DocSearch comparison

[jpmckinney]

https://docsearch.algolia.com is used by https://framework.frictionlessdata.io/docs/guides/guides-overview among others. (They also use https://docusaurus.io)

It looks like it supports multilingual websites: https://docsearch.algolia.com/docs/config-file/#using-regular-expressions

To ignore navigation, footers, etc. use selectors_exclude: https://docsearch.algolia.com/docs/config-file/#selectors_exclude-optional

We'd like to add results from the Extension Explorer #2. start_urls might be the way for DocSearch to do that: https://docsearch.algolia.com/docs/config-file/#start_urls

Since we already have a working setup that is timely (DocSearch runs daily) and configurable, I'm just noting the option here, in case we run into major development work around OCDS Index or Elasticserach, at which point we can reconsider.

[jpmckinney]

Can follow Executable Books' use here: executablebooks/jupyter-book#1324

[jpmckinney]

Unique features of DocSearch are auto-completion and instant-search.

I'll re-open, as adopting DocSearch could:

• Reduce the time to close Add crawler for Extension Explorer #2 (which requires not just indexing, but also integrating the results meaningfully)
• Eliminate the cost of maintaining and updating our Elasticsearch instance
• Eliminate the cost of re-integrating our custom search into the new theme Updating to PyData Sphinx Theme standard#1254 (comment)

I'm not sure DocSearch will work for staging documentation (re: start_urls). We can fallback to Sphinx's default search in that case.

[jpmckinney]

If we move to ReadTheDocs open-contracting/deploy#266, we might instead use its existing search features, which already searches across subprojects: https://docs.readthedocs.io/en/stable/guides/searching-with-readthedocs.html

[jpmckinney]

Re-opening pending conclusion of open-contracting/deploy#266

[jpmckinney]

Some instructions for Sphinx integration: readthedocs/sphinx_rtd_theme#761