@simonbrunel/vuepress-plugin-versions

VuePress plugin that allows users to switch between different versions of your documentation, based on the published versions of your project on npm. Available releases are automatically retrieved on the client side, so previous versions of your documentation can provide a link to the newer versions.

Important: this plugin does not help to create and organize different versions of your documentation but assumes that it's already properly versioned under different URLs. If it's not the case, you may want to try the vuepress-plugin-versioning plugin.

Requirements

Please read the following requirements before using this plugin:

Your project must be publicly available on npm. Currently, this plugin only allows to fetch published versions from npm. If you want to see more use cases implemented for projects not available on npm, please open an issue.
The versioned URL format of your documentation should be stable in order to support old docs linking to newer ones. Rules to convert versions to URLs are part of the build, thus can't be changed once published. If you deploy newer docs under a different URL format, old docs will still redirect to the previous format.
Your VuePress theme, if not the default one, must provide a dropdown component with a similar API as the one built-in the default VuePress theme. This component must be accessible via the @theme/components/DropdownLink.vue alias.

Installation

npm install -D @simonbrunel/vuepress-plugin-versions

Configuration

Minimal config in .vuepress/config.js to enable this plugin:

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    ['@simonbrunel/vuepress-plugin-versions'],
  ],
};

The following snippet describes available options with their default values:

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    ['@simonbrunel/vuepress-plugin-versions', {
      /**
       * Path to the `package.json` file of your project, relative to the `.vuepress` folder.
       * The default value assumes that your documentation is stored under a top level folder
       * in your project repository (e.g. /docs).
       * @type string
       * @default '../../package.json'
       */
      package: '../../package.json',

      /**
       * Template filters. See "Template Syntax > Filters" for details.
       * @type object | undefined
       * @default undefined
       */
      filters: undefined,

      /**
       * Options to customize the versions menu(s).
       * @type object
       */
      menu: {
        /**
         * Array of query selectors. For each of them, a menu is created and inserted inside
         * the element represented by the selector. If the selector ends with `::before` or
         * `::after`, the menu is inserted before (or after) the element. By default, two
         * menus are created, one after the docs title, on the left of the navbar (desktop)
         * and another one on the top of the sidebar (mobile).
         * https://developer.mozilla.org/docs/Web/API/Document/querySelector
         * @type string
         */
        locations: [
          '.navbar > .home-link::after',
          '.sidebar > .nav-links > :first-child::before',
        ],

        /**
         * Text to display for the menu title. This value supports variables for the current
         * version (i.e. package.json/version). See "Template Syntax" for details.
         * @type string (template)
         */
        text: '{{version}}',

        /**
         * Menu content items. The default value displays all minor versions, redirecting to
         * '/<version>/' (e.g. 'https://<hostname>/1.2.3-beta.1/') with the version as title
         * (e.g. '1.2.3-beta.1'). See "Menu Items" for details.
         * @type array
         */
        items: [
          {
            type: 'versions',
            target: '_self',
            link: '/{{version}}/',
            text: '{{version}}',
            exclude: undefined,
            limit: undefined,
            group: 'minor',
          },
        ],
      },
    }],
  ],
};

Menu Items

This plugin supports the same options as the default theme navbar links, with the difference that the text and link properties support template with variables for the current version. Additionally, a special versions item can be used to generate a list of items for each available version.

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    ['@simonbrunel/vuepress-plugin-versions', {
      menu: {
        items: [
          { /* 'link' item     */ },
          { /* 'group' item    */ },
          { /* 'versions' item */ },
        ],
      },
    }],
  ],
};

Link Item

Same as the Navbar Links for the default theme.

{
  /**
   * Link URL. If it's a path, it will be resolved relative to the site origin (i.e.
   * will not have `base` prepended to it), thus it must start and end with a slash.
   * For example, if your documentation is deployed at `https://foo.com/docs/1.2.3/`
   * with `base: '/docs/1.2.3/`, then `link: '/docs/{{version}}/'` will be resolved
   * as `https://foo.com/docs/{{version}}/`. This value supports variables for the
   * version for which this item is created. See "Template Syntax" for details.
   * @type string (template)
   * @required
   */
  link: '<required>',

  /**
   * Text to display as link title. This value supports variables for the current
   * version (i.e. `package.json/version`). See "Template Syntax" for details.
   * @type string (template)
   * @required
   */
  text: '<required>',

  /**
   * Where to display the linked URL. If undefined, outbound links are opened in a
   * new tab ('_blank') and internal links in the same tab ('_self').
   * @see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a
   * @type '_self' | '_blank' | '_parent' | '_top' | string | undefined
   */
  target: undefined,
}

Group Item

Sub groups inside the menu are also supported using nested items and follow the same format as the Navbar Links for the default theme.

