A novice's Ghost journey

In this post, I cover some of the process that I used to set up this very basic blog. Documenting what I did and what I plan to do helps me organize and plan my next steps. In a way, I suppose this is kind-of like "journaling", but for project management. I will cover 1) how I wanted my website organized and presented, 2) how I brought my old posts from my (ancient unearthed) old Wordpress site, 3) how I Forwarded my owned domain to my new Ghost site, and 4) how my first post on Ghost went. This post also serves as my test/taste of Ghost's posting workflow and feel.

Domain-Name and Site Layout Plans:

First, I bought two domain-names from a vendor, and then I set up my account with Ghost.org. This blog is a split personal and semi-professional platform for me, but I wanted to separate those two types of content. Having another Content Management System (CMS)/host account with another host seemed unreasonable, so my goal was to point one domain-name my basic ghost.io url, and to point the other domain-name at a subdomain of that url. This way I could control the first impression of my readers based on what door they entered from. However, after researching what was possible, my subdomain pointed idea seemed less feasible. I will make a separate post explaining my eventual solution (which will likely involve downloading the basic theme I am using, editing it, and also using YAML (ghost provides a basic YAML routing file to site owners) to "route" where Ghost places my posts and pages on my site).

Content Export/Import:

Getting my old content into it's new home was easy. Ghost can fetch the content from your old CMS without you needing to download and/or parse whatever file that host provides you. In settings>Advanced>Import/Export, most of the popular providers are listed for fast export-to-import. As long as you are logged into the old account when you click the corresponding button, you simply provide your old site's CMS url and Ghost will take care of the rest. My old host (Wordpress) also provides tools for exporting your posts/content as a downloaded XML file, but Ghost's one-stop solution seemed simpler. After import, my old content looked just like native Ghost posts, as far as I could tell. Even the original dates remained intact. I had to edit some of the "tags" (explained below) on each of the posts, but other than that, I didn't need to change anything.

Domain Forwarding and Going Live:

Until I could get my site looking exactly the way I wanted, I settled on building something basic and functional. The catharsis of getting a project up-and-running is nice, even if it isn't perfect, for the moment. In this spirit, I decided to point my less-prefessional/"fun" domain at the subdirectory "tag" of my non-professional posts, and to point my professional domain at the home/landing page. Ghost organizes your posts using a "tag" system. Appending your ghost url with "/tag/[tag-name-here]" brings up a page containing an index of posts under that tag. The Ghost resource A Publisher's Guide to Content Organization was extremely helpful in my understanding of how these sites can be organized. My domain-name provider had tools for controlling what happened when someone typed my domain into their address bar. If a domain-name sends a user to another domain automatically, that first domain is being "forwarded" to the second. My domain-name provider and my CMS/host were in two different places online. Whenever a user typed my domain-name I wanted them to arrive at my site, so I forwarded my domain-name to my Ghost site's url. The forwarding control at my domain-name provider was simple to use. After giving the change 15-30 minutes to propagate, I tested typing my domain-name and, SUCCESS, it took me to my site.

Posting:

If you enter your blog entries directly into Ghost, the system will auto-save your progress as a draft while you type. I hope this is a standard feature across all CMS providers because it is a good quality-of-life experience. Leaving the text-editing window (with changes in it) by going back to the "Posts" menu outside reveals that your progress has been saved in a "Drafts" category. When you're ready to publish, or if you're curious what your work looks like so-far, the "Preview" button pulls a window over the post you are writing, and shows exactly what it will look like if it were live. Part of me wishes the Preview button popped open a new tab, but pressing "Close" is easy enough and returns you to your post-in-progress. At the top of the page, you can upload "feature image" that will sit above the body of your text. Nearby, is a button that opens "Unsplash", allowing you to search for free photographs to dress up your header. Hitting the "Publish" button pushes your post live after asking you to confirm. During this confirmation, you can also schedule the post to be published at a later time. Writing this post in Ghost's editor was acceptable. Until I run into a use-case that requires a different work-flow, I think I will build my posts here.

(UI Quibble):

As an aside, getting into Ghost's basic account management menu was not obvious to me. When you log in and are greeted with the general content-management page, hitting the "Settings" sprocket or your "Profile" picture will NOT lead you to Account settings. Instead, right above the "Upgrade" button are the words "Ghost(Pro)". That "Ghost(Pro)" is also a button, and clicking it opens Account and Domain management options.

Conclusion:

Overall, I am satisfied by my effort. I learned about: 1) that what I used to think of as "webhosts" are all called CMS now, 2) the difference between subdomain and subdirectory (or path) syntax, 3) how ghost generally organizes posts using tags, 4) what YAML is and one thing it can be used for, and 5) the basic Ghost site-management layout and post workflow.