The notes section of this site is a Digital Garden created with the docs layout of the Hugo Bootstrap Theme . The docs layout has a so called “catalog” sidebar to the left whose contents are automatically generated from a given hierarchy of files and folders.

  • Create a folder content/notes in the existing site’s folder

  • Create content/notes/_index.md with content

    1---
2cascade:
3    type: docs
4menu:
5    main:
6        title: Notes
7        weight: '45'
8title: Notes
9---

  • Now, the files and folders present in content/notes will appear in the left catalog sidebar hierarchy.

  • To get a ‘Recent Posts’ sidebar widget in the digital garden, add {{ partial "sidebar/recent-posts" . }} to layouts/partials/hooks/docs/sidebar-end.html

  • This is sufficient to create a digital garden if you intend to write your notes as files within the content/notes hierarchy, in ways that are already compatible with or recognizable by Hugo.

    • But in case you create your notes using some other software program, it would be necessary to export those notes into a hierarchy of plain markdown files that are understandable by Hugo.
    • I use Dendron for taking notes. The tools and process for exporting notes from a Dendron “vault” are described in Exporting Dendron notes to Hugo
    • I use Obsidian for taking notes. The tools and process for exporting notes from an Obsidian “vault” are described in Publishing Obsidian vault with Hugo .

  • Modify list template to remove subsections and child page summaries from being displayed

    • Copy theme files to site root 
      1cp themes/hugo-theme-bootstrap/layouts/partials/docs/list.html layouts/partials/docs/
    • Edit layouts/partials/docs/list.html to contain 
       1<div class="container">
 2    {{- if not .IsHome -}}
 3        {{- partial "breadcrumb" . -}}
 4        {{- with .Content -}}
 5        <article class="row card post component">
 6        <div class="card-body pb-0">
 7            {{ . }}
 8        </div>
 9        </article>
10        {{- end -}}
11    {{- end -}}
12    </div>

  • Remove Next/Prev nav footers from notes by

    • cp themes/hugo-theme-bootstrap/layouts/partials/docs/post.html layouts/partials/docs/
    • Remove from layouts/partials/docs/post.html 
      1<div class="card-footer">
2    {{- partial "post/nav" . -}}
3</div>