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Thanks. Let's refactor this so that the dropdown html is always present, but the anchor has the added disabled class when not under /docs.

I'm not sure how we can (if I'm understanding this request correctly).

If you mean something like
<a class="nav-link dropdown-toggle {{ if ne .Section "docs" -}}disabled{{ end -}}" id="navbarDropdown" role="button" data-toggle="dropdown" aria-haspopup="true" aria-expanded="false">
instead of the if else structure I've put in around the anchor/dropdown, then the template fails because the dropdown menu is looking for front-matter in the docs files that isn't present in the non-versioned pages.

I'm not sure what dropdown html should be built on non versioned pages.

If you mean something like

Yes, almost: move the space inside the if: <a class="nav-link dropdown-toggle{{ if ne .Section "docs" -}} disabled{{ end -}}"

the template fails

Darn. I wasn't expecting useful dropdown entires, but also wasn't expecting it to fail.

Ok then, put the if eq .Section "docs" around the content of the <div class="dropdown-menu" ...></div>. Thanks.

Ok then, put the if eq .Section "docs" around the content of the <div class="dropdown-menu" ...></div>. Thanks.

The last (force pushed) commit does this -- but I don't like having an empty dropdown as much as having a visually distinct disabled versions selector.

... We need both. So you can add the conditional inclusion of disabled (the way you had suggested earlier).

OK, added -- on Firefox disabling doesn't allow the dropdown to work, so we don't get an empty one on click. waiting for the build to check other browsers.

wait, i didn't do that quite correctly.
give me a moment :)

OK, the latest commit gives the dropdown-menu a chance to be empty if it's able to be shown at all.

@nate-double-u - On Friday I was on the fence between accepting your original change and asking for extra rework in the context of this PR or later. I've changed my mind and, for now at least, I prefer the simplicity of your original change -- so I went ahead and stripped the extra commits to leave only the first one. While there is an opportunity to rework this fix to keep things a bit more DRY, that can come later.