
Ghost 0.4 Released - paukiatwee
http://blog.ghost.org/ghost-0-4/
======
jnardiello
There's a lot of buzz around Ghost and it's becoming the primary choice for a
lot of people. When i had to choose which platform to use for my personal
website i gave it a try and spent quite some time playing with it. After a
couple of months: i'm switching to Jekyll.

Ghost is indeed a great platform and i consider it "Wordpress with
superpowers". Yet, exactly like Wordpress, i consider this a huge commercial
machine with the usual themes frenzy and marketplaces/agencies chasing
customers. And i personally _deeply_ dislike it as it's far from pushing a
healthy dev environment.

~~~
pingswept
> Yet, exactly like Wordpress, i consider this a huge commercial machine

Ghost itself is produced by a nonprofit organization. Though I suppose the
surrounding ecosystem may eventually be just as commercial as that of
Wordpress, the main Ghost developers have the explicit goal of not getting
corrupted by money.

~~~
nikcub
Wordpress don't allow non-GPL themes and plugins in their directories, there
was an entire dragged-out debate about it. That is about as far away from
"corrupted by money" as it gets.

Wordpress is the victim of being popular.

~~~
pingswept
You have a decent point here.

------
philipDS
Ghost is one of these things that you didn't know you needed until you have
used it. I also have an Octopress blog running, which is great, but with the
addition of static pages, I'll be switching to Ghost.

I can also see Ghost becoming a decent competitor for Wordpress. For the
purpose of blogging that is, because I remember reading somewhere Ghost didn't
have any intentions competing with Wordpress.

~~~
jbrooksuk
I used to use Octopress too, but when I tried out Ghost on a DO droplet I had
to switch.

I had started running into problems with generating my Octopress blog when I
messed up my Ruby install. Also, although it was a good thing at the time, I
didn't like not being able to write posts without my MacBook to hand.

Ghost is nice, fast and easy to use. Static pages are really going to make it
even better.

~~~
Argorak
I had a similar issue, but came to the other conclusion: my blog is running on
Middleman, and I kept it that way. My biggest problem with Ghost: lack of
offline support. So while I can edit if from everywhere in a browser, I can
only do that when online.

I have a setup that immediately publishes my blog somewhere when Github
receives a push (working through travis). I seperate two branches, one gets
pushed to a staging area, one to the live site. I do the touch-up when I am at
home. I usually want to write anywhere, but not necessarily publish anywhere.

In the end, I just write my posts using any text editor I can find, be it
Githubs direct editing. On the train or in a flight, I use an iPhone with a
bluetooth keyboard (it works surprisingly well, except the odd looks) or my
notebook to write the posts.

~~~
jbrooksuk
Yeah, the offline support is a bummer, but it's something I'm expecting to be
remedied by the import/export function. An app which will handle this for you
would be very cool!

------
shortformblog
Really excited about Ghost—I've had a tendency to keep a close eye on various
blogging platforms, and it's easily the one with the most potential right now.

Part of it is the editor—I'm very particular about my Markdown editors, and
it's one of the few web-based editors that gets close to Mou on the efficiency
front.

That said, the changes made here really go a long way towards making this the
platform of choice for many. I'm keeping a close eye right now—I'm on Tumblr
mostly due to my follower base there, but if Ghost evolves in a way that cuts
away the cruft, it could seriously be a replacement for a lot of folks.

Godspeed, Ghost team.

~~~
javajosh
I'd be wary of special-purpose editors. Generally devs are better served
getting really, really good with one editor, and then extending it to meet
their needs. Sublime Text, for example, has good Markdown syntax highlighting,
and I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to build live preview, assuming that
such a plugin doesn't already exist.

That doesn't mean there isn't a place for a TTW editor - sometimes you just
want to edit something in place when you're in a pinch. Nothing wrong with
that. But I would argue in that case that you'd probably want a true WYSIWYG
editor, a la what browsers _kinda sorta_ give you with contenteditable
containers.

~~~
shortformblog
I'm writing from a writer's perspective, not a developer's perspective. Which
is not to say that there isn't value to what you're saying, but what I'm
looking for is a good way to write quickly, not a code editor that also
handles Markdown.

