Add Versions
With an example site deployed, we can now try out one of the killer features of Docusaurus — versioned documentation. Versioned documentation helps to show relevant documentation for the current version of a tool and also hide unreleased documentation from users, reducing confusion. Documentation for older versions is also preserved and accessible to users of older versions of a tool even as the latest documentation changes.
Releasing a Version#
Assume you are happy with the current state of the documentation and want to freeze it as the v1.0.0 docs. First you cd to the website directory and run the following command.
That command generates a versions.json file, which will be used to list down all the versions of docs in the project.
Next, you run a command with the version you want to create, like 1.0.0.
That command preserves a copy of all documents currently in the docs directory and makes them available as documentation for version 1.0.0. The docs directory is copied to the website/versioned_docs/version-1.0.0 directory.
Current Version#
Type npm start and you will see the version beside the title. Version 1.0.0, the number of your current version, shows at the URL http://localhost:3000/docusaurus-tutorial/docs/doc1.
Let's test out how versioning actually works. Open docs/doc1.md and change the first line of the body:
If you go to http://localhost:3000/docusaurus-tutorial/docs/doc1 in your browser, realize that it's still showing the line before the change. That's because the version you're looking at is the 1.0.0 version, which has already been frozen in time. The document you changed is part of the next version.
Next Version#
The latest version of the documents is viewed by adding next to the URL: http://localhost:3000/docusaurus-tutorial/docs/next/doc1. Now you can see the line change to "This is the latest version of the docs." Note that the version beside the title changes to "next" when you open that URL.
Click the version to open the versions page, which was created at http://localhost:3000/docusaurus-tutorial/versions with a list of the documentation versions. See that both 1.0.0 and master are listed there and they link to the respective versions of the documentation.
The master documents in the docs directory became version next when the website/versioned_docs/version-1.0.0 directory was made for version 1.0.0.
Past Versions#
Assume the documentation changed and needs an update. You can release another version, like 1.0.1.
Version 1.0.0 remains available as a past version. You can view it by adding 1.0.0 to the URL, http://localhost:3000/docusaurus-tutorial/docs/1.0.0/doc1. Also, a link to version 1.0.0 appears on the versions page.
Go ahead and publish your versioned site with the publish-gh-pages script!
Wrap Up#
That's all folks! In this short tutorial, you have experienced how easy it is to create a documentation website from scratch and make versions for them. There are many more things you can do with Docusaurus, such as adding a blog, search and translations. Check out the Guides section for more.