Versioning

Option The theme offers a way to version your site. This is useful if you want to keep older versions of your site available while also providing links to the current version. Each site version needs to be created separately and is functional independent of each other.

A version switcher will be displayed at the top of the sidebar if versioning is configured. If the user selects a different version, the theme will navigate to the actual page location but in the selected version. If this page does not exist in the selected version, the 404 page will be displayed.

If you want to have more control, where the version switcher is positioned or you want to configure a different icon, see the chapter on sidebar configuration.

Example: Versioning an Existing Nonversioned Site

Assume, you have written a documentation for an app. At some point you are a releasing a new major version. This new version requires enhanced documentation while the older documentation must still be available for users of the older app version.

Your site’s source files reside in the directory /home/me/mysite on your local disc. The current URL of your site (the value set in baseURL in your hugo.toml) is https://example.com/. When done, the URL of the latest version of your site should not change. The archived version of your site should be available at the URL https://example.com/v1.0/.

This is your intial config file before versioning:

/home/me/mysite/hugo.
baseURL = 'https://example.com/'
baseURL: https://example.com/
{
   "baseURL": "https://example.com/"
}

To setup versioning, you have to do the following steps:

  1. Prepare /home/me/mysite/hugo.toml of the current version for versioning.

    • add an array of all available versions
    • add information, which of these versions is the latest by setting the isLatest option on one item (here onto v2.0) in the versions array
    • add information, which of these versions your site actually is, by setting the version option (here to v2.0)

    After the modifications the config file looks like:

    /home/me/mysite/hugo.
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/'

[params]
  version = 'v2.0'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/'
    identifier = 'v2.0'
    isLatest = true
    title = 'Latest'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/v1.0/'
    identifier = 'v1.0'
    title = 'v1.0'
    baseURL: https://example.com/
params:
  version: v2.0
  versions:
  - baseURL: https://example.com/
    identifier: v2.0
    isLatest: true
    title: Latest
  - baseURL: https://example.com/v1.0/
    identifier: v1.0
    title: v1.0
    {
   "baseURL": "https://example.com/",
   "params": {
      "version": "v2.0",
      "versions": [
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/",
            "identifier": "v2.0",
            "isLatest": true,
            "title": "Latest"
         },
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/v1.0/",
            "identifier": "v1.0",
            "title": "v1.0"
         }
      ]
   }
}

  2. Generate the current site with the changed configuration and deploy the resulting directory to baseURL (here to https://example.com/)

    • this step has not changed to your previous deploy, so everything should be familiar until here

  3. Copy the source files from /home/me/mysite into a new directory /home/me/mysite-1.0 for the archived version

  4. Prepare /home/me/mysite-1.0/hugo.toml of the archived version for release.

    • change the information, which of the versions your site actually is, by setting the version option (here to v1.0)
    • change the top level baseURL to the URL of version 1.0 (here to https://example.com/v1.0/)

    After the modifications the config file looks like:

    /home/me/mysite-1.0/hugo.
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/v1.0/'

[params]
  version = 'v1.0'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/'
    identifier = 'v2.0'
    isLatest = true
    title = 'Latest'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/v1.0/'
    identifier = 'v1.0'
    title = 'v1.0'
    baseURL: https://example.com/v1.0/
params:
  version: v1.0
  versions:
  - baseURL: https://example.com/
    identifier: v2.0
    isLatest: true
    title: Latest
  - baseURL: https://example.com/v1.0/
    identifier: v1.0
    title: v1.0
    {
   "baseURL": "https://example.com/v1.0/",
   "params": {
      "version": "v1.0",
      "versions": [
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/",
            "identifier": "v2.0",
            "isLatest": true,
            "title": "Latest"
         },
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/v1.0/",
            "identifier": "v1.0",
            "title": "v1.0"
         }
      ]
   }
}

  5. Generate the archived site with the changed configuration and deploy the resulting directory to baseURL (here to https://example.com/v1.0/)

  6. Now you’re ready to edit the content of your current version and proceed with your usual workflow.

A few things to note here:

  • version must be an identifier of one of the entries in the versions array
  • you are not limited with the baseURL; these can be absolute or relative to your server root, can also reside in sub-subdirectories or be subdomains
  • you can generate your archived versions into a sub-directory of the current version (as with this example)
  • if you generate your archived versions into a sub-directory take care in your workflow not to delete older archived versions during build
  • the example does not take version control systems into account (like git or subversion) as such a workflow is highly subjective
  • both sites are completely independent autonomous Hugo sites; if you want to test this setup locally, you will need two running Hugo servers
  • if you want to test this locally, you will need to adept the top level baseURL parameter as well as the baseURL parameter in the versions array to your local setup; best is to have preconfigured environment configs available

Example: Add a New Version to a Versioned Site

At some point, your version 2 of the app may be deprecated, too, as you’ve released a new version 3.

