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New Page Guide

13/04/2026
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Choose your page type

What you’re makingTypeLayout used
Regular article (LPIC-2 topic, tutorial)prose_default/single.html
Interactive explorer (cards, tabs, JS)interactivelayouts/posts/<slug>.html
Certification overview pagecertlayouts/certs/single.html
Knowledge base entryprose_default/single.html

Type 1 β€” Prose article

The simplest case. No custom layout needed β€” Hugo picks _default/single.html automatically.

Step 1: create the file

# LPIC-2 article β€” follow the naming convention
content/posts/lpic2-205-4-my-topic.md

# General article
content/posts/my-topic-title.md

Step 2: write frontmatter

---
title: "LPIC-2 205.4 β€” My Topic Title"
date: 2026-04-13
description: "One or two sentences. Used in meta tag and post card preview."
tags: ["Linux", "LPIC-2", "Networking"]
categories: ["LPIC-2"]
---

Fields:

FieldRequiredNotes
titleyesShown in h1, card, breadcrumb
dateyesControls sort order in listings
descriptionrecommendedShown in post card and <meta description>
tagsrecommendedCreates /tags/{tag}/ pages
categoriesnoUsed to group posts inside cert accordion
readingtimenoInteger (minutes). Shown in post header

Step 3: write content

Standard Markdown. Use shortcodes for enhanced blocks:

## Section heading

Regular paragraph text.

{{< code lang="bash" >}}
sudo systemctl status nginx
{{< /code >}}

{{< code lang="bash" label="output" >}}
● nginx.service - A high performance web server
   Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/nginx.service)
   Active: active (running)
{{< /code >}}

Note: {{< code >}} adds a copy button. Plain ```bash ``` markdown also works β€” single.html wraps it in .code-block with a copy button automatically.

Step 4: verify locally

hugo server -D
# β†’ http://localhost:1313/posts/my-topic-title/

The page automatically gets:

  • TOC sidebar (desktop) built from h2/h3 headings β€” requires more than 2 headings
  • Reading progress bar at the top
  • Copy buttons on all code blocks

That’s it β€” no other files needed.

Type 2 β€” Interactive page

Use when the page has JS-driven UI: expandable cards, filters, progress tracking, data rendered from a JS array. Example: /posts/linux-namespaces/.

Step 1: create the content file

content/posts/my-interactive-topic.md

Frontmatter β€” add layout to point Hugo at a specific template:

---
title: "My Interactive Topic"
date: 2026-04-13
description: "Description for meta and post card."
tags: ["Linux"]
layout: "my-interactive-topic"
---

<div class="intro-card">
  Opening paragraph rendered from markdown into the layout via <code>{{ .Content }}</code>.
</div>

Step 2: create the layout file

themes/maks/layouts/posts/my-interactive-topic.html

Minimal structure:

{{ define "head" }}
<link rel="stylesheet" href="{{ "styles/ns.css" | relURL }}">
{{ end }}

{{ define "main" }}
<div class="ns-page-wrap">

  <!-- MAIN COLUMN -->
  <div class="ns-page-main">

    <div class="breadcrumb">
      <a href="{{ "/" | relURL }}">maks.top</a><span>/</span>
      <a href="{{ "/posts/" | relURL }}">posts</a><span>/</span>
      <span style="color:var(--text2)">{{ .Title }}</span>
    </div>

    <div class="post-h1">{{ .Title }}</div>
    <div class="post-meta">
      <span class="p-date">{{ .Date.Format "2006-01-02" }}</span>
      {{ range .Params.tags }}
        <a href="{{ "/tags/" | relURL }}{{ . | urlize }}/" class="ptag">{{ . }}</a>
      {{ end }}
    </div>

    {{ .Content }}

    <!-- YOUR INTERACTIVE CONTENT HERE -->
    <div class="ns-grid" id="myGrid"></div>

    <div class="back-link"><a href="{{ "/posts/" | relURL }}">← Back to posts</a></div>
  </div>

  <!-- ASIDE (optional) -->
  <div class="ns-page-aside">
    <div class="toc-box">
      <div class="toc-head">Contents</div>
      <div class="toc-body" id="tocBody"></div>
    </div>
  </div>

</div>
{{ end }}

{{ define "scripts" }}
<script src="{{ "js/ns.js" | relURL }}"></script>
<script>
  // Initialization goes here β€” AFTER the external <script src> above
  const MY_DATA = [
    { name: "Item 1", color: "#00d4ff" },
  ];
  buildCards(MY_DATA, 'myGrid');
</script>
{{ end }}

Critical: inline initialization code must be in {{ define "scripts" }}, after any <script src="..."> includes. Putting it before causes ReferenceError: buildCards is not defined.

