Removing previous docs from the search index was a recent change, see
https://github.com/apache/iceberg/pull/16368
We can revert it, but I didn't find it helpful when the search result shows
multiple entries for the same term.

BTW `mike` is purely for docs deployment. It's quite opinionated on how to
structure the versioned docs. We currently have a manual process; we build
and push new versions of docs to `docs` branch and `javadoc` branch. IMO
this is working and we shouldn't update it unless there's a benefit to
doing so.

On Tue, May 26, 2026 at 10:27 AM Steven Wu <[email protected]> wrote:

> While the navigation to older doc versions [2] works, search is limited
> only to the latest version which is unintuitive.
>
> [2] https://iceberg.apache.org/docs/1.10.2/
>
> On Tue, May 26, 2026 at 10:22 AM Kevin Liu <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for starting this thread, Max.
>>
>> MkDocs is indeed abandoned. We get a warning message about it during
>> building the docs. However, we pin to and still use an older version of it.
>> It gets the job done :)
>>
>> With regards to versioned docs, I opened the issue [1] to explore `mike`.
>> It can potentially help us simplify the docs deployment process. However,
>> it does seem like a really big lift. Given the recent improvements to the
>> overall docs process, it might not be worth it to migrate to `mike`.
>>
>> As for the versioned dropdown, I really like the idea. But again, it
>> might not be worth the effort. Users can already navigate to older versions
>> of the doc [2]
>>
>> Best,
>> Kevin Liu
>>
>> [1] https://github.com/apache/iceberg/issues/14521
>> [2] https://iceberg.apache.org/docs/1.10.2/
>>
>> On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 4:36 PM Max Konstantinov <
>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> > Can you explain more about what’s missing from our versioned docs? We
>>> can get some documentation from prior releases (example:
>>> > https://iceberg.apache.org/docs/1.9.2/configuration/). The bug you
>>> mentioned was about some issues with over-indexing, but it sounds like
>>> those have been solved.
>>>
>>> Oh, yes, let me clarify. By versioned docs I meant the one with a
>>> dropdown selector that switches the current version of the docs, that
>>> idea surfaced in that email thread I referenced and current related
>>> issue propose to use mike for it.
>>>
>>> > I personally would love to move towards a different documentation
>>> engine, but it’s a lot of work! I think the community would need really
>>> strong use cases that we couldn’t easily support in mkdocs to attempt a
>>> migration. Any ideas?
>>>
>>> I started looking into mike integration, which would enable the
>>> dropdown selector but then realized that mike is based on MkDocs and
>>> wanted to make sure that the effort put into mike integration won't be
>>> a waste. Atm I'm trying to understand our stance on adding new docs
>>> related features considering the fact that Iceberg's current
>>> documentation engine, MkDocs, is being abandoned.
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 3:58 PM Alex Stephen via dev
>>> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > Hi Max,
>>> >
>>> > Thanks for kicking off this conversation!
>>> >
>>> > Can you explain more about what’s missing from our versioned docs? We
>>> can get some documentation from prior releases (example:
>>> > https://iceberg.apache.org/docs/1.9.2/configuration/). The bug you
>>> mentioned was about some issues with over-indexing, but it sounds like
>>> those have been solved.
>>> >
>>> > I tried using mike for iceberg-python and came back frustrated. The
>>> mike CLI is very opinionated and wants to make commits for you (‘mike
>>> deploy’). This ended up not working well in our use-case.
>>> >
>>> > I personally would love to move towards a different documentation
>>> engine, but it’s a lot of work! I think the community would need really
>>> strong use cases that we couldn’t easily support in mkdocs to attempt a
>>> migration. Any ideas?
>>> >
>>> > Thanks!
>>> > — Alex Stephen
>>> >
>>> > On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 2:48 PM Max Konstantinov <
>>> [email protected]> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Hi All!
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> Background
>>> >> - MkDocs community has broken down over the last couple of years, and
>>> the project seems abandoned. You can see 0 new contributions during the
>>> last 1.5 years:
>>> https://github.com/mkdocs/mkdocs/graphs/contributors?from=5%2F18%2F2024.
>>> You can find the description and discussion of the whole kerfuffle on
>>> HackerNews' thread from March 2026 if you are interested, all previous
>>> maintainers moved on to new projects.
>>> >> - Iceberg community wanted to add versioned docs support to the
>>> Iceberg website, see a recent thread where the need for versioned docs
>>> surfaced a week ago:
>>> >> https://lists.apache.org/thread/vrt3oytl3dwo34wr07tkf73r0kkx0b1h.
>>> >>
>>> >> Questions
>>> >> - Do you think it is still worth pursuing mike route for versioned
>>> docs as it is based on MkDocs? See a related Iceberg issue:
>>> https://github.com/apache/iceberg/issues/14521
>>> >> - Do you think we should look for a new doc engine altogether instead
>>> of MkDocs?
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> Thanks,
>>> >> Max.
>>> >>
>>>
>>

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