Test for versions

Fork me! This way you can see for yourself how versioning works on web sites where the source files are in GitHub, using Jekyll and collections.

• Source (files and folders under version control)
• Output (static site files and folders)
• Concepts
• References
• License

Here are the general concepts:

• The version control of source is done with git through stable branches or tags, but the version control of output does not depend on stable branches.
• The versions of the output are not semantically meaningful, and can have silly names if needed.
• The collection settings in the _config.yml sets the destination folder at build time for the versions.
• The output goes to GitHub Pages, in separate folders per release, so that the URL also reflects the version number the person is reading on a page.
• The master branch always reflects the current version.
• Minimal Mistakes is the theme in use, which supports collections.
• On the front-end, you'd still need to design for scenarios such as "What if the page I want to access on version 4.1.1 does not exist in version 4.1.1? Do you give a 404 error or a special "not found" page when navigating versions?

Source (files and folders under version control)

GitHub organization/repository:

_config.yml
index.html
_pages/release-notes.md
_installguide/introduction.md
_installguide/deployment.md

The _config.yml build configuration file contains collections for each deliverable, such as an install guide:

# Collections
collections:
  current:
    output: true
    permalink: /:collection/:path
    version: current # Depending on your requirements, you may not need this variable. Also you may be able to default it using :collection, but I haven't tried that.
    title: Latest Release
  "4.1": # quoting version number to avoid the error: undefined method `gsub' for 4.1:Float
    output: true
    permalink: /:collection/:path
    version: "4.1"
    title: Release 4.1 - Lord Chuggington
  "4.1.1":
    output: true
    permalink: /:collection/:path
    version: "4.1.1"
    title: Release 4.1.1 - Bunny Slippers

Previously, the collection configuration was used for publishing to a /releasenumber directory. Now, this repo uses baseurl set in the _config.yml file to indicate a version value.

Build with a script, writing the added release number collections into a new _config.x.y.yml file for each stable branch, where the _config.x.y.yml file has baseurl: x.y.

$ bundle exec jekyll build --config _config.yml,_config.x.y.yml --destination _site/x.y

Output (static site files and folders)

The website's URL is this: [https://justwriteclick.github.io/versions-jekyll/](https://justwriteclick.github.io/versions-jekyll/) and then all the folders below are what are output.

This repo is considered to be a project page from GitHub Page's perspective, so the org name and repo name are both represented.

versions-jekyll/4.1/index.html
versions-jekyll/4.1/release-notes/index.html
versions-jekyll/4.1/install-guide/introduction/index.html
versions-jekyll/4.1/install-guide/deployment/index.html
versions-jekyll/latest/index.html
versions-jekyll/latest/release-notes/index.html
versions-jekyll/latest/install-guide/introduction/index.html
versions-jekyll/latest/install-guide/deployment/index.html

Concepts

I think that there's no way to have nested collections with Jekyll. So you either have to use collections for the versions, and permalink metadata for the guides, or put the version in the permalink metadata when using collections.

When using permalink metadata per markdown file for version, you can search-and-replace at release time, replacing /current (which remains as the master branch permalink) with /4.1 as the release value.

When using baseurl from the _confg.yml file at build time, you can build to an x.y folder with the correct relative links for everything, as long as your cross-references use {{site.baseurl}}.

The website's URL is this: [https://justwriteclick.github.io/versions-jekyll/](https://justwriteclick.github.io/versions-jekyll/) and then all the folders below are what are output.

Here's a mapping of what Jekyll data is represented in each portion of the URL. This repo is considered to be a project page from GitHub Page's perspective, so the org name and repo name are both represented.

Jekyll Variable	Portion of URL	Considerations
site.url	https://orgname.github.io	What happens when using a user repo or a custom domain name?
site.baseurl	/repo-name	Used with project repos only, set in _config.yml.
base_path	https://orgname.github.io/repo-name	Currently used in cross references, but with a version representing site.collection, would cross-references always point to /current? Is base_path only defined in some themes?
site.collection	/current or /4.1	Defined in _config.yml, would need to change
collection	based on a stable/versionnumber branch or	master branch, where /current maps to master branch.
page.collection	installguide	Defined in the _config.yml.
page.url	/install-guide/introduction/index.html	Defined in the permalink metadata in each .md file.
permalink: /install-guide/introduction/

Jekyll Variable	Portion of URL
site.url	https://orgname.github.io
site.baseurl	/repo-name
base_path	https://orgname.github.io/repo-name redirects to: http://docs.example.com
site.collection	/current or /4.1
page.url	/install-guide/introduction/index.html
permalink:	/install-guide/introduction/

Search considerations

What I'm working on next is setting up a search_data.json file template so that the output for versions-jekyll/latest using Lunr.js.

Currently, however, there's no way to ignore certain files like main.css when building an index for content.

References

http://downtothewire.io/2015/08/15/configuring-jekyll-for-user-and-project-github-pages/

https://mademistakes.com/articles/using-jekyll-2016/

https://mademistakes.com/work/minimal-mistakes-jekyll-theme/

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Michael Rose

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.