I want to convince the writers I edit on a daily basis to use Markdown because
of its clear benefits over WYSIWYG. Sublime Text I'm sure is great and I've
heard great things about it, but I'm going to have a far harder time selling
the journalists I work with on that than I am with something like Mou or iA
Writer.

WordPress' big weakness, IMHO, is that it has an editor which is not built for
writing longer pieces and is poorly suited for editing. (Tumblr's big weakness
is that it supports Markdown, but without frills.) That in my opinion is a
huge issue—the words are basically the most important part of the editing
process, and it means that in editing environments we're still stuck using
Word or third-party tools like Editorially. What I see with Ghost is a real
honest-to-God effort to focus on the editing tools first. We need more of
that. It's where we spend most of our time on our blogging platforms. Why
downplay that and instead put all of our energy into these inefficient WYSIWYG
ContentEditable editors that nobody really, truly likes?

Not everyone who reads HN is a developer.

~~~
javajosh
> Not everyone who reads HN is a developer.

Mou's tagline is "The missing Markdown editor for web developers."

I would have thought that a writer's needs would be well served with something
like Aloha Editor and it's friends/competitors.

~~~
shortformblog
You'd be really, really wrong about that. Us writers hate using our mice when
not necessary just like everyone else.

WYSIWYG can break up thought process when done poorly. And in the age of the
iPad, nobody's really done it very well at all. It's kind of a relic because
it doesn't translate well to touch.

Also, don't let the tagline fool you: Mou has a big audience among writers.

------
Xdes
I've been trying to use Ghost for a small project, but I've postponed it until
the {{#has}} helper[1] is implemented. There is currently no simple way to
display a subset of posts.

[1]:
[https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/issues/1574](https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/issues/1574)

------
hswolff
Very proud of this release and so glad that I was able to lend a hand in
getting it out the door. Can't wait for 0.5 :D (and can't wait to find out its
code name).

------
wanda
I think it's a very nice platform and I do not see why it has to be weaponised
as a Wordpress competitor or why it should be labelled as having superpowers
or lacking features.

The debate I see here is no different to the whining about Golang we've all
seen recently. The bottom line is that you should know what your requirements
are and thus you should know what the best solution will be. There should be
no ideology about it.

Ghost is FOSS and if you do not like it, no one compels you to use it. It
might seem like it is a commercial machine due to the fact, though that the
software is free, it is far from a doddle to host freely. As far as I know,
OpenShift is the only place to offer free, one-click hosting, and it doesn't
exactly challenge paid hosts like Ghostify which offer straightforward FTP
access for adding themes. That is not the fault of the platform.

For me, Ghost makes for the perfect personal blog where I just want to write
some markdown and be done with it. For others I can see that it has
limitations for some clients, and those limitations are intentional—just like
those perceived in Golang. Ghost is there if you want it, not to supplant the
ubiquitous WordPress.

All said and done, I'd still wait until 0.6 brings the eagerly awaited
dashboard before I recommend it over alternative platforms.

------
fuzzix
> "It enjoys Johnnie Walker Blue Label Scotch"

Its money is better spent on a decent malt. Is it as carefree with my
resources as it is with its own?

(Yep, it's a joke on HN).

~~~
poolpool
Why would I spend money on a single malt when I get multiple for the same
price with JW?

~~~
calinet6
This says a lot about how programmers see the world (in jest :)

------
bttf
Has anyone preferred Specter
([http://brislink.github.io/specter/](http://brislink.github.io/specter/))
over Ghost? It seems a little less fleshed out than Ghost but also a lot less
"commercial" as some have noted of the latter.

~~~
brickcap
Thanks for shout out to specter. Yeah it is not as polished as ghost but I am
planning to make adjustments to it.

One of the fist things that I will do is to make it's
editor([http://brislink.github.io/Abstract](http://brislink.github.io/Abstract))
easier to use by adding keyboard shortcuts for previewing and saving. I am
also planning to distribute specter it via npm.

Also a new version of elastic search has come out and it has made taking
backups so easy. I will have to experiment on that too.

Thanks once again.

~~~
bttf
No problem. I forked Specter not too long ago and am using it to power my
current blog. Thanks for creating it!

~~~
brickcap
Thanks for letting me know. This makes me feel good. I thought no one but me
used it :). I guess I will spend more time on it now.

------
jbrooksuk
I've just upgraded my blog; [http://james.brooks.so](http://james.brooks.so)
\- it was surprisingly easy for a Node.js app.

I'm really liking the static pages, it's just a shame that the default Casper
theme doesn't list these in the header.

