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Nix Documentation

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Discussion about documentation improvements around the Nix ecosystem80 Servers

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14 Mar 2024
@picnoir:alternativebit.fr@picnoir:alternativebit.fr * I personally dislike the multi-page approach. The current manuals structure is chaotic and require ctrl-f ing your way through it. Splitting it to multiple pages breaks this use case.12:48:59
@picnoir:alternativebit.fr@picnoir:alternativebit.fr * I personally dislike the multi-page approach. The current manuals structure is chaotic and require ctrl-f ing your way through it. Splitting it to multiple pages breaks this use case and makes information less easily available.12:50:30
@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host
In reply to @picnoir:alternativebit.fr
I personally dislike the multi-page approach. The current manuals structure is chaotic and require ctrl-f ing your way through it. Splitting it to multiple pages breaks this use case and makes information less easily available.
Ofc we must offer a search functionality. Otherwise nobody finds anything. ctrl-f wont work anymore ^^
12:57:55
@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.hostOur let me present you the current search mechanism: "ctrl-f" I wonder why google doesnt have his index as a single html file that way you could just ctrl-f and dont have to enter it into the server. Ah okay maybe thats a bit sarcastic now 😂13:01:18
@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host * "Let me present you the current search mechanism: "ctrl-f" I wonder why google doesnt have his index as a single html file that way you could just ctrl-f and dont have to enter it into the server." Ah okay maybe thats a bit sarcastic now 😂13:01:32
@picnoir:alternativebit.fr@picnoir:alternativebit.fr left the room.13:10:36
@toonn:matrix.orgtoonn I hope the search will be better than the one for the Nix manual. It always returns tons of irrelevant results and you have to hope what you're looking for is buried somewhere in the results. 13:10:37
@adam:robins.wtf@adam:robins.wtf As a counter argument I find searching the one large page difficult and confusing. Because there is so much content, and very poor delineation between sections, I frequently am confused where in the manual the jump has taken me. That’s of course when I’m not on mobile because the all in one page is practically useless for reading the documentation on mobile, and crashes my mobile browser tab. If we had to choose one path, I’d vote for multiple pages plus search. Though maybe we can have both? 13:56:18
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerk

I'd also say that a condition to split anything into multiple pages is that

  • There will still be a single-page rendering as an alternative
  • All anchors are redirected at the client

We can't do better than partially relying on client-side redirects, but it works okay for the Nix manual. In fact, I'm not even sure why it even works, but an anchor like in https://nixos.org/manual/nix#chap-tuning-cores-and-jobs will correctly propagate from the server-side redirect to https://nixos.org/manual/nix/stable/ to the client-side redirect script.

Changing where the manuals are hosted should therefore not be an issue if done carefully.

14:07:43
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerk
In reply to @johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host
In my opinion, the root of our current issues stems from the overuse of anchor tags. This overreliance has led to regressions and breakages that we're now struggling to address. The longer we delay taking action, the more severe and complex these problems become, exacerbating the situation further.
It's not critical as long as we don't change existing anchors and don't move files around without putting redirects in place. Just an annoyance which will keep adding friction. But it can be systematically addressed with the required care. It's one of these "someone just has to do it" cases :)
14:14:51
@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host@johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.hostYes we could build a client side redirect. This would solve the migration issue. But this means the client side redirect handler has to be installed into the potentially new root page of manual/nixpkgs/stable/14:20:06
@fricklerhandwerk:matrix.orgfricklerhandwerk
In reply to @johannes.kirschbauer:scs.ems.host
Yes we could build a client side redirect. This would solve the migration issue. But this means the client side redirect handler has to be installed into the potentially new root page of manual/nixpkgs/stable/
Absolutely
14:27:41
@danielsidhion:nixos.devdanielsidhionI think providing single-page + multi-page solutions isn't conflicting and satisfies more people and use cases, so it's definitely something that any multi-page solution should investigate at the very least14:58:21
@danielsidhion:nixos.devdanielsidhionIs the jitsi server for the meeting working?15:02:19
@danielsidhion:nixos.devdanielsidhion(it is!)15:03:11

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