Ghost is a new blogging platform started by former WordPress UI Group Deputy Head John O’Nolan and Hanah Wolfe. Ghost is appeared in the Kickstarter project and successfully raised $300,000. After Blogger and WordPress Ghost is a promising new entry in the blogging world with a tagline of a non-profit organization
Ghost is based on node.js open source blogging platform launched to the public in October 2013. Ghost is a free application, easy to use, modify and free to share and distribute.
Unfortunately, Ghost is can’t be installed on a shared hosting for now, it needs node.js source code on hosting account. Node.js is available only in VPS and Dedicated hosting. Luckily you can install and test Ghost blogging platform on any Windows or Mac system. At present, for a naive, I recommend to install Ghost on a local computer before going into the real world.
Installing procedure for Ghost on local computer using BitNami Ghost Stack
BitNami is a Ghost platform installer for Windows. Using BitNami you can easily install Ghost platform on your local system. If you are a tester like me follow this guide to install Ghost on your local computer.
- Download BitNami Ghost stack and install on your machine.
- Next, follow the instructions and continue setup.
- Here it asks for setup requirements like IP address (Enter 127.0.0.1 for testing locally), Apache server port number and BitNami cloud support.
- After successful installation, your local site will open on your default web browser. To access the admin area of your locally installed Ghost site simply enter ghost after the URL (<your blog URL>/ghost/. )
First Impressions of Ghost Blogging Platform
Like the thetechhacker motto to simplify your tech life, Ghost is created to simplify the blogging. Learning and understanding Ghost platform is very easy, if you know the WordPress platform it very much easy to understand. Personally, I believe Ghost is the next big thing in blogging platforms list. Ghost is open source and successfully raised $300,000, this can reveal the potentiality of Ghost in near feature.
To access the Ghost site on your local computer simply type the 127.0.0.1/ghost on your browser. Unlike WordPress, the preview will be seen on saving the draft and opening on a new tab Ghost is much user-friendly. The new post page is divided into two half’s, one is for markdown and other is for preview. You can instantly preview the activity doing on markdown side.
You can add tags at the bottom of the Window by simply typing and pressing the Enter key on the keyboard. You can access the Publish and save draft tabs on the bottom left of the page. I’m testing the Ghost platform to explore new ways to simplify blogging, I will post updates of my experience with Ghost platform soon on thetechhacker. If you want to learn Ghost you can participate in official Ghost forum over here.
That’s all for now. Please do share your views in the comment box below.