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 to the users for the current version of the tool they are using and also hide unreleased documentation from users, reducing confusion. Documentations for older versions are also preserved and accessible to users of older versions of the tool even as the latest documentation changes.
Releasing a Version#
Assuming we are happy with the current state of the documentation and we want to freeze it as the v1.0.0 docs. We first run the following command to generate a versions.js file, which will be used to list down all the versions of docs in the project.
Next, we run a command with the version we want to create, e.g. 1.0.0,
This will preserve all documents currently in the docs directory and make them available as documentation for version 1.0.0.
Documents in the docs directory will be considered part of version next and they are available, for example, at the URL localhost:3000/<baseUrl>/docs/next/doc1. Documents from the latest version use the URL docs/doc1.
Let's test out that versioning actually works. We can go to docs/doc1.md and change the first line of the body:
If we go to the localhost:3000/<baseUrl>/docs/doc1 URL in our browser, realize that it's still showing the previous line. That's because the version we're looking at now is the 1.0.0 version, which has already been frozen in time.
Next Version#
The latest versions of the docs have to be accessed by adding next to the URL: localhost:3000/<baseUrl>/docs/next/doc1. Note that the version beside the title also changes to next when we are on that URL.
A versions page has been created for us at localhost:3000/<baseUrl>/versions which shows a list of the current versions of the documentation. See that both 1.0.0 and master are being listed here and they correctly link to the respective versions of the documentation.
Go ahead and publish your versioned site!
Wrap Up#
That's all folks! In this short tutorial, you have experienced how easy it was to create a documentation website from scratch and making 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.