Template Lookup and the difference between _index.md and index.md

support
1

I have been working on the Nederburg for a while and finally have time to resolve some outstanding issues. At the same time I am trying to learn more about Hugo.

The issue I am working is to create a different style page from the regular post single.html for about and contact pages. Currently the contact page renders correctly with a form, but the about page is using the regular post single. The content directory structure is:

└── content
   ├── about
   │     └ index.md
   ├── contact
   │     └ _index.md
   └── posts

and the theme layouts folder is this, which is not working correctly and I cannot figure out how to set it up correctly based on Template Lookup Order.

└── layouts
   ├── _default
   │     └ list.html
   │     └ single.html
   ├── about
   │     └ single.html
   └── contact
         └ list.html

I have tried renaming about/single.html to list.html but that didn’t work unless I also rename content/about/index.md to _index.md. I feel like I am close to a solution but don’t know the right way to do it.

2

An index.md page uses a single template, and an _index.md page uses a list template.

Since your about page lives at the content root dir it’s just considered a regular page. So you’ll need to explicitly tell it to use the about single template.

In the front matter of your about page try setting

---
type: about 
---
3

Here’s a great post from @regis which should answer all your questions with regards to index.md and _index.md:

4

Thanks! So even though the about/index.md page is in the about sub-directory it will still use the _default/single.html template?

Is there a better way to structure the theme for this scenario?

5

Thanks Leo, that post will take a bit for me to wrap my head around. It seams like a lot of the themes could use a revamp to take advantage of these features. Is there a “current theme” that is kept up to date and uses the latest features and directory structure?

6

So this file

content/about/index.md

Is equivalent (layout wise) to this file

content/about.md

Which means your about page is technically living under the content root section, which will use template layouts/_default/single.html, unless specified otherwise via front matter (as in my example above).

Now, let’s say you had a file like this

content/about/some-page.md

Then this page would use the layouts/about/single.html template by default.

7

Yup. It’s Hugo Fresh Theme from @regis:

8

:point_up_2:That’s from @lucperkins

9

Well, when you say it like that it makes perfect sense! Thank you.

Also, changing the front matter and renaming a few files resolved the issue. It’s days like this that I go from thinking I understand the rendering to really flailing.

Thank you for the clarity of your answer.

10

Thanks! I’ll have a look.

11

Glad to help :+1:

12

Oh, sorry :crazy_face:

13

A post was split to a new topic: Layout lookup for Section pages