members (Newsletter title, Newsletter text).

Post layouts

Default (Review): the title, score ring and price sit beside the feature image. Best for product reviews.

Cover: choose Cover under Template in the post settings. The feature image runs full width above a centred title. Best for guides and features.

Both layouts show a sticky contents list on wide screens when the post has headings (Show toc).

Pages and templates

Pixel 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

Pixel 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. Pixel 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 9 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>
:root { --lime: #ffd84d; }
.header-inner { border-radius: 14px; }
</style>

Development

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

cd pixel
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/pixel.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.