Organizing Tabs so they don't have to be alphabetical.

[z3thon]

Trying to organize the navigation on my website. I would like to organize the order of the tabs on my website (not in alphabetical) but I can't seem to get the syntax right under the nav: section of my mkdocs.yml

As shown in the image above I am doing my best to follow the documentation in https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/setup/setting-up-navigation/#section-index-pages

nav:
  - Section:
    - section/index.md
    - Page 1: section/page-1.md
    ...
    - Page n: section/page-n.md

I can't get my tabs to load in a specific order and still load navigation column on the left hand side of the page.
If I specify an ordering for the tabs then the left-hand column goes away and I can't see it anymore.

I can't figure out I the is a syntax problem or if it's simply not supported without an additional plugin?

[z3thon]

Even the documentation site has a custom order of the tabs that is not alphabetical but the column nav bar on the left hand side is left in alphabetical order. This is what I would like to achieve.

[squidfunk]

The sidebar is almost in alphabetical order. We list them out explicitly in the nav section.

[squidfunk]

What do you mean with "it goes away"? It doesn't host any content? If there's only a single page behind a tab (e.g. for Home), there will be no content, since there's nothing to render. The sidebar only contains the pages that are below the current section/tab.

[z3thon]

I'm starting to make some progress. I removed the ... stuff and now I can get some of it to load.
I still don't know how to section the left column with bold letter sections but not add those pieces to the list of tabs up at the top of the page.

[squidfunk]

You need to enable navigation.sections.

[squidfunk]

In general, please read our documentation on setting up navigation. It contains screenshots with on/off comparisons for all features when they are enabled and disabled. All features are documented...

[z3thon]

I think I've got it!
I'm gonna try out a couple different things with the syntax.
Because I'm using multiple languages my deployment time takes a little while so it's hard to test and iterate quickly.

I think I prefer the "drop downs" instead of the bold sections as things grow.

Thanks for the help. The syntax was (and still is) the most confusing part when you have a file tree bigger than a couple files.

[squidfunk]

I strongly recommend to set up configuration validation, so you can catch errors more quickly.

[z3thon]

Here is the finished product of the formatting that you need to use with the nav: section of your mkdocs.yml to get everything working as intended.

nav:
  - Home:
    - index.md #This is the first page you land on when you visit "Home"
  - Basics: #This is a tab on my page as I'm using the tabs feature for navigation.
    - Basics/0 Welcome.md #This is the first page you land on when you visit "Basics"
    - Basics/1 How to Navigate in Quickbase.md
    - Basics/2 Apps & Tables.md
    - Basics/3 Table Reports and Exporting Reports.md
    - Basics/4 Forms and Records.md
    - Basics/5 Dashboards.md
    - Basics/6 Becoming Efficient in QB.md
    - Basics/7 Report Field Types.md
  - Setup: #This is a tab on my page as I'm using the tabs feature for navigation.
    - Setup/0 Welcome.md #This is the first page you land on when you visit "Setup"
    - Setup/1 HR Manager.md
    - Setup/2 Product & Inventory.md
    - Setup/3 Equipment Manager.md
    - Setup/4 Quality Center.md
    - Setup/5 Production.md
    - Users & Permissions: #Drop-Down
      - Users/Adding a User.md #This is a file under the "Users & Permissions" drop-down.
      - Users/User Permissions.md #This is a file under the "Users & Permissions" drop-down.
      - Users/Cost of Each User.md #This is a file under the "Users & Permissions" drop-down.
  - Plans: #This is a tab on my page as I'm using the tabs feature for navigation.
    - Plans/Explore.md #This is the first page that you land on when you visit "Plans"
    - 1 | HR Manager: #Drop-Down
      - Plans/1 | HR Manager/How to Add an Employee.md #This is a file under the "HR Manager" drop-down.
    - 2 | Product & Inventory: #Drop-Down
      - Plans/2 | Product & Inventory/How to Add an Element.md #This is a file under the "Product & Inventory" drop-down.
    - 3 | Equipment Manager: #Drop-Down
      - Plans/3 | Equipment Manager/Equipment Feed KB.md #This is a file under the "Equipment Manager" drop-down.
    - 4 | Quality Center: #Drop-Down
      - Plans/4 | Quality Center/How to Build a Test Template.md #This is a file under the "Quality Center" drop-down.
    - 5 | Production: #Drop-Down
      - Plans/5 | Production/Creating Resource Plans.md #This is a file under the "Production" drop-down.

[StefanoCecere]

what if i'd just want to organize the top level navigation, and not write the full hierarchy of pages into mkdocs.yml ?
I can't do it with pure mkdocs, right? i have to use a plugin like https://github.com/lukasgeiter/mkdocs-awesome-pages-plugin...

bur i fear things get complex to maintain a site with core features delegated to external plugins....

[squidfunk]

bur i fear things get complex to maintain a site with core features delegated to external plugins....

Well, we can't implement everything natively into this theme. It also makes no sense, because some things like navigation organization and page tree structure can be changed regardless of the theme. We also have several other critical upstream dependencies that we rely on. The awesome pages plugin is a great plugin that is mature and tested, so you shouldn't be afraid to use it.