# \[SOLVED\] Listing pages of a collection **URL:** \ **Category:** Help\ **Created:** [September 27, 2017, 12:06pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011 "2017-09-27T12:06:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lsrdg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/lsrdg/32/431_2.png) [@lsrdg](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/lsrdg)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 12:06pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011/1 "2017-09-27T12:06:01Z")
I had a bizarre and large draft here about how to interpret the documentation page concerning [collections](https://jekyllrb.com/docs/collections/) that I’ve been feeding the last four days… but that was deleted and I’ll try to limit this topic to the problem I’m facing: collections not working as expected (after reading - again and again - the documentation). **Desired result**. 1 - A directory to the custom collections 2 - each collection’s directory should start with an `_` (underscore) 3 - loop through and list the files of a collection in a page of another collection **1** - Added the following to `_config.yml`: ```auto collections: collections_dir: _collections ``` **2** - Somehow Jekyll wouldn’t build anything inside a directory prefixed with an underscore, at least until they were “included” as following: ```auto include: ['_collections', '_pages', '_projects'] ``` Where `_collections`: the directory to keep collections organized. `_pages`: the place to static general pages (like “about”, “contact”, listing categories etc). `_projects`: a collection with pages that just don’t match the general purpose of `_pages`. **3** - I cannot get a list of the files (title and url) inside `_projects`. All pages exists. In the `_config.yml`, the permalink is set as: ```auto permalink: :slug/ ``` And all pages have something like this in their front-matter: ```auto permalink: /manually-added-slug/ ``` All pages can be acceded as [http://localhost:4000/manually-added-slug/](http://localhost:4000/manually-added-slug/). This was the only way I founded to solve [the permalink issue](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/permalink-variables-not-working/991). Basically, inside `_collections/_pages/projects.md`, I’m trying to get something like this to work: ```auto ``` But keeping in mind that that is just an example… since many different things were tried there without success. 😉 * * * That’s with Jekyll 3.6.0 (but not declared in the `Gemfile`), in Archlinux with Bundler version 1.15.4. And just for the sake of… well… here is the gem file content: ```auto source "https://rubygems.org" gemspec ``` Thanks in advance for any given direction. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![mmistakes](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/mmistakes/32/2169_2.png) [@mmistakes](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/mmistakes)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2017, 12:46pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011/2 "2017-09-27T12:46:45Z")
I think your issue is how you’re naming the collections and configuring them in your `_config.yml`. I haven’t used the new feature that allows you specify a collections dir, but from your example above for projects… `projects.md` isn’t technically a collection, it’s a document in a `_pages` collection. If you want a “projects” collection then it needs to be `_collections/_projects/whatever.md`. Then you’ll be able to access the documents inside of it with `site.projects`. That is if you’ve also configured them to output: ```auto collections: projects: output: true permalink: # your permalink structure eg. /:collection/:path/ ``` Collections need to be named with an `_` underscore, be in the root of your project (or in another folder if you’re using `collections_dir`). ---
**Author:** ![lsrdg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/lsrdg/32/431_2.png) [@lsrdg](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/lsrdg)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 8:14am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011/3 "2017-09-28T08:14:46Z")
Hey @mmistakes, as always, thank you! > I think your issue is how you’re naming the collections and configuring them in your \_config.yml. Good point, I feel that I’m missing and overdoing something here. I did tried your suggestion, but without luck. Most of the resources concerning this I’ve found mention the `permalink:`, but I don’t understand why, since I’m setting it globally in the config. And another issue is, why is it necessary to first include the repositories prefixed with underscore? AFAIK, they should [not be ignored](https://github.com/jekyll/jekyll/issues/4965#issuecomment-222527922)… Thanks anyway. (: ---
**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 9:47am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011/4 "2017-09-28T09:47:46Z")
@lsrdg configuring `collection_dir` is not available in `3.6.0`. Its slated for `v3.7.0` The online documentation at `jekyllrb.com` is at times way ahead of time…(mirroring the `master` branch) and not particularly aligned to the latest public release. I agree this is an issue… but that’s for another time… ---
**Author:** ![lsrdg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/lsrdg/32/431_2.png) [@lsrdg](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/lsrdg)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 10:51am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011/5 "2017-09-28T10:51:22Z")
Thanks, @ashmaroli! And no worries, I’ve decided to use that just because it was an interesting idea, and I’m glad it will come with `3.0.7`. Anyway, I still don’t understand why I can’t a list of files inside a folder (a collection folder), despite of moving the collections back to the root of the project(?), and why do the repositories prefixed with an underscore need to be `include:`ed. Should I maybe define the path on the `defaults:` (and `scope` and `values` etc…)? ---
**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 11:04am UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011/6 "2017-09-28T11:04:28Z")
how does your **current** collections configuration look like…? (you can use dummy names for privacy) ---
**Author:** ![lsrdg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/lsrdg/32/431_2.png) [@lsrdg](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/lsrdg)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 12:10pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011/7 "2017-09-28T12:10:56Z")
The lines of `_config.yml` concerning collections as after trying @mmistakes idea: ``` permalink: :slug/ include: ['_pages', '_projects'] collections: _pages: output: true permalink: :slug/ _projects: output: true permalink: :slug/ ``` I tried with and without those fields, combining them, omitting some of them etc. (: ---
**Author:** ![ashmaroli](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/df705f/32.png) [@ashmaroli](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/ashmaroli)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 1:20pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011/8 "2017-09-28T13:20:05Z")
omit the trailing underscore in your collection configuration, and be mindful of the indentation (no tabs only spaces, in multiples of two) ```auto permalink: :slug/ # not required.. # include: ['_pages', '_projects'] collections: pages: output: true permalink: :slug/ projects: output: true permalink: :slug/ ``` ---
**Author:** ![lsrdg](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.jekyllrb.com/lsrdg/32/431_2.png) [@lsrdg](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/u/lsrdg)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2017, 1:52pm UTC](https://talk.jekyllrb.com/t/solved-listing-pages-of-a-collection/1011/9 "2017-09-28T13:52:05Z")
😮 It’s done! Topic marked as “solved”. Thanks, @ashmaroli for helping here! Apparently, when I tried to set it that way, my collections were inside the `collections_dir:` and wouldn’t work anyway. Despite of that, my indentation was broken on its second level, and I won’t even mention the html syntax erros that became evident after I got the list outputted. Thanks again to @mmistakes and @ashmaroli for taking the time and for all the questions I’ve never asked simply because you guys have already answered them somewhere else. (: