Knowledge Base v3.1: Documentation Layout Mode, GitHub Sync, Importers, and more
Effectively managing and maintaining a comprehensive knowledge base requires not only thoughtful organization but also efficient content management and user navigation processes. When I rebuilt Knowledge Base around products, block templates, and a proper Table of Contents in version 3.0, it answered the question of how to organize a large knowledge base. However, it didn’t fully answer how to get content in and out of one, or how to present hundreds of articles without the reader getting lost.
Knowledge Base v3.1 is my answer to both. This release adds a full documentation site layout, GitHub sync, and importers for content, settings, and other knowledge base plugins.
Both the free and Pro versions of Knowledge Base are updated to v3.1.0.
Documentation Layout Mode (Pro)
Every documentation site you have used recently probably looks the same: a navigation tree on the left, the article in the middle, and an on-this-page outline on the right. There is a reason that layout won. It works.
Knowledge Base Pro v3.1 now ships with that layout as Documentation Layout Mode. Turn it on under Settings → Styles, and your entire knowledge base switches to a three-column docs layout: a sticky, collapsible section-tree sidebar on the left, your article content in the center, and an on-this-page TOC rail on the right.
It works on every KB page type: the knowledge base home, product archives, section archives, single articles, and search results. You don’t need to touch your theme.
Section Tree block and widget (Pro)
The sidebar in Documentation Layout Mode uses a new Section Tree block (knowledgebase/section-tree), which you can also use on its own anywhere blocks work, plus a matching sidebar widget for classic themes.
The tree is context-aware. On a product page, it shows the product’s sections and articles. On a single article, it expands to the current article and highlights it. Sections collapse and expand as an accordion, so a knowledge base with hundreds of articles stays navigable.
GitHub Integration (Pro)
This is the feature I’m most pleased with in this release. I write most of my documentation in Markdown, and I suspect many of you do too. So keeping a Git repository and a WordPress knowledge base in sync by hand is tedious and error-prone.
Knowledge Base Pro can now sync Markdown documentation between a GitHub repository and your knowledge base. Push a commit, and a webhook updates the matching articles. YAML frontmatter carries the metadata, the Markdown body is converted to native Gutenberg blocks, and every webhook request is verified with an HMAC signature.
Import and export now share a single Importer/Exporter page, replacing separate screens. Imports support featured images, and a next-actions panel after each import tells you what to review.
The result is that your documentation can live in version control, with pull requests and history, while your readers see a normal WordPress knowledge base.
Check out this Knowledge Base article on how GitHub sync works. The article was imported from the GitHub repositoryOpens in a new window.
Article Export and Import (Pro)
Beyond GitHub, v3.1 adds standalone export and import for your articles. You can export the whole knowledge base as a Markdown ZIP, an SQL dump, or an XLSX spreadsheet.
The Markdown ZIP round-trips: re-import it, and articles are matched by slug, so you can restore a backup or migrate content to another site without touching the database.
Migrate from other knowledge base plugins
If you are coming to Knowledge Base from another plugin, v3.1 makes the switch practical. The new Plugin Importer migrates articles, sections, products, and tags from BasePress, BetterDocs, and Echo Knowledge Base.
Your existing data is left untouched until the import process is complete, and you can review everything before finalizing changes. I recommend backing up your site before starting any import or migration, so you always have a fallback if needed.
This one is in the free version. You shouldn’t need to pay to move your own content.
Settings Export and Import
Knowledge Base has added many settings since v3.0, and reconfiguring them on a staging site or a second install is busywork. So you can now export all plugin settings as a JSON file and import them elsewhere.
Sample content in one click
Setting up a knowledge base on a fresh site used to mean creating dummy articles just to see how the templates look. Now you can import demo articles, sections, and products directly from the Setup Wizard or the Tools page.
When you’re done experimenting, one click removes it all. Removing demo content only deletes the imported samples; your own articles and sections remain untouched.
Tag templates
The wzkb_tag taxonomy now has proper frontend templates. Tags display on single articles, and tag archives render with the same knowledge base styling as sections and products.
Smaller changes
A few other changes ship in this release:
- [Pro] Products and sections now support term featured images, which display on product and section archives. A knowledge base covering several products looks much less generic when each archive includes a logo or screenshot.
- [Pro] The floating TOC slides in horizontally from the viewport edge instead of collapsing vertically. It feels much more natural.
- The admin navigation has been reorganized so that related screens sit together, and the admin banner includes a Settings button, making the settings page one click away from any Knowledge Base screen.
- Tom Select, the library behind the searchable dropdowns in the settings screens, has been upgraded to v2.6.1.
Upgrade notes
There are no breaking changes in v3.1.0. If you are upgrading from v2.x, read the v3.0 release notes first, since that release renamed CSS classes and introduced the Products taxonomy migration wizard.
As always, back up your site before upgrading a major documentation plugin.
If you run into issues or have ideas, open a thread on the support forumOpens in a new window or reach out via webberzone.com. I’d love to hear how you use it.