ScrollSpy and sticky sidebar in MinervaKB version 1.3.7

The most important feature added in MinervaKB version 1.3.7 is ability to use dynamic table of contents as a widget with a sticky sidebar. ScrollSpy was requested multiple times by many of our customers and now it’s finally here. Also, page break in articles in now supported. Other changes are mostly bug fixes and smaller change requests from our users.

MinervaKB 1.3.7 release notes

First of all, let’s see what has changed in the new version:

• Added sticky sidebar functionality for articles
• Table of contents widget + option to disable table of contents in article body
• New ScrollSpy functionality for table of contents (in widget only)
• Setting for article, topic and tag URLs. Now you can change post type and taxonomies names and slugs separately
• New option to control nested topics articles display
• Added support for paged articles (using nextpage tag)
• Fixed notice on article pages in some systems
• Header in settings page is now sticky for easier save button access on long sections
• Added error notifications on failed save/restore actions
• Improved theme compatibility when using plugin templates
• Added option to remove tags archive and tag links from articles
• Added setting for number of articles per page for topics, tags and search results page
• Added preview link to home page selector to quickly open KB home page
• Compatibility checked with WordPress 4.7.3
• Scroll offset option changed to use positive values by default
• Fixed shortcodes in page builder page content section
• Fixed bug with feedback form not appearing without rating message enabled
• Fixed bug with article appearing twice if matched by content and by tag
• Fixed bug with live search finding draft articles
• Improved performance a little

Now, some features in more details.

ScrollSpy and sticky sidebar

As I mentioned early, customers asked for ScrollSpy feature from the earliest versions of MinervaKB. While adding table of contents as a sidebar is easy, keeping both in-article and widget contents is a bit tricky. Therefore, we’ve decided to enable only one at a time.

Here’s how it looks now in action:

As a result, table of contents is always visible and current section is highlighted. This makes it really easy to understand quickly where are you and navigate between sections.

In order to make table of contents look like this, you need:

1. Add table of contents widget to Article sidebar.
2. Make Article sidebar sticky in Article settings tab.
3. Disable Table of Contents in article body (Settings – Table of Contents)
4. Enable ScrollSpy (same section)

Table of contents widget works only on articles. You can add it to any sidebar, but it won’t display on other pages. Also, table of contents in article body has higher priority.

Articles pagination

Another feature requested was paginated articles. This is indeed very useful for longer articles, or when you have ads to show. 🙂 Pagination works same as in standard WordPress posts – you need to add nextpage tag inside your content.

I won’t describe this in details here, as there’re already many posts and videos on that topic. Most importantly, don’t forget to use Text instead of Visual editor and type it manually, inside of copy and paste. Make sure you see this when you switch to Visual editor:

And here’s how you add it:

Finally, here’s how it looks on client-side:

Conclusion

Version 1.3.7 is already available on CodeCanyon. Main feature planned for 1.3.8 is WordPress Multisite support. Also, we intend to focus more on stabilisation and smaller improvements for the next couple of releases, as well as bug fixes.

Another useful feature we’re working on right now is admin sandbox for new customers to test-drive Minerva before buying.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned.