Webpack.js.org: Old documentations (3.8)

[webpack-bot]

Do you want to request a feature or report a bug?
Feature

What is the current behavior?
Can't find the documentation of old Webpack versions (3.8). - Especially the API for the webpack.config.js file.

If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce.
Go to documentation, and don't find the 3.x documentation.

What is the expected behavior?
Go to documentation and find documentation for old versions

---

This issue was moved from webpack/webpack#6868 by @montogeek. Original issue was by @Erowlin.

[Erowlin]

Author here!

[kinyat]

Sorry, due to some of the plugins we are using not yet support version 4, we need to keep staying in version 3. However, our teams have difficulty looking for the version 3 documents.

Please provide the old 3.X documents. Thanks.

[EugeneHlushko]

Guys if this is an urgent matter you can clone the repo, checkout older revision and then do:

npm i && npm run start-only

Browse to localhost:3000 and there are your docs for any older version just switch the revision

[montogeek]

Please use https://webpack.js.org/v3/ for webpack 3 docs.

[Erowlin]

@montogeek amazing. I believe this should be somewhere on the github page. Thanks a lot.

[ApolloTang]

https://webpack.js.org/v3/ does not seem to work !

[ApolloTang]

@EugeneHlushko I check out tag v3.11.0, but I can't seem to get it running, would you please help ?
here is the error screen shot:

[montogeek]

Please read the errors, something else is using port 3000

[ApolloTang]

@montogeek thank you
and I apologize for my carelessness. and not reading !!

[ApolloTang]

for other who try to get v3 documentation running locally, instruction are:

git clone [email protected]:webpack/webpack.js.org.git
git checkout tags/v3.11.0
npm i
npm start

note, should be start not start-only

navigate to http://localhost:3000/

[Erowlin]

https://webpack.js.org/v3/ is down again.
Thanks @ApolloTang for the explanations :)

[sergiubologa]

start script is missing in package file...

[montogeek]

@sergiubologa No https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/blob/master/package.json#L27

[sergiubologa]

Ohh, I see. I cloned the webbpack/webpack instead of webpack/webpack.js.org.
Sorry for the misunderstanding. Thanks.

[icopp]

I find it pretty wild that there's no v3 docs available without running your own dev server when create-react-app (and all the bajillions of people who use that project) are still on Webpack 3.

[atlanteh]

I found a solution on SO:
You can use web archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20180216190554/https://webpack.js.org/concepts/

[lmj0011]

out of the 3 workarounds to this madness.

@ApolloTang solution is the "just works" solution. https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/issues/1961#issuecomment-378963332

Web archive has issue loading some pages https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/issues/1961#issuecomment-427816934

https://webpack.js.org/v3/ is forever down https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/issues/1961#issuecomment-380707633

[varunarora]

Honestly, I respect the efforts the maintainers put in, but it is really sad that one can't easily view the docs online for an old version. I don't know how such a popular open source project can be maintained with an online docs site with only the current live version showing.

I am on Webpack 2 and can't find a reasonable way to see its documentation. There doesn't seem to be a tag old enough. There doesn't seem to be an online website. Web Archive got nothing that old.

Kindly consider dedicating more effort here. I know its easy to say, but this is well donated to project, so the core maintainers have a responsibility to the community.

[varunarora]

Just as a help to anyone else looking for the version I was hunting for (2.2.1), I just tracked the tree through the commits to the day webpack/webpack made a release for that version. The webpack.js.org tree at the end of that day was: https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/tree/7514621056b3c0b126dc17b0dd9bfaa4a783810c

Maintainers, kindly consider just tagging the this repo around the versions as a start.

[EugeneHlushko]

Hi @varunarora
Is it working for you when you checkout to it and install/run docs? I can tag that commit as v2.0.0 for future use

[varunarora]

Yes, @EugeneHlushko, the install/run of the checkout worked just fine :) Note that was 2.2.1 though, not sure how similar or different it is from 2.0.0

[EugeneHlushko]

You can now use tag v2.2.1, https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/releases

[bendtherules]

Decided to host it for my own help (tag v3.11.0). Feel free to use https://webpack-v3.jsx.app

[mycoin]

For Mainland Chinese developers: https://webpack-3.cdn.bcebos.com

[Erowlin]

Decided to host it for my own help (tag v3.11.0). Feel free to use https://webpack-v3.jsx.app

Thank you!
Top left, the badge indicates "v4.29.6". Have you checkout the proper tag?

[bendtherules]

Thanks for bringing it to notice.

Top left, the badge indicates "v4.29.6". Have you checkout the proper tag?

Actually, the source code has the unversioned badge from shields.io (like https://img.shields.io/npm/v/webpack.svg), which picks up the latest npm version.

It is probably supposed to do exactly that, show the latest webpack npm package version and NOT show the npm package version which the documentation is for.

Maybe, they could have used the tagged version (like https://img.shields.io/npm/v/webpack/webpack-3.svg or https://img.shields.io/github/package-json/v/webpack/webpack/v3.11.0.svg) which would show the version the documentation is for.

I wanted to keep the content untouched and hence didn't change this. But yes, this is the v3.11.0 tag (link: https://github.com/bendtherules/webpack.js.org/tree/tags/v3.11.0).

P.S. This tag is again pushed as a branch with name tags/v3.11.0 in my fork, to help with netlify deployment.

Would you suggest changing (or removing) the badge to remove the confusion?

Also, it might be better to continue the conversation as a issue on the forked repo (https://github.com/bendtherules/webpack.js.org/issues - just enabled).

[alexander-akait]

Close in favor https://github.com/webpack/webpack.js.org/issues/1854, same problem for webpack@5, we will try to find solutions in near future