[ARROW-12188] [Docs] Switch to pydata-sphinx-theme for the main sphinx docs

• Type: Improvement
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Fix Version/s: 4.0.0
• Component/s: Documentation
• Labels: pull-request-available
• External issue URL: https://github.com/apache/arrow/issues/28009
• Assignee: Joris Van den Bossche
• Reporter: Joris Van den Bossche
• Created: 02/Apr/21 13:29
• Updated: 11/Jan/23 08:24
• Resolved: 15/Apr/21 14:19

Description

I have been working on using a new theme (the pydata-sphinx-theme with some custom styling for Arrow) for the sphinx documentation.

Initially, I tried out a few variants (see below), but unless more people give their preference, I will keep the layout the same as it is now (a single sidebar, option 3 below).

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A few options for the layout, with a preview that I pushed to github pages:

1. Navbar + sidebar: the navbar contains the main sections (format, libraries, development), and then the sidebar further up to each page.
Two example links: https://jorisvandenbossche.github.io/arrow-docs-preview/html-option-1/format/CDataInterface.html and https://jorisvandenbossche.github.io/arrow-docs-preview/html-option-1/python/parquet.html

2. Navbar with dropdown + sidebar: similar as above, but with an additional dropdown for the different libraries (languages). As a consequence, the sidebar only contains the items for one language (eg python) at a time (giving a better view if you're only looking at the python docs IMO, but needs more clicks to switch to another language).
The same two example links: https://jorisvandenbossche.github.io/arrow-docs-preview/html-option-2-dropdown/format/CDataInterface.html, https://jorisvandenbossche.github.io/arrow-docs-preview/html-option-2-dropdown/python/parquet.html (note that this option definitely still needs a better clue that you are eg in the python sub-part of the docs)

3. Only sidebar: this is similar in structure to what we have today with the RTD theme.
The same two example links: https://jorisvandenbossche.github.io/arrow-docs-preview/html-option-3-single-sidebar/format/CDataInterface.html, https://jorisvandenbossche.github.io/arrow-docs-preview/html-option-3-single-sidebar/python/parquet.html

Lastly, I also made a option 4 that uses a single sidebar as option 3, but with a dropdown to choose the topic: https://jorisvandenbossche.github.io/arrow-docs-preview/html-option-4-sidebar-with-dropdown/format/CDataInterface.html, https://jorisvandenbossche.github.io/arrow-docs-preview/html-option-4-sidebar-with-dropdown/python/parquet.html
 
Probably those previews can be further improved with some additional (CSS) tweaks. I "just" took the orange-like color that is also used on the home page as the main color for the navigation, to give it a bit a custom touch.
But so feedback on both which general structure you like most as details you would like to see improved is certainly welcome.

An additional question is if we want to integrate this somehow with the navbar we already have from the home page.

Issue Links

• links to: GitHub Pull Request #9876