[DISCUSS] Fixing problem with version drop-down in docs ?

[Jarek Potiuk <ja...@potiuk.com>]

Hello here,

We had this small issue in our docs that our version dropdown was barely
usable - due to the size of it. .... And we still haven't found anyone to
get a better version drop-down.

But I realized (and I think Vikram had a similar comment once when we
discussed it) that we can fix things much better and faster and simpler -
by just limiting the drop-down versions to the latest minor versions. I
don't think there is a value in showing all versions in the drop-down -
latest minor versions should be "good enough" IMHO.

The docs are still there for all versions - you can modify URL to go to any
version, also docs from PyPI releases have the right version in the URL, so
there should be no problem whatsoever with any references etc - it's
**just** the drop-down that is shorter.

We could also eventually only show the last "N" entries (say 10) - to make
sure that it does not grow in the future beyond the screen size for
standard screen sizes.

Here is the PR that implements it:
https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/57243

You can see how it works on staging:

* Airflow:
https://airflow.staged.apache.org/docs/apache-airflow/3.2.0/index.html
* Google Provider:
https://airflow.staged.apache.org/docs/apache-airflow-providers-google/stable/index.html

Is it a good idea?

J.

Re: [DISCUSS] Fixing problem with version drop-down in docs ?

[Jarek Potiuk <ja...@potiuk.com>]

I hope it's visible: I limited the drop-down to 20 now.  I think it's way
better:

[image: Screenshot 2025-10-25 at 21.24.38.png]


J.


On Sat, Oct 25, 2025 at 3:04 PM Jarek Potiuk <ja...@potiuk.com> wrote:

> Hello here,
>
> We had this small issue in our docs that our version dropdown was barely
> usable - due to the size of it. .... And we still haven't found anyone to
> get a better version drop-down.
>
> But I realized (and I think Vikram had a similar comment once when we
> discussed it) that we can fix things much better and faster and simpler -
> by just limiting the drop-down versions to the latest minor versions. I
> don't think there is a value in showing all versions in the drop-down -
> latest minor versions should be "good enough" IMHO.
>
> The docs are still there for all versions - you can modify URL to go to
> any version, also docs from PyPI releases have the right version in the
> URL, so there should be no problem whatsoever with any references etc -
> it's **just** the drop-down that is shorter.
>
> We could also eventually only show the last "N" entries (say 10) - to make
> sure that it does not grow in the future beyond the screen size for
> standard screen sizes.
>
> Here is the PR that implements it:
> https://github.com/apache/airflow/pull/57243
>
> You can see how it works on staging:
>
> * Airflow:
> https://airflow.staged.apache.org/docs/apache-airflow/3.2.0/index.html
> * Google Provider:
> https://airflow.staged.apache.org/docs/apache-airflow-providers-google/stable/index.html
>
> Is it a good idea?
>
> J.
>
>