change: Reorganise directory structure to use less directory levels

[colinkiama]

Description

Currently some URLs are pretty long, for example: https://docs.vala.dev/tutorials/programming-language/main/02-00-basics/02-02-syntax-overview.html

Theres quite a bit of nesting that can be avoided:

• We don’t need another page to show specifically programming language tutorials so we can drop programming-language.
• Also the sidebar item tree is completely managed by the config. We can remove the directories that divided the pages into chapters 02-00-basics. So we have a nice flat file structure for the main tutorial page, without affecting the behaviour of the sidebar item tree.

The final result would be: https://docs.vala.dev/tutorials/main/02-02-syntax-overview.html

A much shorter URL!

This directory restructuring will happen across the entire documentation.

Make sure to add redirects if possible. These changes will affect many links to the website.

Additional Info

No response

[bugaevc]

It's not even the URL that I was complaining about, it's the number of steps (clicks) and levels of the hierarchy to traverse that it takes to get from a main page to a page of the docs. It goes Docs > Tutorials > Programming language > Main tutorial > Basics > Syntax Overview.

Ideally, the first click on Docs would get you to an already useful page (the tour of Vala #244 perhaps), and the other pages would be easily accessible from there. Compare how https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ is structured; the whole thing is neatly available in the sidebar, it is grouped into chapters, but you don't have to unfold multiple levels to navigate.

[colinkiama]

It's not even the URL that I was complaining about, it's the number of steps (clicks) and levels of the hierarchy to traverse that it takes to get from a main page to a page of the docs. It goes Docs > Tutorials > Programming language > Main tutorial > Basics > Syntax Overview.

I’m aware. The shorter URL is the side effect of improved nesting.

Ideally, the first click on Docs would get you to an already useful page (the tour of Vala #244 perhaps), and the other pages would be easily accessible from there. Compare how https://doc.rust-lang.org/book/ is structured; the whole thing is neatly available in the sidebar, it is grouped into chapters, but you don't have to unfold multiple levels to navigate.

So let’s break this down:

• Home page (or pressing next on the home page) should take you to “A Tour of Vala” or another more useful page besides the About page?
• Yes. Every section will be structured like those rust book docs. Just grouped into chapters but no further than that.

[Tbusk]

There is also the option of changing how the sidebar is displayed based on the page you are on

https://vitepress.dev/reference/default-theme-sidebar#multiple-sidebars

[colinkiama]

Okay, there will be work on this done by the end of the week.

Tour of Vala will be added on a different branch though. It’s currently being tracked here #244