The structure from the previous example still applys. Your current version of your site’s source files reside in the directory /home/me/mysite on your local disc, the archived version in /home/me/mysite-0.1. The current URL of your site (the value set in baseURL in your hugo.toml) is https://example.com/. When done, the URL of the latest version of your site should not change. The archived version of your site should be available at the URL https://example.com/v2.0/.

You only need to generate the current and the new archived version of your site (v3.0 and v2.0), the former archived version (v1.0) doesn’t need to be generated again..

  1. Prepare /home/me/mysite/hugo.toml of the current version for the new archived version.

    • add the new archived version to the array of available versions
    • change information, which of these versions is the latest by setting the isLatest option on one item (here onto v3.0) in the versions array
    • add information, which of these versions your site actually is, by setting the version option (here to v3.0)

    After the modifications the config file looks like:

    /home/me/mysite/hugo.
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/'

[params]
  version = 'v3.0'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/'
    identifier = 'v3.0'
    isLatest = true
    title = 'Latest'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/v.2.0/'
    identifier = 'v2.0'
    title = 'v2.0'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/v1.0/'
    identifier = 'v1.0'
    title = 'v1.0'
    baseURL: https://example.com/
params:
  version: v3.0
  versions:
  - baseURL: https://example.com/
    identifier: v3.0
    isLatest: true
    title: Latest
  - baseURL: https://example.com/v.2.0/
    identifier: v2.0
    title: v2.0
  - baseURL: https://example.com/v1.0/
    identifier: v1.0
    title: v1.0
    {
   "baseURL": "https://example.com/",
   "params": {
      "version": "v3.0",
      "versions": [
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/",
            "identifier": "v3.0",
            "isLatest": true,
            "title": "Latest"
         },
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/v.2.0/",
            "identifier": "v2.0",
            "title": "v2.0"
         },
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/v1.0/",
            "identifier": "v1.0",
            "title": "v1.0"
         }
      ]
   }
}

  2. Generate the current site with the changed configuration and deploy the resulting directory to baseURL (here to https://example.com/)

  3. Copy the source files from /home/me/mysite into a new directory /home/me/mysite-2.0 for the archived version

  4. Prepare /home/me/mysite-2.0/hugo.toml of the archived version for release.

    • change the information, which of the versions your site actually is, by setting the version option (here to v2.0)
    • change the top levelbaseURL to the URL of version 2.0 (here to https://example.com/v2.0/)

    After the modifications the config file looks like:

    /home/me/mysite-2.0/hugo.
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/v2.0/'

[params]
  version = 'v2.0'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/'
    identifier = 'v3.0'
    isLatest = true
    title = 'Latest'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/v.2.0/'
    identifier = 'v2.0'
    title = 'v2.0'

  [[params.versions]]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/v1.0/'
    identifier = 'v1.0'
    title = 'v1.0'
    baseURL: https://example.com/v2.0/
params:
  version: v2.0
  versions:
  - baseURL: https://example.com/
    identifier: v3.0
    isLatest: true
    title: Latest
  - baseURL: https://example.com/v.2.0/
    identifier: v2.0
    title: v2.0
  - baseURL: https://example.com/v1.0/
    identifier: v1.0
    title: v1.0
    {
   "baseURL": "https://example.com/v2.0/",
   "params": {
      "version": "v2.0",
      "versions": [
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/",
            "identifier": "v3.0",
            "isLatest": true,
            "title": "Latest"
         },
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/v.2.0/",
            "identifier": "v2.0",
            "title": "v2.0"
         },
         {
            "baseURL": "https://example.com/v1.0/",
            "identifier": "v1.0",
            "title": "v1.0"
         }
      ]
   }
}

  5. Generate the archived site with the changed configuration and deploy the resulting directory to baseURL (here to https://example.com/v2.0/)

  6. Now you’re ready to edit the content of your current version and proceed with your usual workflow.

A few things to note here:

  • you don’t need to regenerate version 1 of your site as long as the version marked with isLatest=true hasn’t changed its baseURL parameter. The old archived versions will access the version index of the latest site using JavaScript to display all currently available versions in the version switcher
  • with each new version, you will need another Hugo server instance to run a complete local test

Example: Multilingual Setup

If you have a multilingual site and you have different baseURL settings for each language, you need to also configure versioning for each language separately!

