The new Ghost editor - Ghost Changelog

News
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Faster and more robust than ever before, we just shipped a complete rewrite of the Ghost editor. This is our third major iteration of the Ghost editor, packed with new features, including:

And some fixes for longstanding issues with our previous editor, like:

  • Faster overall performance - things just feel more snappy
  • Improved handling of very large posts - which, in the past, was... painful
  • Better undo/redo chaining - a smoother experience when fixing mistakes
  • Much improved mobile editing - so you can write on the go in iOS / Android
  • Nested lists - for structuring your bulleted thoughts
    • Which wasn't possible before
      • But is now
  • More keyboard shortcuts - find the full list in the post settings menu

The new editor is now available across all Ghost installs. Ghost(Pro) users can log into their sites to give it a try. If you're a developer, self-hosting Ghost, you'll need to update to the latest version to get access to everything that's new.

Developer changes

Keep reading below if you're curious about the technical details behind the new editor, and what it means if you're building API integrations with Ghost.

As we worked on this new editor, one of our main goals was to keep things the same. We made a few visual tweaks here and there, but for the most part it's still the same editor you know and love... it just works better than it did before.

Under the hood, though, the technical changes we've made to the editor unlock exciting possibilities for the future.

Ghost's editor, called Koenig, was previously built in Ember.js on an open JSON-based document storage format called MobileDoc. We loved how it worked, but MobileDoc never became widely adopted, so the technology underpinning our editor became a bit stagnant. This limited our ability to build new features, or solve frustrating core bugs (like better mobile support).

Koenig has now been rebuilt on a new stack: React.js and Lexical — both of which are open source frameworks developed by Meta. So, Ghost is now using the same underlying technology that powers every single editor, comment box, or user input for billions of users across Facebook and Instagram.

Try the new Koenig editor for yourself — https://koenig.ghost.org

Ghost is the first independent company outside of Meta to build a full-scale dynamic editor on top of Lexical, and we worked directly with the Lexical core team to make it happen. Today's announcement reflects over a year of quiet, dedicated work by both teams to get to where we are now.

We have lots of plans for continuing to improve Ghost's editing experience, and this shift in architecture has opened a lot of new doors for what's possible next.

For developers building integrations with Ghost, check out our updated API docs, which cover how to interact with Lexical content stored in the database:

Ghost Admin API Documentation
Manage content via Ghost’s Admin API, with secure role-based authentication. Read more on Ghost Docs 👉
Ghost - The Professional Publishing Platform
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What’s happening to posts created in the old editor? Are they being automatically converted, or still editable in the old editor or…?

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They auto-convert when opened in the editor otherwise they don’t change. If you had the beta enabled this auto-conversion has been happening since 5.62.0 but from 5.68.0 it’s been happening for all posts - if you haven’t noticed then it’s been working well :smile:

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A bit disappointed to see that the editor/ghost is still missing these basic features:

  • Internal link building: Streamline the process of linking relevant keywords to other pages with a simple click, similar to WordPress
  • Comprehensive Internal Search Engine (including text and HTML)
  • Media Library Management: Implement a user-friendly media library where images can be managed and deleted without resorting to FTP
  • Convenient Updates from the Ghost Backoffice (Not Limited to CLI for Self-Hosting)
  • Nofollow and Noopener Toggle Options for Links, Product Widgets, and Other Widgets
  • Inclusion of Alt Text for Product Widget Images
  • Support for Child Themes
  • Integrated HTML Editor
  • Advanced SEO Tools: Built-in SEO utilities that prompt users to include alt tags, assess keyword density, and provide optimization recommendations
  • Newsletter Customization: Options to send newsletter excerpts instead of full articles, encouraging recipients to visit the website for complete content
  • Schema Integration: Enhanced integration with schema.org markup (e.g., Reviews) to boost search engine visibility
  • Comprehensive Review Widget: A versatile review widget featuring both star ratings and bar graphs for evaluating products, with a visually appealing design

Am I asking too much? This stuff is on Wordpress since decades.

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These are all great suggestions, but keep in mind that the main goal behind this wasn’t Wordpress parity, but to put the editor on a new technical platform that is future proof.

As laid out above, the underlying technology became stagnant – so it was vital for any future development to put the editor on a new foundation – to potentially enable all the things you mentioned (at least the ones that are within the scope of the editor).

I also assume that this has been rolled out now to enable the core team to work on some exciting new stuff for Ghost 6.0 :slightly_smiling_face:

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What’s the incentive for me to go through with this update? It doesn’t introduce any novel or improved aspects that benefit me, nor does it implement the changes I desire. I have no use for a faster platform since it’s already a hundred times faster than WordPress or any other alternatives. I write thousands and thousands words articles with 50 high-res photos or more and it never crashed. What I truly require are those minor enhancements that would make it flawless. Hence, I eagerly anticipate updating as soon as these desired features become available, assuming they are ever incorporated. But for now I’m staying with the good, old, Ghost 5.9something.

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Has the problem with unbroken spaces been fixed?

Can someone try to insert a text with non-breaking spaces into the editor. Will they be saved or will they be replaced by normal spaces as before.

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I like it! Think the bookmark feature is great - wish it worked on Safari.

the post history is AMAZING as are the landing page cards and all the other features rolled out in beta.

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I am a little kid: when there is an update I am happy.

So said

  • i agree that the internal linking feature is kinda important and urgent
  • media library management is important (expecially for the “privacy” thing) → but i ve seen something is moving

I also love the other features @block asked for, but some of them deviates the positioning ghost has.

This small gif show how easy is to link and internal file with Markdown on Obsidian.MD
internal linking with obsidian

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I prefer not to come across as “the villain” who constantly highlights what’s lacking. Hey, Ghost is excellent, and I utilize it daily!
I use Obsidian as my text editor, and it works wonderfully. Is there a method to “mirror” my Ghost website in order to display its structure in Obsidian or should I do this manually?

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I’m having major issues with this update, putting things on a new line (doing a shift+enter to cut down on spacing) is carrying over the formatting on each line. So basically, my entire list is becoming ONE long link.

I can get around it by adding a space, removing formatting on that space and THEN doing a shift+enter… but it’s SO much extra work and continually breaks.

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I have to say sorry to the ghost developers. Even if the new Ghost doesn’t have what I actually wanted, I have to say that after upgrading to node 18 and Ghost 5.71 it is now even faster compared to previous versions. Now I’m playing with the new features, but it’s definitely a step in the right direction.

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