[docs] - Very hard to search and understand search results on Dagster Docs site

[kinghuang]

Use Case

I find it really hard to search for things and discover/understand what the search results are offering when using the Dagster Docs site quick search. The general text search across all the docs delivers poor search results.

Example 1: partitions

Search Term	Intent
partitions	I would like a refresher on how to use pipeline partitions.

Results:

1. Partitions: API docs for the Partitions.
2. Partitions #: Conceptual docs for Partitions.
3. Defining a Partition Set #: A subsection of search result 2.
4. Partitions in Dagit #: A subsection of search result 2.
5. The Partitions Tab #: A subsection of search result 4.

• Search result 2 matches what I'm looking for. But, it's impossible to tell the difference between the first 2 results.
• Search results 3 and 4 are subsections of 2. Result 5 is a subsection of 4. Search results 2 through 5 are all the same page.

Screenshot:

Example 2: PartitionSetDefinition

Search Term	Intent
PartitionSetDefinition	I am looking for documentation on the PartitionSetDefintion class.

Results:

1. List[Union[PipelineDefinition, PartitionSetDefinition, …: The arguments to the dagster.repository decorator.
2. You can define a PartitionSetDefinition…: Fragment from Partitions concept page.
3. Partition-based schedules generate…: Fragment from Schedules concept page.
4. … string that's supplied to PartitionSetDefinition…: Description from dagster.create_offset_partition_selector.
5. … PipelineDefinition, ScheduleDefinition, SensorDefinition…: Fragment from Repositories concept page.

• None of the search results are for the PartitionSetDefinition class specifically. Search result 4 is the closest, being on the same page. But, it's impossible to tell from what's shown.
• Most of the search results are just stray references to PartitionSetDefinition (e.g., listing out argument types), and don't really contribute to the search.

Screenshot:

Example 3: materializer

Search Term	Intent
materializer	I want to implement a type materializer.

Results:

1. materializer ( Optional [ DagsterTypeMaterializer] )…: An argument of dagster_pandas.create_dagster_pandas_dataframe_type.
2. materializer ( Optional [ DagsterTypeMaterializer] )…: An argument of dagster.DagsterType.
3. … solid logic. Dagster calls this facility…: A snippet of Custom Materializing Data Types.
4. … on solids, on loaders and materializers…: A description of dagster.Field.
5. Launch a run whenever another pipeline…#: From Sensors overview.

• Search result 3 is the closest, as the tutorial page for Materializations. But, it's impossible to know this from the search result.
• Search results 1 and 2 are function/class arguments. Quite meaningless.
• Search results 4 and 5 are essentially random instances of the word "materializer". They don't contribute anything to the search.

Screenshot:

Ideas of Implementation

In no particular order:

• Organize the search results by type. Show a section of API keyword matches, and a section of other text matches.
• Provide a way to select the search scope. If I'm specifically searching for API docs, I don't want results from the concepts and tutorials.
• Change "Section" to something more useful. Every search result says it's a "Section". At least show the area the result is from (e.g., Getting Started, Tutorial, Main Concepts, Deployment, etc.). And, if the result is a subsection of a page, show which page it belongs to (e.g., results 2 to 5 from example 1).

Additional Info

This was a problem on the old docs site, too.

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Message from the maintainers:

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[schrockn]

I agree: #3899

[helloworld]

@kinghuang this is amazing feedback! I appreciate the amount of detail here–it makes it really easy to iterate and improve search.

I just pushed a change that implements most of your #1 and #3 implementation ideas. Let me know what you think. Will also continue making improvements over the rest of the day. Would you be up for doing another pass early next week?

What's clear is that within the API docs, we need to prioritize ranking classes and functions matches above argument name matches.

Here's what searching for "Partitions" gives now:

"PartitionSetDefinition":

"Materializer":

[kinghuang]

Awesome. That was fast! 😄

I just tried it out. The groupings and the replacement of the former "Section" text are huge improvements. I agree that priority ranking of the API results by a hierarchy like module, class, function/method, attribute would be great. The same idea would probably help the other areas, too (e.g., headings then paragraphs).

I'll be heavy on Dagster related stuff at work this week and next week. So, I'm definitely up for another pass on the docs next week. Thanks!