To stay with the above example, here’s the configuration for your current version:

/home/me/mysite-2.0/hugo.
[languages]
  [languages.en]
    baseURL = 'https://example.com/'
    contentDir = 'content/en'
    languageCode = 'en'
    languageName = 'English'
    title = 'My Website'
    weight = 1

    [languages.en.params]
      version = 'v2.0'

      [[languages.en.params.versions]]
        baseURL = 'https://example.com/'
        identifier = 'v2.0'
        isLatest = true
        title = 'Latest'

      [[languages.en.params.versions]]
        baseURL = 'https://example.com/v1.0/'
        identifier = 'v1.0'
        title = 'v1.0'

  [languages.pir]
    baseURL = 'https://pir.example.com/'
    contentDir = 'content/pir'
    languageCode = 'art-x-pir'
    languageDirection = 'rtl'
    languageName = 'Pirrratish'
    title = 'Arrr, my Website'
    weight = 2

    [languages.pir.params]
      version = 'v2.0'

      [[languages.pir.params.versions]]
        baseURL = 'https://pir.example.com/'
        identifier = 'v2.0'
        isLatest = true
        title = 'Latest'

      [[languages.pir.params.versions]]
        baseURL = 'https://pir.example.com/v1.0/'
        identifier = 'v1.0'
        title = 'v1.0'
languages:
  en:
    baseURL: https://example.com/
    contentDir: content/en
    languageCode: en
    languageName: English
    params:
      version: v2.0
      versions:
      - baseURL: https://example.com/
        identifier: v2.0
        isLatest: true
        title: Latest
      - baseURL: https://example.com/v1.0/
        identifier: v1.0
        title: v1.0
    title: My Website
    weight: 1
  pir:
    baseURL: https://pir.example.com/
    contentDir: content/pir
    languageCode: art-x-pir
    languageDirection: rtl
    languageName: Pirrratish
    params:
      version: v2.0
      versions:
      - baseURL: https://pir.example.com/
        identifier: v2.0
        isLatest: true
        title: Latest
      - baseURL: https://pir.example.com/v1.0/
        identifier: v1.0
        title: v1.0
    title: Arrr, my Website
    weight: 2
{
   "languages": {
      "en": {
         "baseURL": "https://example.com/",
         "contentDir": "content/en",
         "languageCode": "en",
         "languageName": "English",
         "params": {
            "version": "v2.0",
            "versions": [
               {
                  "baseURL": "https://example.com/",
                  "identifier": "v2.0",
                  "isLatest": true,
                  "title": "Latest"
               },
               {
                  "baseURL": "https://example.com/v1.0/",
                  "identifier": "v1.0",
                  "title": "v1.0"
               }
            ]
         },
         "title": "My Website",
         "weight": 1
      },
      "pir": {
         "baseURL": "https://pir.example.com/",
         "contentDir": "content/pir",
         "languageCode": "art-x-pir",
         "languageDirection": "rtl",
         "languageName": "Pirrratish",
         "params": {
            "version": "v2.0",
            "versions": [
               {
                  "baseURL": "https://pir.example.com/",
                  "identifier": "v2.0",
                  "isLatest": true,
                  "title": "Latest"
               },
               {
                  "baseURL": "https://pir.example.com/v1.0/",
                  "identifier": "v1.0",
                  "title": "v1.0"
               }
            ]
         },
         "title": "Arrr, my Website",
         "weight": 2
      }
   }
}

Hiding the Versioning Warning

Option If visitors navigate to an archived version of your site, they will see a versioning warning at the top of each page.

You can disable it be setting the disableVersioningWarning option to true in your hugo.toml.

hugo.
[params]
  disableVersioningWarning = true
params:
  disableVersioningWarning: true
{
   "params": {
      "disableVersioningWarning": true
   }
}

Adjusting the Versioning Warning

Method 1

You can adjust the text of the versioning warning by overriding the key Versioning-warning in your i18n files.

The following parameter are available to be included in the text:

  • pageVersion - the element of the displayed page’s version from your versions array
  • pageUrl - the URL of the displayed page
  • latestVersion - the element of the version marked with isLatest from your versions array
  • latestUrl - the URL of the displayed page mapped to the latest version

Method 2

You can override layouts/partials/versioning-waring.html. This is called once a version conflict was recognized. So the only thing for you to do is writing the message.

The following parameter are available in this partial:

  • page - the current Page
  • pageVersion - the element of the displayed page’s version from your versions array
  • pageUrl - the URL of the displayed page
  • latestVersion - the element of the version marked with isLatest from your versions array
  • latestUrl - the URL of the displayed page mapped to the latest version

Change URL of the Version Index

Option The default URL for the version index can be changed with the versionIndexURL parameter

hugo.
[params]
  versionIndexURL = 'myversionindex.js'
params:
  versionIndexURL: myversionindex.js
{
   "params": {
      "versionIndexURL": "myversionindex.js"
   }
}
Note

You only need to change these if you have other own content created for those URLs.

Check for duplicate URLs by running hugo --printPathWarnings.