[New-bugs-announce] [issue39364] Automatically tabulate module contents in the docs

[alex c]

New submission from alex c <alexchandel at gmail.com>:

By default, the docs.python.org page for a module does not list or tabulate the contents of that module. This makes it difficult to browse a module's functions or get a bird's-eye view.

For example, the logging module (https://docs.python.org/3/library/logging.html) has almost 70 functions, methods, and attributes. But it's impossible to scan them without scrolling the entire length of the entry (~18 pages of US letter). Compare to the browsability of itertools (https://docs.python.org/3/library/itertools.html), which manually tabulates its functions in the first section.

docs.python.org should automatically generate a TOC of the module's contents (classes, functions, etc) in the navigation sidebar, below the existing sidebar sections (perhaps in a collapsible section). Rust's documentation does this (example: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/time/struct.Duration.html), and doc.rust-lang.org also effectively allows the entire page to function as a TOC by providing a "collapse page" button.

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assignee: docs at python
components: Documentation
messages: 360148
nosy: alexchandel, docs at python
priority: normal
severity: normal
status: open
title: Automatically tabulate module contents in the docs
type: enhancement
versions: Python 2.7, Python 3.5, Python 3.6, Python 3.7, Python 3.8, Python 3.9

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Python tracker <report at bugs.python.org>
<https://bugs.python.org/issue39364>
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