BluestNight supports using the Hugo built-in NextInSection and PrevInSection [page variables] to provide “next” and “previous” links to the next and previous page in the same section. On its own, this works great for linking a reader to next oldest or newest post from the one they have just finished reading.

Sometimes you want a specific order to your pages, though, and that’s not the one that Hugo gives you. So, BluestNight also gives you the option to specify a custom content file to use as the “next” or “previous” page, as well as the ability to not show one or both buttons, even if there is a valid “next” or “previous” page.

Setup

Set post_navigation to true under [Params] in your site’s configuration file OR a particular page’s front matter

# In config.toml

[Params]
  post_navigation = true

+++
# In some-content.md
# Other front-matter goes here

post_navigation = true
+++

You can also have navigation enabled sitewide but disable it on a particular page by setting post_navigation to false in the front matter.

+++
# In some-content.md
# Other front-matter goes here
# No next/previous buttons will be generated
post_navigation = false
+++

Custom targets

To set custom targets for a page’s next/previous links, set the values of custom_next and/or custom_prev to the relative path of the page’s content file. That is, for a file located under SITE_ROOT/content/post/my-cool-page.md, the value should be post/my-cool-page.md.

Make sure there are no leading slashes, or else the button will not be created

+++
# In post/some-content.md
# Other front-matter goes here

custom_next = "post/my-cool-page.md"
custom_prev = "post/my-other-cool-page.md"
+++

Disable a button

For pages that you want to order in any order other than by date, Hugo might say that your first page has a page that comes “previous” and will try to create a previous button on a page where you don’t want one. If you set custom_prev or custom_next to "none", its corresponding button will not be created.

Actually, any value that is not a valid path to a content file (as described above) will cause the button to not load. It’s simpler to tell people to use "none", even though "nope", "hide", and "disable" will all work as well.

+++
# In post/some-content.md
# Other front-matter goes here

custom_next = "post/my-cool-page.md"
# No "previous" button will be created
custom_prev = "none"
+++