Hi Harish, Indeed, this is a significant progress. Thank you. I have noticed the below on a few pages I was hovering on. While these could be applied on almost all pages.
General : 1. Staging link is not fully responsive (mobile, different devices). (Menu, logo for example) 2. Favicon and title are not set Home page : 3. I see cards like Manufacturing, Insurance, Telecom etc usecases which are screenwide and felt like clickable. On existing docs, these cards are bit small and doesn't feel like they should be nagivated to some other page. And the Manufacturing block is repeated. 4. Headers are missing in the cards further below 'Core capabilities' & 'Ecosystem' I believe it's important to have a title. As an example I am using this page for next points. https://kafka.staged.apache.org/41/streams/introduction/ 5. Video embeddings are screen wide. Could be nice if the size is shrinked abit. 6. There is an interactive way to select steps here 'TOUR OF THE STREAMS API' in existing docs which is missing and videos seem to be there without getting user's attention. 7. Code snippets I cannot see or select Java/Scala 8. Use cases like Zalando, Rabobank are moved to Testimonials but the cards are not properly aligned. Could be nice if the card size is reduced abit and 9. In this https://kafka.staged.apache.org/41/streams/ it could be nice to have a lowered font size for 'The easiest way to write mission-critical real-time applications and microservices' 10. Interactive steps are missing for 'Write your First App' which exist in existing docs. This gives the user a good overview of the steps to be done before starting. https://kafka.staged.apache.org/41/security/ 11. Content is repeated for example : Security Overview Security Overview May be some other description if already exists. 12. In general on all these category pages, it could be nice to have brief intro of that the page is about. Ex on https://kafka.staged.apache.org/41/streams/ 13. Pages like Donate ( https://kafka.staged.apache.org/community/apache/donate/) doesn't lead to anywhere instead of https://www.apache.org/foundation/sponsorship.html 14. Under the Configuration menu section, it would be beneficial to have submenus such as 'Broker configs' and 'Topic configs'. 15. For menu APIs, it would be nice to have submenus. Could be applied for all other menus. Is it possible to have 'Next' and 'Previous' buttons on pages I can imagine we cannot have the exact look and feel and functionality what we have in existing docs, but I feel certain aspects are important to achieve here as well to engage the user experience. Thanks, Murali On Tue, Nov 4, 2025 at 6:03 AM Harish Vishwanath <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > Back in April, I started a discussion with KIP-1133: AK Documentation and > Website in Markdown. (Link: > > https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/KAFKA/KIP-1133%3A+AK+Documentation+and+Website+in+Markdown > ). > The KIP proposes migrating the Kafka website and its documentation from the > current system (which uses raw HTML files) to a modern, Markdown-based > system. > > I'm happy to report that since the KIP was approved, significant progress > has been made, and a version is now ready for community review. > > *Progress Highlights:* > > 1. > > *Staging Site:* A full version of the website, built from Markdown, is > now live at: *https://kafka.staged.apache.org/ > <https://kafka.staged.apache.org/>* > 2. > > *Source Code:* The Markdown source is available on the markdown branch > of the kafka-site repository: > https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/tree/markdown > 3. > > *CI/CD Pipeline:* A GitHub Actions pipeline is fully configured. ( > https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/actions) > - > > It automatically builds and deploys commits/PRs from the markdown > branch to the staging site. > - > > It also builds a Docker image for easy local preview. You can run it > locally with: docker run -p 8080:80 > ghcr.io/apache/kafka-site:markdown > 4. > > *Conversion Tooling:* An automation pipeline was developed to perform > the HTML-to-Markdown conversion, which can be found here: > https://github.com/hvishwanath/ak2md > 5. > > *Local Development:* Makefiles are included to ease local development > and iteration. > 6. > > *Developer README:* Comprehensive instructions on how to build the site > and make updates are available in the README: > https://github.com/apache/kafka-site/blob/markdown/README.md > > *Call for Review (Now - Nov 30):* > > I would like to formally invite the community to review the staging site > and the Markdown source code. > > - > > *What to look for:* Please compare the staging site ( > https://kafka.staged.apache.org/) with the live site ( > https://kafka.apache.org/) and look for any rendering issues, broken > links, content discrepancies, or formatting errors. > - > > *How to fix:* If you find any issues, please feel free to submit a PR > directly against the markdown branch. This is a great opportunity to fix > any small typos or formatting issues you may have seen in the docs. > > This has been a huge undertaking, and you will likely spot minor issues > like broken links or rendering quirks. Many of these stem from > inconsistencies in the original HTML source, which I have done my best to > detect and fix via automation. I strongly encourage the community to view > these as non-gating issues that can be easily fixed post-migration, rather > than blockers for the cut-over itself. > > *Proposed Cut-over Plan:* > > To move this forward, I propose the following plan: > > 1. > > *Now – Nov 30: Community Review Period* > - > > The community reviews the staging site and source code. > - > > Fixes are submitted as PRs directly to the markdown branch. > 2. > > *Dec 1: Final Sync* > - > > I will perform one final refresh from the main repository to pull in > any last-minute documentation changes from the HTML source. > 3. > > *First Week of Dec: Start [VOTE] Thread* > - > > I will start a formal vote thread to ask the community to approve the > cut-over to the new Markdown-based site. > 4. > > *If the Vote Passes:* > - > > We will migrate the source documentation in the docs directory of the > apache/kafka repository to Markdown for versions *3.5 and newer*. > - > > Older versions (pre-3.5) will be left as-is (HTML) in the kafka repo > to avoid disruption. > - > > The GitHub Actions will be updated to deploy the markdown branch to > the live production site. > - > > A key benefit of this change: any future bug fixes needed for *older* > (pre-3.5) documentation can be made directly in the kafka-site > repository, decoupling them from the main Kafka release process. > > Finally, I want to extend a huge and sincere thank you to *David Arthur*. > His guidance, detailed code reviews, help in refactoring the CI pipeline, > and merging PRs over the last several months have been invaluable in > getting this KIP to its current state. > > Please take a look at the staging site and let me know your thoughts. > > Regards, > Harish >
