quickstart.md

weight	date	draft	author	title	icon	description	publishdate	tags	categories	twitter
300	2023-06-08T19:25:22+01:00	false	Colin Wilson	Quickstart	rocket_launch	A guide to getting up and running with Lotus Docs.	2022-09-30T05:34:22+01:00	Beginners Guide		card site creator title description image summary @LotusDocs @LotusDocs Getting started Getting started with Lotus Docs.

Requirements

• git
• Go ≥ v1.19
• Hugo ≥ v0.117.0 (Extended Version)

Install Hugo

Install the Hugo CLI, using the specific instructions for your operating system below:

{{< tabs tabTotal="4">}} {{% tab tabName="Linux" %}}

Your Linux distro’s package manager may include Hugo. If this is the case, install it directly using your distro’s package manager – for instance, in Ubuntu, run the following command. This will install the extended edition of Hugo:

sudo apt install hugo

{{% /tab %}} {{% tab tabName="Homebrew (macOS)" %}}

If you use the package manager Homebrew, run the brew install command in your terminal to install Hugo:

brew install hugo

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If you use the package manager Chocolatey, run the choco install command in your terminal to install Hugo:

choco install hugo --confirm

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If you use the package manager Scoop, run the scoop install command in your terminal to install Hugo:

scoop install hugo

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Manual Installation

The Hugo GitHub repository contains pre-built versions of the Hugo command-line tool for various operating systems, which can be found on the Releases page

For more instruction on installing these releases, refer to Hugo’s documentation

Create a New Lotus Docs Site

With Hugo installed, create a new Hugo project using the hugo new command:

hugo new site my-docs-site && cd my-docs-site

Now initialize your project as a Hugo Module using the hugo mod init command:

hugo mod init my-docs-site

{{% alert context="info" text="Note: If your site already has a git repository, you can initialise your site using the path to your site's git repository e.g. hugo mod init github.com/<user>/<my-docs-site>/." /%}}

You can now choose your preferred method for adding the Lotus Docs theme to your new site from the options below:

{{< tabs tabTotal="3">}} {{% tab tabName="Add as a Hugo Module" %}}

Edit the hugo.toml configuration file to include the Lotus Docs theme and the Hugo Bootstrap module (lines 5 to 11 below):

baseURL = 'http://example.org/'
languageCode = 'en-us'
title = 'My New Hugo Site'

[module]
    [[module.imports]]
        path = "github.com/colinwilson/lotusdocs"
        disable = false
    [[module.imports]]
        path = "github.com/gohugoio/hugo-mod-bootstrap-scss/v5"
        disable = false

{{% alert context="info" text="Note: Hugo ≥ v0.110.0 changed the name of the default config base filename to hugo.toml. If you're running an earlier version of Hugo, consider renaming your config.toml file to hugo.toml." /%}}

{{% /tab %}} {{% tab tabName="Add as a Git submodule" %}}

Initialize Git and clone the Lotus Docs theme repository as a submodule:

git init
git submodule add https://github.com/colinwilson/lotusdocs themes/lotusdocs

Update your existing hugo.toml config file with the configuration below:

baseURL = 'http://example.org/'
languageCode = 'en-us'
title = 'My New Hugo Site'

[module]
    # uncomment line below for temporary local development of module
    # or when using a 'theme' as a git submodule
    replacements = "github.com/colinwilson/lotusdocs -> lotusdocs"
    [[module.imports]]
        path = "github.com/colinwilson/lotusdocs"
        disable = false
    [[module.imports]]
        path = "github.com/gohugoio/hugo-mod-bootstrap-scss/v5"
        disable = false

{{% alert context="info" text="Note: Hugo ≥ v0.110.0 changed the name of the default config base filename to hugo.toml. If you're running an earlier version of Hugo, consider renaming your config.toml file to hugo.toml." /%}}

{{% /tab %}} {{% tab tabName="Clone theme files" %}}

In cases where you prefer to customise and maintain the Lotus Docs theme yourself, you can clone the theme into your project’s themes subdirectory.

