[petsc-dev] commenting on/asking questions on documentation pages

[Patrick Sanan]

> Am 23.04.2021 um 04:45 schrieb Barry Smith <bsmith at petsc.dev>:
> 
> 
>    I can edit documentation pages directly from the page now, this is totally awesome but I see no button to comment or ask questions on a page. 
> 
>    I think every page should, by the edit button, have a "Comment, ask questions" button that anyone can click on to make a comment or ask a question about the page. It would be super fantastic if they could refer to particular people in their comments but perhaps that is too difficult. 


>     For example I am looking at https://petsc.gitlab.io/-/petsc/-/jobs/1204309863/artifacts/public/overview/features.html <https://petsc.gitlab.io/-/petsc/-/jobs/1204309863/artifacts/public/overview/features.html> and I immediately want to ask 
> 
>     Where is the TS solver table in the list of solver tables?
> 
>     Barry
> 
>     Note the pre-historic PETSc html manual pages which everyone despises have a button in the upper right hand corner to report problems/ask questions so what I am asking for is not unprecedented. Our old code uses email which is not ideal but not ideal is better than not. Surely modern systems like Sphinx have this support built in?
>     

I think the intended way to do this with our Sphinx template would be to add custom HTML templates, which can then be added to the sidebar.
https://pydata-sphinx-theme.readthedocs.io/en/latest/user_guide/sections.html#add-your-own-html-templates-to-theme-sections

 I'm worried that this involves too much scripting and customization, though. For example here's the way the "edit this page" link is done:
https://github.com/pydata/pydata-sphinx-theme/blob/master/pydata_sphinx_theme/_templates/edit-this-page.html

Doesn't seem too bad but it relies on a pretty big chunk of Python as well:
https://github.com/pydata/pydata-sphinx-theme/blob/master/pydata_sphinx_theme/__init__.py#L438 <https://github.com/pydata/pydata-sphinx-theme/blob/master/pydata_sphinx_theme/__init__.py#L438>



I'll open an issue on this, though, since it's entirely possible that someone else (or me, later) will think of a simple way to make this work, as it would indeed be a great feature.
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