Let readers choose their newsletters

When your Ghost site sends more than one newsletter, a signup form can let readers pick the ones they want. You add a check box for each newsletter, and the reader joins the newsletters they tick. Radio buttons work the same way when the reader may pick only one.

Before you start

• Your site has a signup form with Send to set to Subscribe or Sign up. Add a newsletter signup form shows how.
• Your newsletters exist in Ghost Admin, under Settings > Newsletters. Keep that page open, because you need each newsletter's name, spelled exactly as it is there.

Add the first check box

1. Open your project in Fantasma.
2. In the Sections list in the left sidebar, click the arrow next to the section with your signup form. Its blocks show under it.
3. Point at the Form row and click the + at its right end. The block picker opens with the form fields.
4. Click Checkbox. A box with the text "I agree to receive emails." appears in the form, and a row with that text appears under Checkbox in the Sections list.
5. Click that row. Each box in a Checkbox is an Option, and its settings open.
6. Turn off Required.
7. On the canvas, click the text next to the box and replace it with the name of your first newsletter, such as The Weekly Letter.

Add a box for each other newsletter

1. In the Sections list, point at the Checkbox row and click the + at its right end. The block picker opens with one choice, Option.
2. Click Option. A new box with the text "Option" appears, with Required off.
3. In its settings, replace the text in Text with the newsletter's name, such as Travel Notes. Editing the text on the canvas works too; both change the same words.

Repeat for each newsletter you want to offer.

The text next to each box is what Ghost receives, so it must match the newsletter's name in Ghost, and readers see that same name; there is no separate description. Capitals, spaces and punctuation count. Bold, italic or a link in the text are dropped; only the words are sent.

Label is off and Layout is Stack until you change them. To put a line over the boxes, turn on Label in the Checkbox settings. It reads "Pick any" until you click it on the canvas and type your own, such as "Choose your newsletters". Layout sets the boxes in a column (Stack) or side by side (Row).

With Label on and Layout set to Row, the form offers the newsletters side by side under the email field:

Let readers pick only one

Use Radio in place of Checkbox in step 4. A Radio starts with a label and three options, none of them required. Replace each option's text with a newsletter name on the canvas. To remove an option you do not need, select its row and press ⌫, or Backspace on Windows. To make the reader pick one before the form sends, turn on Required in the Radio settings.

What Ghost does with the choices

Radio buttons with none picked work like no boxes, and the member gets the newsletters Ghost subscribes new members to. The boxes and radio buttons always start unpicked. There is no setting to tick one in advance.

If a name does not match any newsletter, Ghost refuses the signup and the form shows Ghost's message, "Cannot subscribe to invalid newsletters" with the name. The same happens with a newsletter you archived in Ghost. After you rename or archive a newsletter in Ghost, change the box's text in Fantasma, publish the theme again, and check with a test signup. Publish your theme to Ghost shows how.

A check box whose own Required is on, such as a consent box, joins no newsletter. Required on a Radio works another way. The reader must pick a newsletter, and joins it. A required check box can sit next to the newsletter boxes.

Members change their newsletters later in Ghost's account window. A button that opens it is in Add sign-in, sign-up and account buttons.

The boxes reach your site when you publish the theme again, as Publish your theme to Ghost shows.