Run the following command from your project’s root directory to clone the Lotus Docs theme into your themes subdirectory:

git clone https://github.com/colinwilson/lotusdocs themes/lotusdocs

Edit the hugo.toml configuration file to include the Lotus Docs theme and the Hugo Bootstrap module (lines 5 to 14 below):

baseURL = 'http://example.org/'
languageCode = 'en-us'
title = 'My New Hugo Site'

[module]
    # uncomment line below for temporary local development of module,
    # when using a 'theme' as a git submodule or git cloned files
    replacements = "github.com/colinwilson/lotusdocs -> lotusdocs"
    [[module.imports]]
        path = "github.com/colinwilson/lotusdocs"
        disable = false
    [[module.imports]]
        path = "github.com/gohugoio/hugo-mod-bootstrap-scss/v5"
        disable = false

{{< alert context="info" text="Note: Hugo ≥ v0.110.0 changed the name of the default config base filename to hugo.toml. If you're running an earlier version of Hugo, consider renaming your config.toml file to hugo.toml." />}}

{{% /tab %}} {{< /tabs >}}

Create New Content

Navigate to the root of your Hugo project and use the hugo new command to create a file in the content/docs directory:

hugo new docs/example-page.md

This will create a markdown file named example-page.md with the following default front matter:

+++
title = "Example Page"
description = ""
icon = "article"
date = "2023-05-22T00:27:57+01:00"
lastmod = "2023-05-22T00:27:57+01:00"
draft = false
toc = true
weight = 999
+++

Modify the options to suit your needs.

The code below shows the front matter code used to create this page, along with a portion of markdown from the body:

{{< prism lang="md" >}} +++ weight = 100 date = "2023-05-03T22:37:22+01:00" draft = true author = "Colin Wilson" title = "Quickstart" icon = "rocket_launch" toc = true description = "A quickstart guide to creating new content in Lotus Docs" publishdate = "2023-05-03T22:37:22+01:00" tags = ["Beginners"] +++

Create New Content

Navigate to the root of your Hugo project and use the hugo new command to create a file in the content/docs directory:

hugo new docs/examplepage.md

... {{< /prism >}}

Preview your Site

Now that you've created some sample content you can preview your new Lotus Docs site using the huge server command:

hugo server -D

Navigate to localhost:1313/docs/ and you should see a card link to the Example Page created earlier:

Ordering Content

Lotus Docs uses a simple weighting method for ordering content and creating menus.

The front matter weight variable is used to order all content and auto-generate the menu structure (including the sidebar menu and page navigation buttons). Lower weight values take higher precedence. So content with lower weights come first and are so ordered in the menu.

Auto-Generated Menu

As mentioned, Lotus Docs auto-generates menus and navigation links using the front matter weight variable. For example, Navigate to the content/docs directory and create two content files, doc-one.md and doc-two.md, then edit the weight values to 100 and 200 respectively:

{{< alert text="It's good practice to increment the weight of your posts by a factor of 100. This ensures plenty of room to insert new posts between existing items should you need to." />}}

Your directory structure should now look like this:

content/
└── docs/
    ├── doc-one.md
    └── doc-two.md

Links to both posts are now visible in the sidebar menu where doc-one.md will come before and be placed above doc-two.md:

{{< alert context="info" text="The option to manually configure a predefined menu structure in hugo.toml as opposed to an auto-generated one is part of the Lotus Docs roadmap." />}}

Second Level Menu Items

Second level menu items can be generated by first creating a 'parent' directory containing an _index.md file, e.g.:

hugo new docs/parent-directory/_index.md

The above command creates an _index.md file inside a directory named parent-directory under content/docs:

content/
└── docs/
    ├── parent-directory/
    │   └── _index.md
    ├── doc-one.md
    ├── doc-two.md
    └── _index.md

You can now create second level items inside the parent-directory as normal. Run the hugo new command again to create a post inside the newly created parent-directory:

hugo new docs/parent-directory/doc-three.md

Your directory/file structure should now look like this:

content/
└── docs/
    ├── parent-directory/
    │   ├── _index.md
    │   └── doc-three.md
    ├── doc-one.md
    ├── doc-two.md
    └── _index.md

This is reflected in the sidebar menu with parent-directory functioning as a dropdown menu containing a link to the Doc Three post: