In order to create a section, you need to create a corresponding menu entry and a directory under the content directory.

Creating a section

Assuming that the home directory for the site is /foo/bar, a new menu entry can be created by adding

[[menu.main]]
  identifier = "section_one"
  name = "Section One"
  url = "/section_one"
  weight = 1
  pre = "open"

to the /foo/bar/config.toml and creating a directory section_one under /foo/bar/content/. The meaning of each variable is as follows:

• identifier: an ID that is used to identify each menu entry (corresponding to the section name)
• name: the name of the menu entry that is displayed in each menu
• url: the permanent link to the section page
• weight: the sequencing index for the menu entry
• pre: setting the corresponding accordion menu to be “open” or “closed” upon access (original variable for our theme)

Refer to the Hugo official documentation for details on the parameters other than pre.

The example above will create a section named section_one, displayed as Section One, and accessed via <site URL>/section_one. On the top page, the corresponding accordion menu will be placed on the top, and will be open upon access by default.

Creating the section page

A section page serves as a “cushion page”, or a table of contents for the entries that belong to that section. It will typically contain an introduction to that section and a list of links to the pages within the section.

The content of the section page can be written on the markdown file /foo/bar/content/section_one/_index.md. It is important that the file is named _index.md, so that it can be distinguished from the other regular pages. Upon build, Hugo will parse the markdown content to a static HTML file, which will be displayed as the section page. On the top page, the content of the section page will be displayed in the accordion menu.

See Lists in the section page to learn how to show a list of contents within the section. A description of writing regular entries will be given in the Edit contents section.

Creating subsections

You may also create a subsection section_two within the section_one by creating a corresponding subdirectory. It is not necessary to create a submenu entry in the config.toml for subsections.