Documentation Fragmentation

[Leonardo Gonzalez]

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This what I want. Perspective from someone just starting out. Be bold with your suggestions. If you want, make a visual mock-up of how things should look. I suck at creating UI from whole cloth but if you give me a visual template, I can replicate.

Lately I've found myself trying to learn about how the part format works, and I've been reading through some of the documentation. I propose that the problem may be not just fragmentation, but in the navigation of the site. Allow me to give an example...

Within the Parts Tracker Reference: https://ldraw.org/library/tracker/ref/ lies this section (which I will refer to as the "FAQ page"):

!CATEGORY and !KEYWORDS FAQ
Information about using these meta-commands in part files.

All the information on this section is basically word by word inside the Documentation (which I will refer to as the "Documentation page"): https://ldraw.org/article/292

1.2.4.!CATEGORY and !KEYWORDS Language Extension

Perhaps given the fact that the Documentation page has been revised, it is better explained, better formatted than the FAQ page, and it even includes a table of contents that makes it easy to navigate (unlike the wall of text on the FAQ page). I would advice to just point the link straight to the Documentation page. Now this suggestion creates inconsistent menu navigation, which is quiet inconvenient, and confusing for the average visitor. Taking the visitor away from the Parts Tracker section menu and over to what seems to be the Main menu.

Here is a quick visual comparison between the main page menu and the Parts Tracker menu on desktop and mobile:

   
   

The Parts Tracker section appears to use a sub-menu of its own and doesn't even give the visitor the ability to navigate the regular "Main menu" unless they click on the top banner. It appears that the original design of using a red brick logo for the Main pages, green brick for the Parts Tracker, and blue for the forums needs a moment of consideration.

Note that the main page designates the menu item as Documentation with a drop-down list, making it easy to find the section you need within the documentation. In the Parts Tracker menu, the item LDraw Specifications is not a drop-down list. Instead this menu item takes you away from the Parts Tracker section (green) and into the Documentation in the Main pages section (red).

There are many approaches to explore here:

• Add a drop-down list on the LDraw Specifications menu item on the Parts Tracker, perhaps even duplicating the Documentation page.
  
• Add the Main menu (red section) on top of the Parts Tracker (green section) making navigation more accessible, even for mobile. This would require an evaluation of the menu tree to remove redundancies. (mock-up below)
     
  
• Move the Documentation section to a yellow brick section (called reference or something similar) that can be accessed by both, the main page (red section) and the Parts Tracker (green section). This would require further evaluation of the navigation tree and the creation of a single consistent menu item for this section on all menus. (logo below)
  
    reference_and_documentation_logo.jpg (Size: 10 KB / Downloads: 24)
  
• Merge the Parts Tracker menu into the drop-down list "Parts" from the main menu (red section). Eliminating the need for a sub-menu in the Parts Tracker (green section) This would require that the "Lookup" search box be added to the main menu (red section).
  

I'm sure there are more solutions to explore, comments, thoughts, feedback?

Sorry for the long post.


-Leo-