Make Docs more visible on the forum?

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I’ve been a member of this forum for years, but I never use Docs - Discourse Meta because I forget it exists.

I even once thought, “it would be cool if there was a Docs link in the top navigation…” and then realized that there already is one:

image

For some reason, my brain completely ignored it.

Also, the sidebar link is hidden at the end of the More menu, which I think (no data to back up this thought) very few people click.

I also wondered if some icon next to the Docs nav button would help my brain notice it.

image

And what about putting it next to the logo in the header? Maybe two links? One for Docs - Discourse Meta, one for https://docs.discourse.org/?

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Also, something bugs me:

  • Docs is meta documentation

  • Discourse Docs is the plugin.

  • #docs is the tag related to the plugin.

  • The links image & image lead to Docs

  • #documentation is a category not directly related to Docs.

  • docs.discourse.org is the API documentation.

A bit confusing, right?

That said, the main point is that I always forgot that Docs - Discourse Meta exists, and because of this, I never use it. The closest I do is using the search, starting with #documentation.

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Just as an added bonus, you can also use the in:docs filter in your searching too. :+1:

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Me too!

I assumed that this was a joke. I recently lamented that there was NO WAY TO FIND THE DOCS. But, this is no joke. It’s right there. Plain as day.

This also seems true, except I looked for it the other day and thought I couldn’t find it there, or maybe I just thought it needed not to be so hidden.

I’m not sure if this is a case of UX or of you can lead a horse to water.

1 Like
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I think a small part of the problem, which is something that @chapoi brought up at some point in the past, is that this menu isn’t really supposed to be a navigation menu… it’s a filter menu that we’ve added a couple navigation links to (categories and docs).

Screenshot 2023-05-16 at 12.30.08 PM
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It would probably make more sense for Docs to live in the “community” section of the sidebar alongside other nav links (not in the drawer). This might make it less discoverable if someone doesn’t use the sidebar though, so if the docs link needs to be more obvious we might also need to call it out somewhere else :thinking:

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Practically none of my ordinary mobile users use the sidebar. There isn’t anything they feel to need. And… actually I understand them.

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I think this is a case for “yes, and…”

We have the docs linked in three places, in fact:

  • banner for new, anon users
  • filter header at the top
  • sidebar

My suggestion would be we move docs to “above the fold” in the sidebar, so it shows under Topics. Also to give it some kind of book :open_book: glyph.

Also to add reference to it in Welcome to meta.discourse.org which is pinned and we expect people to read when they join meta.

Screenshot 2023-07-24 at 9.16.41 AM
Screenshot 2023-07-24 at 9.16.41 AM1400×685 77.4 KB

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I just added Docs to the first part of the menu, under Topics, to see what it would look like. I like it!

However, I don’t see how to remove the other link which is added automatically to the bottom of this list. Would likely need a change in the plugin to stop showing it automatically or make it configurable.

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With apologies for the triple post… I removed it again from the sidebar to prevent the double listing of docs. We are working on a fix to allow customizing sidebar items for plugins which will help us here.

1 Like