Finish this page

Some things only a person can finish: the price of a ticket, where a button should go, the photo for the hero. Ghostwriter never makes these up. It marks the place instead, and Finish this page finds every mark in an entry, highlights it on the entry's form and walks you through it. A page can't be published while something still needs you.

It works on any entry in a collection Ghostwriter writes for, whoever wrote it.

What it finds#

Everything is found from the entry's values and its blueprint, as you type. Finding them never asks a model and never saves anything.

The markers#

• [[ask: …]] is plain text, so it survives every field: Bard, Markdown, text and textarea. It shows on the page in Live Preview, on purpose. Type the fact over it, or use the guide.
• #gw-link: is a real link to a place on the same page, so if one were ever published it would go nowhere rather than to a wrong page. Choose an entry for it, or remove the link and keep the words.
• Neither keyword is translated. The words inside are in your site's language.

On the entry's form#

When an entry has something to finish, a count appears beside Save ("5 things to finish"), and the fields are highlighted:

• amber: still to do (or skipped for now);
• purple: the one the guide is on;
• green: fixed since you opened the page.

Each highlighted field has a numbered tag ("2 · Needs a link"); click it to go to that step. Inside Bard, the marker itself is underlined with a dashed line, so you can see exactly where the gap is.

The guide#

Click the count, or the Ghostwriter button in the bottom corner, to open the guide. It shows one gap at a time: what's missing, and what you can do about it. It opens the field's tab, expands a collapsed set and scrolls to it, and the Ghostwriter mark flies over to point at it.

• A fact to add: type it into the box in the guide and press Enter. It replaces the marker in the field. Esc clears the box.
• A link to choose: Link to Contact when an entry's title or slug matches the link's hint; otherwise Choose an entry (the field's own picker, or type an address) or Remove the link, which keeps the words.
• An image placeholder or an empty image: Find a photo (Ghostwriter's image dialog for that field), Choose from Assets, or Leave it empty when the field isn't required.
• A stock preview: License, which opens the same License & replace step as the field's badge (or Request licence, without the permission), or Choose another.
• Template text: Remove it.

Back, Skip for now and Next move between gaps. A skipped gap stays highlighted and still counts. Every fix goes into the form only: nothing is saved until you press Save.

Press — (or Esc while you're in the guide) to tuck it away into the corner button, which shows the count; click it to bring the guide back. Ghostwriter remembers, for each person, whether they left the guide open. It starts tucked away, and opens by itself when you put a Ghostwriter draft into the form (finish.open_after_draft).

The count and the highlights follow your typing: the form is checked again a moment after you stop.

Keyboard and screen readers#

• Alt+Shift+N and Alt+Shift+P: the next and previous gap. Alt+Shift+G: open or tuck away the guide. They work anywhere except while typing in a field.
• The guide is a labelled region that never traps focus, so the form stays usable. Each step, each fix and opening or closing it are announced. Highlighted fields carry a hidden "Ghostwriter: needs a link" note, and every tag is a button.
• With Reduce motion on in your system, nothing moves: no flight, no bobbing, no animations when it opens or closes.

On a phone the guide is a sheet along the bottom of the screen that folds down to one line ("2 of 5 · Needs a link · Next"), and the count beside Save shows just the number. It follows Statamic's dark mode.

Publishing#

When an entry is saved as published (now, or on a future date), publishing a working copy included, and something in the table above blocks, the save is refused with a message on each field:

Add adult ticket price before publishing.

Choose where this link goes before publishing.

Saving it unpublished always works, and drafts Ghostwriter writes start unpublished (see Use this draft). Markers are never removed silently: a sentence with its fact cut out reads worse than one that plainly needs it.

Set When a page with something unfinished is published (Ghostwriter → Settings → Finish this page) to Warn, or GHOSTWRITER_ON_UNFINISHED_PUBLISH=warn, to publish with one warning naming everything instead. Visible [[ask: …]] text then goes live, so Block is the default.

This is the same rule as for stock photos: one check, one message.

Fixes that write#

Two fixes ask Ghostwriter to write, and say so on the button. Each is one small request, only when you press it, and the result goes into the form for you to check and save:

• Write around it, on a fact to add: the sentence rewritten without the fact, adding nothing new. Use it when the page reads well enough without the detail.
• Write it for me, on an empty summary or other short text field: a line drawn from the page's own words.

Ghostwriter never fills in a fact. There is no "suggest a price" button, and an answer holding a figure the page doesn't have is thrown away.

Settings#