Editing/translating Portal

[abargel]

@girish In order to customize the email templates (after giving up on portal), one would have to access files in /var/www/ghost/versions/3.18.1/core/server/services/members/emails/*, according to this.

Don't know if that's a stupid question, but is there a way to do that from config.production.json, or another file available from our Cloudron file manager?

[jdaviescoates]

@abargel said in Editing/translating Portal:

Shouldnt' this all be easier??

Yeah, I like the idea of Ghost but it's a pain how hard it is to customise if you're not a coder

[abargel]

@jdaviescoates From making a few websites this summer for my (one-person) business, both on Wordpress and on Ghost, I'm left with the impression that these "open source" publishing tools intentionally leave a lot of essential components to be managed by paying services. Like an implicit paywall, really. I'm using a lot of other self-hosted apps on Cloudron, for various types of use, and even the more complex don't have these restrictions: if you learn how it works, you can do things. With Wordpress and Ghost, I keep learning, and keep finding arbitrary limits to what I can do (except, of course, by buying more services). I would be tempted to dump them if I had the time to learn an entirely new system right now (and would need to be sure that I wouldn't run into the same problem down the line!)

[abargel]

@abargel Well, after doing my best with Ghost, I'm tempted to learn Grav. Seems like one can customize everything freely? Anything I should be weary of?

[frei]

@abargel

Ghost is far more stable than Grav. It's easier to modify the style using Ghost/Handlebars vs. Grav/PHP/Twig (which was a total mess).

Also, if you have any authors who are not you (not technically highly proficient), then they can easily crash your Grav instance --I have yet to crash Ghost.

That's my two cents.

[robi]

@frei Something like this?
https://whitfin.io/safely-creating-custom-handlebars-helpers/

[frei]

@frei I think you just read my mind . .

Trying to figure out the best practices for modifying core templates (eg, content-cta.hbs) without overwriting upon update.

---

Correction:

The content-cta.hbs is easily editable --as written directly in Ghost documentation.

Simply reference the default template, modify, and copy to the partials folder.

[frei]

It seems like the only / best way of modifying core files is adapting the Dockerfile and building a new image, as per the instructions here: https://forum.cloudron.io/topic/3102/building-custom-packages

Move the files from origin location to /app/data and replace with symlinks.

[abargel]

@frei Thanks for the feedback. On my end, I had a nice time setting up a site with Grav. Easy to edit everything. No paywalls or unchangeable parts in English only. I am a single author/user, but I see a nice set of permissions if I have to create other users with limited abilities to destroy things. Best experience so far amongst WordPress/Ghost/Grav (for someone not "technically highly proficient", just basic).

[robi]

@frei said in Editing/translating Portal:

It seems like the only / best way of modifying core files is adapting the Dockerfile and building a new image

If you specify all the files that need to be modified for this, the Cloudron team can update the App with those files symlinked in /app/data

[frei]

@robi, very cool.

Usually, when I spend enough time getting familiar with the applications, I find that the Cloudron team has already dialed it in.

Will keep this in mind