{
  /**
   * Text to display as group title. This value supports variables for the current
   * version (i.e. `package.json/version`). See "Template Syntax" for details.
   * @type string (template)
   * @required
   */
  text: '',

  /**
   * Group content items.
   * @ype array
   * @required
   */
  items: [
    { /* 'link' item */ },
    { /* 'versions' item */ },
  ],
}

Versions Item

A 'versions' item can be used to generate multiple items, one for each available version. It's possible to control which versions are displayed by changing the group, exclude and limit options.

{
  /**
   * Turns the item as a 'versions' item.
   * @type 'versions'
   * @required
   */
  type: 'versions',

  /**
   * Regular expression used to exclude versions, for example:
   * - exclude: /^[0]\.|[1]\.[0-5]\./ (ignores version in range 0.x to 1.5)
   * - exclude: /^[01]\./ (ignores all 0.x and 1.x versions)
   * - exclude: /alpha|beta/ (ignores all alpha and beta versions)
   * @type regexp
   */
  exclude: undefined,

  /**
   * Defines how versions are grouped together. If 'major', only one entry is kept per
   * major version (the most recent one). For example, if available versions are '1.2.4',
   * '1.2.5', '2.2.3', '2.2.4' and '2.2.5', only '1.2.5' and '2.2.5' will be displayed.
   * Same logic applies for 'minor' and 'patch'.
   * @type 'major' | 'minor' | 'patch' | null
   */
  group: 'minor',

  /**
   * Number of versions to display, after `exclude` and `group` have been applied.
   * @type number
   */
  limit: undefined,

  /**
   * Where to display the linked URL. If undefined, outbound links are opened in a
   * new tab ('_blank') and internal links in the same tab ('_self').
   * https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a
   * @type '_self' | '_blank' | '_parent' | '_top' | string | undefined
   */
  target: undefined,

  /**
   * Link URL. If it's a path, it will be resolved relative to the site origin (i.e.
   * will not have `base` prepended to it), thus it must start and end with a slash.
   * For example, if your documentation is deployed at `https://foo.com/docs/1.2.3/`
   * with `base: '/docs/1.2.3/`, then `link: '/docs/{{version}}/'` will be resolved
   * as `https://foo.com/docs/{{version}}/`. This value supports variables for the
   * version for which this item is created. See "Template Syntax" for details.
   * @type string (template)
   */
  link: '/{{version}}/',

  /**
   * Text to display as link title. This value supports variables for the version
   * for which this item is created. See "Template Syntax" for details.
   * @type string (template)
   */
  text: '{{version}}',
}

Template Syntax

Texts and links in the plugin configuration support a (very) basic template syntax. A template is a string that contains any number of variables. Variables are indicated by the double curly brackets that surround them and will be replaced by values derived from version numbers.

Variables

Currently, the following variables are supported for each version:

Variables	Example
`{{core}}`	`1.4.2`
`{{major}}`	`1`
`{{minor}}`	`4`
`{{patch}}`	`2`
`{{prerelease}}`	`beta.2`
`{{tag}}`	`next`
`{{version}}`	`1.4.2-beta.2`

Additionally, it's possible to define your own filters that you can use to transform the value of these variables (e.g. {{version|slug}}, where slug is a function that you provide and taking the value of version as first argument).

Filters

Filters allow to modify the value of a template variable. There is currently no built-in filters but you can provide your own using the filters plugin option. It must be an object where the key is the filter name and the value, a function that takes two arguments: the variable value to transform and an object containing all available variables.

Important: Since filters are serialized in order to be used on the client side, they must be arrow function expressions and can not use global variables or functions.

For example:

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    ['@simonbrunel/vuepress-plugin-versions', {
      filters: {
        slug: (v) => v.replace(/\./g, '_'),
        suffix: (v) => v ? ` (${v})` : '',
      }
    }]
  ]
}

With the previous configuration, the following templates are resolved as:

Template	Example 1	Example 2
`'{{version}}'`	`'1.2.3'`	`'1.2.3-beta.1'`
`'{{version\|slug}}'`	`'1_2_3'`	`'1_2_3-beta_1'`
`'{{core}}{{prerelease\|suffix}}'`	`'1.2.3'`	`'1.2.3 (beta.1)'`

License

@simonbrunel/vuepress-plugin-versions is available under the MIT license.