Improve the docs!

[pombredanne]

Discussed in https://github.com/orgs/aboutcode-org/discussions/195

^{Originally posted by pombredanne May 22, 2025}
Hey, we need to up our game on the overall project docs and web site as I have received a lot of less positive feedback
Right now aboutcode.org is using wordpress and elementor
And the read the doc web sites are using Restructured text and Sphinx

The issues to me are:

• we can change the look and feel, but more importantly is the "architecture" of the information about the overall project and how to get started that is the most pressing issue
• we will need something that's based on text files in git repos, rather that wordpress which does not help much with participation

Inputs and suggestions and help are mucho welcomed. I am considering organizing a commando hackathon thing to get us started.

[pombredanne]

From @DennisClark https://github.com/orgs/aboutcode-org/discussions/195#discussioncomment-13237247

We need an AboutCode Overview document (and readthedocs format would work just fine) that answers the questions associated with actual use cases, and this doc (or a major part of it) would be organized as a list of those questions, such as:

• How do I use AboutCode to support CRA compliance in my company (enterprise) ?
• How do I use AboutCode to support CRA Compliance in my development team?
• How do I use AboutCode to find security vulnerabilities in my codebase?
• How do I use AboutCode to manage my security remediation tasks?
• How do I use AboutCode to create SBOMs for my products?
• How do I use AboutCode to consume (ingest) SBOMs from my suppliers?
• How do I use AboutCode to review my software products to ensure license compliance?
• How do I use AboutCode to communicate license policies and procedures to my team?

I am sure there are others, but those are the first that come to mind. I think that structuring/organizing a readthedocs that has a main TOC link for each of those questions would be a good way to get moving on an AboutCode documentation solution.

[pombredanne]

Originally posted by @pombredanne in aboutcode-org/aboutcode#195 (comment)_

Here is a set of updated ideas for our TODO:

• Emergency patch to ensure aboutcode.org has no dark corners and we can get started nicely
  • ensure we have minimally correct readme and getting started
  • Add PURL! which is conspicuously absent
  • Make blog (and blog posts) visible and not only hidden like now https://aboutcode.org/blog/
• move away from wordpress toward a file-based, git-based workflow ( Sphinx+Rst, Hugo, Docusaurus, Markdown/MYST)
• harmonize all docs modeled after SCIO https://scancodeio.readthedocs.io
• create persona-based, use-case based workflows for docs
• create code, scripts, deployed demos, and packaging so that its takes under 5 minutes to try out any of our tools, libraries and apps.
• Also create an org-wide glossary to support consistency: Create glossary/standard reference for terms/names used in or to describe products/services #26

[mjherzog]

@pombredanne To clarify the items for the current aboutcode.org website:

• "ensure we have minimally correct readme and getting started" is not relevant for the current website because we do not have any doc or readme information on aboutcode.org, only links to RTD, GH or other sites. We can update links but it does not make sense to create readme or getting started doc here.

[pombredanne]

@mjherzog re : #27 (comment)

Yes, technically readme's are not in the scope of our website, but in practice I would like to have a holistic approach where we have a consistent, coherent and self-reinforcing approach from the web site, to the docs, to the readme, to the initial installation or demo deployment, taking into account the whole user experience.

[DennisClark]

The place to make the suggested improvements is
https://github.com/aboutcode-org/aboutcode/tree/main/docs
and that will result in better content at
https://aboutcode.readthedocs.io/

[DennisClark]

Working on this now, creating a family of RTD pages to support this. @chinyeungli I will need your help when I have some content ready.