Pub-dev: Better "Documentation" link from pub package page

[srawlins]

Here's the current link text for documentation:

The link text is always: "pub.dartlang.org/documentation/...". This is not very useful.

Maybe just link the word "Documentation"? Maybe not make bold? Maybe link to "/documentation/"?

[isoos]

@mit-mit

[mit-mit]

As discussed, let try to pull things up like this:

About
Flutter plugin for displaying inline video with other Flutter widgets on Android and iOS.

Homepage, API Docs

[jakemac53]

How about moving this to a Tab instead? This is the primary thing I come to the pub site for now, but it always takes me a second to remember where to find it.

I think this is a lot more discoverable and its worth surfacing as a first class item for the package.

[isoos]

Making it tabs has been discussed and postponed for now, because it requires to solve a couple of design problems, a few examples:

• What should happen with the dartdoc-specific search? How to integrate it with the site search, filter only on the currently selected package version?

• How shall we handle the design of the dartdoc-content, which is assuming to own the entire page? Slapping the tab bar on top of it may be easy, but the header and tabs contain a few dynamic information (analysis score, platform tags, latest versions), and visually seamless integration requires some design work.

Until these happen, we'll have #1194 as an interim solution. However, would you mind to open a new issue with the screenshot? I'd like to have it tracked here too (but the current one will be closed once the PR lands).

[jakemac53]

Oh - so I guess this isn't intuitive, but I was actually envisioning this just being a link to the same page that exists today. Not an actual "tab". Maybe some extra UI could indicate that while still leaving it in the prominent position at the top?

I can see how that might be surprising to some people though - at least if it looks exactly the same as the other tabs.

[jakemac53]

Something like this?

[isoos]

Yeah, but that doesn't solve the UX-related issue - the inconsistent content flow: the other tabs stay on the same page, showing different content, while this would navigate to a different URL. Furthermore we still need to match the design there to remain consistent.

Again: we want to do it eventually, but not right now.

[jakemac53]

Yeah, but that doesn't solve the UX-related issue - the inconsistent content flow: the other tabs stay on the same page, showing different content, while this would navigate to a different URL

Ya - I tried to highlight that its not a tab but its hard because the tabs don't have borders or background colors to distinguish them as tabs (if they did this could more much more easily be differentiated). I think they would look a bit better that way anyways but thats just me ;).

Furthermore we still need to match the design there to remain consistent.

I don't think this is an issue as long as its clear its a link and not a tab.

[mit-mit]

We could also consider pulling it up into the links right below the package name?

[isoos]

We could also consider pulling it up into the links right below the package name?

It works better than the tabs, however, I'm going back-and-forth on this, because that is a prime spot, the place for the most important information after the package name and version. I'd probably move it after or below the publish date, but not sure which works better.

[jakemac53]

The issue for me is it seems to be most similar to the things that are tabs (changelog, readme, versions, score, installing... docs intuitively seems like it should be next to those). It just doesn't seem to make sense anywhere else to me personally.

[isoos]

https://github.com/dart-lang/pub-dartlang-dart/issues/1214 makes this a bit more complicated:

• we have our generated content,
• the package may specify its URL for documentation, which may be (a) 404, (b) a generic homepage, or (c) a dartdoc-generated content.

I think we should display both the pub-generated API docs, and the documentation link.

[isoos]

Putting the pubspec-provided Documentation link after the Homepage is not looking as good as I would have expected:

[isoos]

We've deployed a new version of the homepage and documentation link handling, which also includes the pubspec-provided documentation link.

[srawlins]

Yeees yes yes yes yes I love it! I'm so excited about everything pub! It's so beautiful now, thanks @isoos !!