# Is there a way to group and filter site.mainSections?

**URL:** <https://discourse.gohugo.io/t/is-there-a-way-to-group-and-filter-site-mainsections/19920>\
**Category:** support\
**Created:** [July 31, 2019, 8:41am UTC](https://discourse.gohugo.io/t/is-there-a-way-to-group-and-filter-site-mainsections/19920 "2019-07-31T08:41:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alexandros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@alexandros](https://discourse.gohugo.io/u/alexandros)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 8:41am UTC](https://discourse.gohugo.io/t/is-there-a-way-to-group-and-filter-site-mainsections/19920/1 "2019-07-31T08:41:38Z")

</div>

I have tried to see if it’s possible to have a fully automated navigation without configuring menus by using the internal `mainSections` .

In an ideal world, I would like to have a menu with links to a project’s `mainSections` and underneath each link a dropdown with the content files rendered per `mainSection`

Is there a way to achieve this?

I’ve noticed that `.FirstSection` does not work in the `mainSections` context.

So far as a workaround I managed to construct the navigation like so:

```auto
        {{ range .Site.Params.mainSections }}
          <div class="navbar-item has-dropdown is-hoverable">
            <a href="{{- . | absURL -}}" class="navbar-link">
              {{- . | title -}}
            </a>
            {{- end -}}

```

But I have been unable to create slices per `mainSection` for each dropdown item.

`{{ where .Pages "Type" "in" site.Params.mainSections }}` refers to Pages in the entire group of `mainSections` and I cannot quite figure out how to split this set per `mainSection`.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![alexandros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@alexandros](https://discourse.gohugo.io/u/alexandros)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 1:59pm UTC](https://discourse.gohugo.io/t/is-there-a-way-to-group-and-filter-site-mainsections/19920/2 "2019-07-31T13:59:30Z")

</div>

Never mind I figured it out. Here is what I did:

1. Define some variables:

```auto
    {{- $mainSections := .Site.Params.mainSections -}}
    {{- $section := where .Site.RegularPages "Section" "in" $mainSections -}}

```

1. Store the internal `mainSections` and their regular pages

```auto
    {{- $section_count := len $section -}}

```

1. Store the length of `mainSections` regular pages to check for their existence.

```auto
      {{- $section_name := "" }}
      {{ range $mainSections }}
      {{- $section_name := . }}
      {{ end }}

```

1. Initialize an empty variable for each `mainSection` and then define it within the `range` of the `mainSections`

```auto
      {{- if ge $section_count 1 -}}

```

1. If `mainSections` `.Pages` exist then…

```auto
      {{- with .Site.GetPage "section" $section_name }}
      {{- range .Sections -}}
      <div class="navbar-item has-dropdown is-hoverable">
<a href="{{- .Permalink -}}" class="navbar-link">{{- .Title -}}</a>
            <div class="navbar-dropdown">
{{- range .Pages }}
<a href="{{- .Permalink -}}" class="navbar-item">{{- .Title -}}</a>
{{- end -}}
</div>
    </div>
    {{- end -}}
    {{- end -}}
    {{- end -}}

```

1. Fetch each and every one `mainSection` list page (including titles & Permalinks) and then under each link populate a dropdown menu with the regular pages.

Took me a while but I’m a happy camper.

Now I no longer need to configure Hugo Menus (since I get bored _quite_ easily).

Enjoy!