Step 3: add CSS if needed

If ns.css doesn’t cover your components, create a new file:

themes/maks/static/styles/my-topic.css

Then load it in the layout’s {{ define "head" }} block instead of or alongside ns.css.

Step 4: JS data and logic

Two approaches:

A) Inline in {{ define "scripts" }} β€” for small datasets, no extra files:

{{ define "scripts" }}
<script>
const DATA = [ ... ];
function buildCards(data) { ... }
buildCards(DATA);
</script>
{{ end }}

B) External JS file β€” for larger scripts like ns.js:

# Create the file
themes/maks/static/js/my-topic.js

{{ define "scripts" }}
<script src="{{ "js/my-topic.js" | relURL }}"></script>
<script>
  // inline init only β€” references functions from my-topic.js
  initMyTopic(DATA);
</script>
{{ end }}

Type 3 β€” Certification page

Cert pages use a dedicated template certs/single.html that auto-generates an accordion of exam topics with linked articles. No custom layout needed β€” just the content file with the right frontmatter.

Step 1: create the file

content/certs/my-cert.md

Step 2: write frontmatter

---
title: "CKA"
cert_badge: "βš™οΈ"
cert_color: "#10b981"
description: "Certified Kubernetes Administrator"
post_prefix: "cka"
exams:
  - code: "CKA"
    title: "Certified Kubernetes Administrator"
    topics:
      - {num: "01", title: "Cluster Architecture"}
      - {num: "02", title: "Workloads & Scheduling"}
      - {num: "03", title: "Services & Networking"}
---

How post_prefix + num links articles to topics:

The template builds a pattern {post_prefix}-{num}- and matches it against article file slugs.

post_prefix = "cka"
topic.num   = "01"
pattern     = "cka-01-"

Matches:  content/posts/cka-01-cluster-architecture.md  βœ“
          content/posts/cka-01-etcd-backup.md            βœ“
No match: content/posts/cka-02-deployments.md            βœ—

Important: num values must be strings. YAML interprets bare numbers as integers, which breaks the string matching in the template. Use "01" not 01.

Step 3: add the cert to the widget

Open themes/maks/layouts/partials/certs-widget.html and add a card to the grid:

<a href="/certs/my-cert/" class="cert-card" style="--cert-color:#10b981">
  <div class="cert-top">
    <div class="cert-badge">βš™οΈ</div>
    <div class="cert-name">CKA</div>
  </div>
  <div class="cert-sub">Certified Kubernetes Administrator</div>
  <div class="progress-bar">
    <div class="progress-fill" style="width:0%"></div>
  </div>
  <div class="progress-label">
    <span>Planned</span>
    <span class="pct">0%</span>
  </div>
</a>

The progress percentage is hardcoded β€” update it manually as you progress.

Adding a bilingual page

To make a page switchable between EN and RU:

English version

---
title: "My Topic"
page_lang: "en"
lang_pair: "/docs/ru/my-topic/"
---

Russian version

content/docs/ru/my-topic.md

---
title: "Моя Ρ‚Π΅ΠΌΠ°"
page_lang: "ru"
lang_pair: "/docs/my-topic/"
---

The setLang() function in baseof.html reads lang_pair from <meta id="page-lang"> and redirects when the user switches language. Without these fields the language buttons only toggle their visual state β€” no redirect happens.

Pre-flight checklist

Before pushing a new page:

# 1. Build without errors
hugo

# 2. Check the page renders correctly
hugo server --disableFastRender
# Open http://localhost:1313/posts/my-topic/

# 3. Verify CSS loads (no 404 in DevTools Network tab)

# 4. Test dark/light theme toggle

# 5. Test on mobile viewport (DevTools β†’ Toggle device toolbar)

# 6. If you used a new layout β€” verify the layout file name
#    matches the `layout:` field in frontmatter exactly
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