Very limited ghost editor?

Themes
1

Hi,

We use Ghost as a, self hosted, headeless CMS today and fetches the content via its API. And shows the HTML of posts and pages on another site. This part is working really good.

We create the posts and pages in ghost admin UI but it’s editorial components is sooooo limited. For example such a small thing to add target="_blank" to links is not possible, add custom classes to elements, create html-widgets that stays in the editor for, not so technical, colleagues to use etc.

We came from WP before and was very satisfied with this features there. Am I missing something here? Can this be solved by a new theme or some coding on my part?

This must be a big issue for others as well?!

Regards,
Kristoffer

2 
    <script>
document.querySelectorAll(".c-post a").forEach(function (e) {
  if (e.hostname !== window.location.hostname) {
    e.target = "_blank";
  }
});
</script>

If you add this code to the code injection section of the site, each outbound link will open in a new tab.

3

But I’m not using the UI from ghost, we’re using it headless. We’re just using the content API. Even though this would solve the target blank issue how about all other 100+ things you might want to add/change in a post. Adding a button for example?

4

add custom classes to elements, create html-widgets … Adding a button for example?

You can use HTML cards for that, or the Markdown card with interspersed HTML. If you’re trying to use Ghost to do those things regularly then you’re probably better off with a different tool that’s intended to be a generic CMS because that’s not Ghost’s intended use-case.

1 Like
5

Thanks for you response @Kevin.

Yea, but that implies that the post creator knows html-language right? or can you save html widgets to use later?

What do you mean that its not Ghost intended use-case? What is it’s use-case then?

I thought that the idea with a CMS/editor like this where you can create posts that you should be able to style the elements in the posts. At least be able to add common elements like buttons etc. I’m very confused about the purpose of the tool :slight_smile: if it’s not about creating content.

Regards

6

Hello Kristoffer !

The idea here is rather simple, I guess : introducing choices of this kind in the editor is introducing, sooner or later, mess. Because what is, for you, “common elements like buttons”, for instance, is not common for me, or someone else. I don’t use button in my post. And vice versa : say I can’t imagine an editor whithout the ability to add columns, or background colors. I think there’s a lot of user who will find this kind of options useless. Hence the markdown block.

Keeping things simple is the best way to ensure Ghost is future-proof, in a certain extent. Of course, my very opinion ! :slight_smile:

Although I recognize that Ghost should probably be more explicit in its general philosophy regarding its priorities and agenda. Developping a tool for “professionnal publishers” without a native research, for instance, still sounds strange to me. In numbers, I guess there’s more people interested in this than in a system of payment… :wink:

7

Although this thread is old and nobody will reply, I’m curious.

What if I want to create some sort of layout for my posts then ? And with layout I mean a way to embed let’s say two HTML widgets that per design ALL of my posts will have.

This is my case, and the only way to do this (to my knowledge) is to repeat the same tedious process of adding widget by widget every time I have to create a new post. So my question would be is there a way to customize the Ghost editor in order to create some sort of template for all my posts? Will really appreciate the feedback.

Eg:

Title
YouTube Video Widget
{{content}}
Link

The Youtube link and the final link will always show up in every post and I can’t do this customizing the post.hbs because the YouTube video and the link are part of the {{content}} helper for Ghost.

8

You can create your post layout including as many cards as you want, select it all, then save it as a snippet. Any post you want to create using that layout you can then use the plus or / menu to quickly insert that snippet.

There’s a video demonstration in this post:

1 Like