Redesign version drawer as dropdown

[krisstern]

What feature do you want to see added?

Currently we have a drawer for controlling the version and the part of the versioned documentation we would like to navigate to. It would be more ideal if we could convert this into a dropdown in the sidenav instead. So a new design would be essential for this work.

The component concerned:

Upstream changes

N/A

[yats0x7]

Hey @krisstern i would like to work on this issue, can you assign it to me

[yats0x7]

does this design look good to you @krisstern sir?

[krisstern]

No, your proposed design does not take into account the new versioning feature offered by Antora, showing you have not understood the basic requirement

[krisstern]

We really do want just one sidenav with a dropdown for the versions

[yats0x7]

Thank you for the clarification — that helps a lot, and apologies for the earlier misunderstanding.

I now understand that the core requirement is a single sidenav with a dropdown specifically for documentation versions, leveraging Antora’s native versioning features, rather than a section-based dropdown or a UI-only refactor.

[yats0x7]

The goal, as I understand it, is to remove the custom drawer logic and instead expose Antora-managed versions directly in the sidenav, keeping the rest of the navigation structure intact.

Please let me know @krisstern if this understanding is correct. Once confirmed, I’ll rework the approach accordingly.

[yats0x7]

@krisstern can you confirm me about this?

[krisstern]

Let me get back to you in the next few days, as I will need to revisit what we planned before and put these into words

[v-art-ika22]

Hey @krisstern , I am Vartika. I am interested in contributing to this project. Can you please assign it to me?

[yats0x7]

i am actually waiting for @krisstern reply on this to work ahead, as she said she will come back to it whenever gets time

[krisstern]

Hi,
For the nature of this issue it is actually okay for more than one contributor to work on this, so we can compare designs and select the best one moving forwards. For the requirements, we would like the current version drawer to be redesigned to be a dropdown, with the LTS options available as well as all the existing drawer items. And, the dropdown button should be near the top on the left navigation pane instead of at the bottom like it is now. Please provide design here first before implementing a version for it.

[s4chinjha]

Hi, For the nature of this issue it is actually okay for more than one contributor to work on this, so we can compare designs and select the best one moving forwards. For the requirements, we would like the current version drawer to be redesigned to be a dropdown, with the LTS options available as well as all the existing drawer items. And, the dropdown button should be near the top on the left navigation pane instead of at the bottom like it is now. Please provide design here first before implementing a version for it.

Hi @krisstern,

Thanks for the clarification!

I’ve created a design where the current bottom drawer is replaced with a dropdown at the top of the sidebar, as suggested.

The dropdown combines both version options and all the existing drawer items into a single place, while keeping the current navigation structure unchanged.

Figma design:
https://www.figma.com/deck/CcIXIp00rpcbFKCqhMG7ER/Redesign-Version-Drawer-as-Unified-Dropdown-in-Sidebar?node-id=1-42&t=YVakaNx08FdJNHbN-1&scaling=min-zoom&content-scaling=fixed&page-id=0%3A1

In the design:

• If multiple versions are available, the dropdown can be used to switch between them
• Selecting a section takes the user to that part of the documentation

I’ve also implemented this locally and can raise a PR once the design is approved.

Please let me know if any changes are needed. Thanks!

[krisstern]

Hi @s4chinjha looks like your design may be a viable option. Would you like to raise a PR to actually implement it?

[s4chinjha]

thanks for the feedback! I’ve raised a PR with the implementation here: #417

Please let me know if any changes are needed.