How do I override and extend a partial without copying it?

[samuelcolvin]

I want to add content to the end of partials/nav.html - is there an existing way to achieve this without copying the default content from the file's default content?

I've include {% include 'partials/nav.html' %} in my overrides/partials/nav.html I get a recursion error.

[squidfunk]

Thanks for asking. Good question, I don't think it's possible, as partials are, as far as I understand, overloaded by MkDocs, not Jinja, i.e. the directory structures of the theme and your overrides are merged. Thus, there's no access to the parent partial from the override. However, this is just my guess, so it could be a good idea to ask the maintainers of MkDocs.

[samuelcolvin]

thanks so much. Good to know I'm not missing anything obvious.

[squidfunk]

Another option might be to override the site_nav block and add your changes after the inclusion of the nav partial:

mkdocs-material/src/base.html

Lines 250 to 290 in 770b1b9

	<!-- Navigation -->
	{% block site_nav %}
	<!-- Main navigation -->
	{% if nav %}
	{% if page and page.meta and page.meta.hide %}
	{% set hidden = "hidden" if "navigation" in page.meta.hide %}
	{% endif %}
	<div
	class="md-sidebar md-sidebar--primary"
	data-md-component="sidebar"
	data-md-type="navigation"
	{{ hidden }}
	>
	<div class="md-sidebar__scrollwrap">
	<div class="md-sidebar__inner">
	{% include "partials/nav.html" %}
	</div>
	</div>
	</div>
	{% endif %}
	<!-- Table of contents -->
	{% if not "toc.integrate" in features %}
	{% if page and page.meta and page.meta.hide %}
	{% set hidden = "hidden" if "toc" in page.meta.hide %}
	{% endif %}
	<div
	class="md-sidebar md-sidebar--secondary"
	data-md-component="sidebar"
	data-md-type="toc"
	{{ hidden }}
	>
	<div class="md-sidebar__scrollwrap">
	<div class="md-sidebar__inner">
	{% include "partials/toc.html" %}
	</div>
	</div>
	</div>
	{% endif %}
	{% endblock %}

History shows that those lines are very rarely changed. The navigation itself does change more often.