Update the platform page and controller archive

[oraNod]

This PR does several things:

• Updates platform.html so that RH AAP points to the appropriate url as requested by the marketing team. That url contains a prominent link to platform documentation that downstream teams can maintain.
• Updates platform.html to remove links to latest versions of the documentation, which remain available but not linked to directly. Anyone who has latest urls bookmarked can continue to use them. However, now that controller docs are migrated to the RH customer portal, we should encourage RH customers to access content there instead of "docs.ansible.com". Note that in a follow up PR we should create redirects for the latest docs but that should wait until 4.5 is released.
• Adds a link to the 4.4 docs to the controller archive page.
• Prunes EOL links from the controller archive page. As each version reaches EOL we should remove it from the archive page until we can eventually sunset that page when 4.4 reaches EOL.

Note that I did not include any links to AWX or AWX Operator community docs on platform.html. This was discussed but it seems inappropriate to put community content on a platform page.

[samccann]

just putting a block on this for further discussion

[samccann]

Okay a little braindead today, but I'd like to understand why are we replacing a doc link with a marketing link? I guess marketing requested that but I disagree. Docs links should go to docs. I recommend - https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_ansible_automation_platform

I'm also a bit worried about removing all direct links to individual controller docs because then a user has to hunt around on the prior link to find them. I'd like to understand the reasoning there.

[tvo318]

I hadn't seen this PR until after I reviewed the other one that points to the marketing page. @samccann you make a good point that the pointer should go to docs not a marketing page.

[oraNod]

Thanks for taking looking at this one @samccann that's a fair question about the "marketing" url. I also considered doc to doc linking but opted for this approach because:

RH folks who have been working on the redesign and user experience specifically requested that url on the community website in any link to "redhat.com". I can reconnect and get their input as to whether this applies to the docsite or not. However I think this creates a consistent experience that is going to help direct users to the appropriate site, whether that be somewhere on "redhat.com" or the community site. If we were to put direct documentation links then RH customers would be more likely to continue using "docs.ansible.com" to access content that should be available through "redhat.com".

Documentation urls are likely to change over time and pointing to that single "marketing" url relieves the community of the burden of maintenance and also seems to be the correct entry point for folks with RH subscriptions.

[oraNod]

I've pushed a commit that adds a "Controller version 4.4" link to the platform page alongside the RH AAP entry. That should make it a bit more clear where the user needs to go to find things. Hopefully that addresses the worry about forcing users to hunt around for docs.

Given that the direct links currently on the page point to "latest" it feels wrong to keep the links there and change them to "4.4". We want RH customers to access the controller documentation from the downstream location now that they are available.

[samccann]

It's so hard to stage and look at these because any change in multiple repos will retrigger the docsite build to test, so here is a screencap of what this pr looks like right now:

[samccann]

I like the update to a 4.4 controller page but that page currently is... unpleasant - https://docs.ansible.com/automation-controller/4.4/html/

[samccann]

With regard to latest urls - how do we 'stop' them so to speak? I'm blanking on this but we'd have to remove all the/latest/ controller doc urls once everything that is actually latest is up on access.redhat.com. Just putting the comment here so I don't forget (it's separate from the PR).

[samccann]

Sorry for the split-brain here because these two prs are very related. Reviewing the changes in this pr:
1 - the AAP link going to marketing - i'm okay with that here if marketing feels it's necessary.
2. the controller section/link renamed to 4.4 - good change, I like it (tho we need to do something with that 4.4 page)
3. We need a solution for the ongoing (and thus latest) API guide and potentially CLI guide if those aren't being moved.
4. In general, this PR has to wait until all the guides that are going to move are moved before we implement, so should be put in draft state until then.

[oraNod]

@samccann There is a PR preview build available at https://stage-docsite--204.org.readthedocs.build/en/204/platform.html

The 4.4 controller page just takes you to the root directory of the web server. That is how it is for all other controller docs except for latest. The html pages with the boxes on "docs.ansible.com/platform.html" are just direct links to the index page in each folder on the web server. I'm still against adding those boxes for each guide back to "platform.html" because RH customers are in the wrong place - or will be - if they're accessing product documentation from a community site.

I was thinking that we could set up doc-to-doc redirects for the "latest" versions. This was discussed at some point and obviously needs to be in a follow up PR but that's the plan. We'll probably want to redirect all the "latest" urls to https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_ansible_automation_platform because the downstream docs are always versioned and there isn't a "latest" type url.

[tvo318]

I'm going to amend this PR with removing the links to the translated versions since they aren't being updated in current releases anyway. Plus, if we are informing readers to look elsewhere for the guides, we shouldn't have untranslated and outdated guides in the translated versions.

[oraNod]

@tvo318 sounds good. please do feel free to push commits directly to my branch. if you want to make your own PR, feel free to cherry-pick any of these commits on to that and then close this PR.

[tvo318]

It's not pretty to go to latest and see the directory tree, I personally prefer it go to automation.html but then the other PR where there is permanent redirect, it would cause a circular reference. But in the end, we want folks to go to access.com anyway, so the pages that still exist on docs.ansible.com will really be for those with bookmarks.

[oraNod]

I can't seem to approve my own PR but this looks good to me with your commit @tvo318

[tvo318]

@oraNod, @samccann - I'm going to make a change to the listing for the latest docs and just give them direct links to the CLI Guide and Release Notes so there is no ugly directory tree to see and go to docs from that tree that will just direct users elsewhere anyway.

[tvo318]

Final proposed platform.html page:

[tvo318]

Simple and less confusing.

[samccann]

"Ansible controller 4.5" - Do we need that section since it's the same link as the Red Hat Ansible Automation link? Would it be better to just add a note to that one to say 'this now includes Ansible controller 4.5 documentation, except the CLI and Release notes listed below".

[tvo318]

@samccann - it's all the docs that were migrated over. I figure if people were specifically looking for controller docs for 4.5, they can use that link instead of going to all the platform docs and tying to look for the controller ones.

[oraNod]

Hmm. I agree with @samccann and think we should remove the 4.5 section. Let's just have the link to access, release notes, cli, and archive.

[samccann]

I'm a little worried about the complete removal of the translation links, but if it proves to be a problem, we could always add them back.