Home & Features: Add canonical feature page for "CrateDB Cloud". Update layout of entry point page.

[amotl]

About

A few improvements to Home (exists) & Features (new) pages.

• Emphasizing features of CrateDB Cloud cratedb-guide#137

Preview

• https://crate-cloud--88.org.readthedocs.build/en/88/
• https://crate-cloud--88.org.readthedocs.build/en/88/feature/

Why?

• Improve user guidance on the documentation of the Cloud product.
• People say the Database Features page may have too much gravity.
• Just a little spike to gather feedback. Use it as-is, or as a source of inspiration to build upon.

What's Inside

• Features: Add canonical feature page for "CrateDB Cloud".
  It is a compressed variant of https://cratedb.com/product/cloud.
• Features: Refactor "Learn" rubric from "Home".
• Home: Update layout of entry point page.

/cc @surister, @kneth, @ckurze, @geragray

[proddata]

I am still unclear about the purpose of the “All Features” pages. They appear to add unnecessary complexity with limited benefits, potentially creating a hurdle in the user experience.

Additionally, this specific patch seems to include outdated screenshots, which might have been taken from other parts of the documentation that also require updating.

[widmogrod]

I read through the changes. Grammatically and visually, they look good.

Refreshed CrateDB Cloud page looks nicer. Indeed, a newer screenshot could be used. But as I understand it, this is not a new asset, so maybe in a separate PR, we could refresh/modernize all images.

As for the All features page, what I found confusing is the duplication of sub-sections:

Is there a way to change it, and have all features more like a landing page that just list them? or maybe it would make more sense to merge All Features with CrateDB Cloud page (I think I like the last option)? @proddata any oppionon about it?

[amotl]

Problem

As for the All features page, what I found confusing is the duplication of sub-sections:
Is there a way to change it, and have all features more like a landing page that just list them?

Solution

• Patch: CrateDB Cloud: Collapse navigation items on feature/index page crate-docs-theme#556
• Preview: https://crate-cloud--88.org.readthedocs.build/en/88/feature/
  

How it is done...

... is certainly quirky, but c'est la vie. It should not block this patch in general now that there is a solution for this obstacle. In the future, those explorations might yield a "programmable" navigation component, that will have a better usability than fiddling with conditionals in Sphinx/Jinja templating. But well, this is not a concern right now.

• Add "link tree" element, using directive linktree tech-writing/sphinx-design-elements#11
• Use Furo's navigation component through sphinx-design-elements' linktree crate-docs-theme#405

Outlook

Maybe it would make more sense to merge All Features with CrateDB Cloud page. I think I like the last option.

This will certainly need more work and probably also discussions. I will be happy to work together with you on a subsequent iteration, maybe later this year. Right now, because I also need to take care about other obligations, I don't have any capacities to iterate.

If you like the ingredients as-is, you may want to either take over the branch and add your improvements on top ¹, or merge it in the current state, in order to add more improvements later.

Footnotes

1. That's also why it's called collab/all-features. ↩

[proddata]

I don’t see much value in this refactor. To me, it still seems to complicate the user journey rather than improve it. If we want to highlight specific features, this should be done on the cloud homepage, not on a separate page. Additionally, we should avoid cluttering the design with numerous logos or images that simply repeat the text.

Thank you for giving it a try; however, I will close this for now until we have a clearer understanding of what we want to achieve and how this change helps users navigate the documentation or better understand the product.