Flyout menu

When you are using a Read the Docs site, you will likely notice that we embed a menu on all the documentation pages we serve. This is a way to expose the functionality of Read the Docs on the page, without having to have the documentation theme integrate it directly.

There are two versions of the flyout menu:

Addons flyout menu

The updated Read the Docs Addons flyout menu lists available documentation versions and translations, as well as useful links, offline formats, and a search bar.

_images/flyout-addons.png

The opened flyout menu

Customizing the flyout menu

In your dashboard, you can configure flyout menu options in Settings, under Addons.

Sort your versions Alphabetically, by SemVer, by Python Packaging, by CalVer, or define your own pattern.

Choose whether to list stable versions first or not.

Customizing the look of the addons flyout menu

The addons flyout exposes all the required data to build the flyout menu via a JavaScript CustomEvent. Take a look at an example of this approach at https://github.com/readthedocs/sphinx_rtd_theme/pull/1526.

Original flyout menu

The flyout menu provides access to the following bits of Read the Docs functionality:

  • A version switcher that shows users all of the active, unhidden versions they have access to.

  • Offline formats for the current version, including HTML & PDF downloads that are enabled by the project.

  • Links to the Read the Docs dashboard for the project.

  • Links to your Git provider that allow the user to quickly find the exact file that the documentation was rendered from.

  • A search bar that gives users access to our Server side search of the current version.

_images/flyout-open.png

The opened flyout