Riot documentation

A bold, colourful neo-brutalist Ghost theme for creator newsletters, paid communities and personal brands.

Thank you for choosing Riot. 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 demoriot.ghostcms.templates.codememory.com
• AuthorCode Memory

Highlights

• Sticker-covered homepage hero with a big subscribe form
• Personal photo frame with a spinning star and a name sticker
• Tilted, animated topic marquee
• 'Start here' grid of your featured posts in rotating candy colours
• Issue list with dates, topic stickers and lock badges
• Colour-block post header that takes the colour of the post's tag
• No-image post template for text-only issues
• Subscribe box, author card and previous/next issue after every post
• Topics page with bright colour cards
• Membership page with tiers and a monthly/yearly switch
• Styled paywall for members-only and paid issues
• Sign in, sign up and account pages
• Light, dark and system modes with a reader toggle
• Reading progress bar and image lightbox
• Self-hosted fonts (Bricolage Grotesque, Space Mono)
• Fully translatable, 19 theme settings, no jQuery

What is in the download

themeforest-riot-ghost-theme/
├── documentation/                          ← you are here
└── riot_1.0.0_for_ghost_6.0.0_or_later/
    ├── riot.zip                          ← upload this file to Ghost
    └── riot/                             ← the same theme, unzipped, with source files

You only need riot.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 riot.zip from the riot_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 riot.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. Hero image: upload a photo of yourself in Hero image (Homepage tab). A portrait photo of at least 900 × 1100 px works best.
7. Tag colours: give each main tag a colour in Tags → Edit → Color. Post headers, cards and topic cards use it.
8. Featured posts: mark 3 posts as Featured for the 'Start here' section.

Logo, colours and fonts

Accent colour

Settings → Design & branding → Accent colour. Riot uses it for buttons, links, highlights and the reading-progress bar. Riot's default accent is hot pink (#FF5F9E), used for the main buttons, list bullets and focus rings. Card colours come from each tag's colour.

Logo

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

Riot ships its own fonts (Bricolage Grotesque, Space Mono), 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:

Homepage

1. Hero — your headline (Hero title), a short line (Hero text), a subscribe form and a line of social proof (Social proof). The photo on the right is Hero image (or the site cover image). Hero sticker and Image sticker set the two small labels.
2. Topic marquee — your ten biggest public tags scroll past in a tilted band. It stops when a reader hovers over it, and stays still for readers who turn on reduce motion.
3. Start here — your three newest featured posts as colour cards. Settings: Show start here, Start title.
4. Latest issues — every post as a dated row, with Load more.
5. Premium box — shown to visitors and free members when paid memberships are on. Settings: Premium title, Premium text.

Tag colours

Riot is built on six candy colours. Cards in a grid rotate through them automatically. When a post's primary tag has a colour (Tags → Edit → Color), that colour is used instead: in the post header box, on its card and on the tag page header.

Choose bright, light colours so black text stays readable. The demo uses #FFD23F, #3DDC97, #C3A3FF, #FF85C8, #7B9BFF and #FF9150.

Posts

A post opens with a big colour box holding the tag stickers, title, excerpt and byline, then the feature image in a thick frame. Choose the No image template to hide the feature image for text-only issues (it is still used on cards and when shared).

After the post, readers get the share bar, a subscribe box, the author card and previous/next issue links. Each can be turned off in the Post settings tab.

Pages and templates

Riot 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

Riot 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. Riot 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 10 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 { --b: 2px solid var(--ink); --shadow: 4px 4px 0 var(--ink); }
.marquee { transform: none; }
</style>

Development

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

cd riot
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/riot.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.