~~~
ForFreedom
Is that hosted on Ghost or your server?

~~~
jbrooksuk
It's on my server, DigitalOcean droplet with a Ghost install by default.

~~~
ForFreedom
And the DB? How is the load handling?

~~~
jbrooksuk
It's an SQLite 3 database, but Ghost allows you to export it to JSON for
backing up.

I've not had a big load in the few days I've changed from Octopress to Ghost,
so I don't know how well it handles it.

~~~
ForFreedom
Doesn't Ghost work on MySQL?

------
alexandros
We've been using ghost for the startup, and I've been using it for my personal
blog as well. I credit it with making writing more enjoyable, leading to more
being written. By far my biggest issue was losing text, which should be fixed
in 0.4. The joys of using alpha software. Best of luck to the Ghost team. I
expect great things from them.

~~~
codecondo
Just today I was thinking to myself how educated I have become within the
WordPress development, I can now remove every single tab from the "New Post"
dashboard and leave myself only with the editor.

It's a wonderful thing.

------
frade33
I just got their email.

But I was kind of annoyed by the usage of words.

'Free 0.4 upgrade'

It does imply, there are going to paid upgrades. If so, why they are making it
look like a free open source product, while it is by all means is a commercial
product.

It's not an issue for me. But If they want to live up to open source and free
standards, then they should avoid this strategy.

~~~
schneidmaster
You're reading way too far into this. There are no plans whatsoever to close-
source or charge for the project (other than the paid hosting plans currently
offered). That's plastered all over the kickstarter[0] as well as the
website[1].

[0] [http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnonolan/ghost-
just-a-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnonolan/ghost-just-a-
blogging-platform)

[1] [https://ghost.org/about/](https://ghost.org/about/)

~~~
RKearney
Not to go against what you're claiming, but to play devils advocate for a
moment if you take a look at Invision Power Board[0] (now called IP.Board),
they were once a free and open source bulletin board / forum system. In fact,
their slogan was:

Apache, PHP and mySQL are all free, why should you pay for a bulletin
board?[1]

They've since completely reversed their stance on that and now require payment
for IP.Board. I'm sure there are other examples of this happening too, that's
just the one that I remember most clearly when it comes to companies taking
once free software and then charging for it.

[0][http://www.invisionpower.com/apps/board/](http://www.invisionpower.com/apps/board/)
[1][http://web.archive.org/web/20020912123518/http://www.invisio...](http://web.archive.org/web/20020912123518/http://www.invisionboard.com/)?

~~~
frade33
aah!! coincidentally i do own a license of IPB. I never knew it was free. I
love IPB as a paid BB. My sole point was, If one's product is not 'commercial'
then they shouldn't advertise it in a commercial fashion either. Because I can
see, a lot IPB Free users would be pissed off, when they had made the switch.

------
bigd
awww.. it don't like postgres anymore. And postgres is not supported for
backups.. sigh. :(

anyone has tips or tricks? or should I say byebye heroku since I can't use
sqlite there?

------
SmileyKeith
I've started hitting some Ghost based sites from HN links and I like the
public facing side of it a lot. As other people have said I think I'll stick
with Jekyll

------
mgingras
Johnnie Walker Blue Label is a scotch not a bourbon

~~~
calinet6
It's also not exactly a great choice marketing-wise as far as good sounding
scotches that would impress a scotch drinker...

------
brickmort
yess, static pages!! ghost was in dire need of that. Such a basic feature, yet
you dont realize how much you want it until it's not available out of the box.
Really happy to see the platform maturing nicely. Great job Ghost team!

------
popee
Just one question. Is there API that can be used to integrate ghost with other
apps?

~~~
pmgarman
per the GitHub issue, apps should be in 0.5. With apps I'm sure you can write
your own integrations with other platforms.

[https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/issues/1474](https://github.com/TryGhost/Ghost/issues/1474)

------
eugeneross
Is there still no support for post types such as links, asides, etc.?

~~~
shortformblog
Ghost supports tags as classes if I'm right, which would allow you to do a
pseudo-version of this pretty easy.

