Including external YAML in order specified

[jcayouette]

I would like to keep mkdocs.yml file short for a large number of documents.
Can I import specific yaml files with their own navigation and keep the order of the indexes? for example:

nav:
  - Docs:
      - Introduction: "index.md"

      # FRONTEND
      - Frontend:
          # HTML
          - HTML:
              - Overview: "html/overview.md"
              - HTTP Messages: "html/HTTP-messages/http-status-messages.md"

          # CSS
          - CSS:
              - Overview: "css/overview.md"

So lets say I wanted to have an html.yaml file and a css.yaml file. How do I split the above content out into individual files to be included in the primary mkdocs.yml nav tree as their own sections while also keeping the specific order of the toc? I am new to mkdocs go easy :)

[kamilkrzyskow]

Your wants are unfortunately too much for base MkDocs 😉

There is the INHERIT setting, but it allows to import one parent config file, and it (as per the documentation) merges key:value pair mappings, and nav is a list, so I'm doubtful if any merging will work with it.

The awesome-pages plugin could allow you to manage the nav tree more easily. I think it extends the functionality of nav and adds the ... expansion to it too, but I use it with another workflow.
It allows to split the nav structure across multiple files contained inside of their respective directories and allows to use wildcards to limit the amount of entries. However I do see a problem in your case, because you're adding overview to every directory, which means that if you want to keep the structure the same you'd have to add a .pages files to every directory, so managing multiple files could become less readable than managing one file.
Still, I do feel like if you master a workflow with wildcards provided by the plugin you'll have a much easier time down the line as your site grows.
A title of a page used in the site navigation is acquired in 4 different ways, using the wildcards you'd focus on the meta-data front matter key.

And the last approach would be to create an external tool which would replace the text in a template.yml file.
For example you'd put HTML-CONTENTS in the template.yml then use the tool to replace the text with the contents of the html.yml file, then you'd create mkdocs.yml based on that. I once created a similar solution here, but ultimately it didn't go into "production" yet or at all.

I hope it helps a little ✌️

[jcayouette]

Thanks Ill give it a shot!