Right now, if you tag a published page with ghost-cards, it shows up as a section on the homepage, and since Ghost cards already let you build all sorts of layouts (hero, image, etc.), that one section gives quite a lot of flexibility already. I dropped the old ghost-defalt tag in favor of ghost-cards to avoid typos and keep things consistent.
I really like your idea about multiple columns. That’s something I’ll prioritize next, since it would give you the same kind of flexibility ghost-cards. The plan is to add grid layouts (1, 2, or 3 columns), so users can drop in a card-grid-1, card-grid-2 and card-grid-3. It’ll make combining single sections and multi-column grids feel much more natural, especially since everything can already be built visually inside Ghost itself.
The numbers simply define position:
1 = left
2 = center
3 = right
Caveats:
If only 1 and 2 are used, they act as left and right columns.
If someone tags the same position twice, Defalt just ignores the duplicate.
I might also rename ghost-cards to card-single to make it even clearer when defining a single section. It’s an easy way to build layouts like one section on top and two columns below.
Theme settings now match Ghost’s Design & branding → Customize.
Change to internal tags instead of public ones (much cleaner, no tag soup in the sidebar).
Two-column layout introduced with controls using #ghost-grid-1 and #ghost-grid-2, plus a vertical-on-mobile toggle and a gap slider for spacing.
Added an Announcement bar. Currently using an internal tag #announcement-bar.
I’m still trying to find the right balance here.
Ghost gives us tags as the main “hook” for selecting content, but it’s very easy to slip into tag-salad territory where users end up with layout tags, grouping tags, feature tags, SEO tags.
I could make the Announcement Bar pull from the title of a page, or hide it inside a structured data file, but then it breaks the nice consistency of ‘one section = one tagged page,’ which a lot of people seem to prefer because it keeps everything in Ghost Admin.
Still exploring the cleanest long-term pattern. How are you handling layout vs. content control in Ghost right now? Tags, page-based sections, or something custom?
@frederico wow… This is something we’ve been discussing and prototyping internally for the past week. We planned almost the same layout with nav/content/footer zones and the ability to add and manage sections inside them (actually inspired by Shopify). The same feature - build a theme visually and export it to a zip file.
I’m still shocked that you’ve already done the same thing, but we’ve never seen similar projects before
You focused purely on the Source theme, its settings, sections, and work with internal tags to display cards. We wanted to create our own sections collection with more variations and not limit users to pages with Ghost tags hell. However, we also wanted to add the possibility to build a visually Source-like theme, because many users use and like it.
I was browsing the forums looking for interesting tools or user requests that might help us with our theme builder, and what do I see… You’ve already done it. Congratulations! Your product looks really good.
Now we’re thinking about whether we should keep working on our product or stop it early
Just seen your offering https://www.fantasma.io/ How spookily similar. Great minds clearly do think alike. Great job.
@PriorityVision solution appears more robust and they are an established developer of themes, and so I have to say I’d be more inclined to use your offering. Frederico has no back story and on the forum for just 3 months, so I’d need to know more about him to use it over Fantasma. I hope Fantasma comes out of Beta soon as I’d use it in a heartbeat!
Their tool looks great. Really beautiful and polished, and the name is delicious. Defalt is developing at a slower pace, from the perspective of a Ghost user. It started as a solution to a problem I personally ran into. I’m improving it step by step, as people use it and as I learn what’s most useful.
Defalt is now open source under MIT. Full codebase on GitHub. You can self-host, contribute, or just poke around. Transparency matters, especially for a tool that touches your site.
Landing page now runs on Ghost .
You can connect your Ghost blog via API and preview your actual content while you build. Read-only, pulls your posts and pages. Makes a big difference when visualizing layouts.
Fixed bugs from earlier feedback. Internal tags are cleaner, two-column grid is stable. If something was broken before, worth another look.
Sign-up is now required. Not to gate anyone. I want to reach users directly when I ship features.
Introducing premium sections, starting with image-with-text. More coming. You can preview everything and build with it, you just can’t export premium sections until you pay. $9/month or $69 lifetime.
Honest take: might not be worth it yet. But some requested features need a server and database, and that has costs. Any support goes directly into building what people request.
Everything free stays free. Code is open. If you try it, let me know.
Hey all. I’m stepping away from active development on Defalt. The codebase is MIT-licensed and fully available on GitHub if anyone wants to fork or build on it. Thanks to everyone who gave feedback and supported the project.
For remaining fans of Defalt I strongly encourage you to look at https://www.fantasma.io from @PriorityVision It will blow your mind what can be done to the Source theme. Nikita is also very responsive to suggestions. It’s a game changer for Ghost for those of us who are missing the developer gene You can now design it all for yourself from the front end. No code required. This project needs supported so if you want to push the limits of Source, try it out today!
Your product looks really good.
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You can now design it all for yourself from the front end. No code required. This project needs supported so if you want to push the limits of Source, try it out today!