Consolidate intro to camunda

[christinaausley]

Description

Closes #4011 -- consolidates introduction to Camunda pages between guides and components.

Notes

• Will backport upon approval.
• Do we feel Connectors are highlighted well enough? I don't think we consider Connectors one of the six "components," and it is mentioned in next steps, but not sure if I should add an admonition noting Connectors in the intro to the page.
• Does this location make sense? It is centered around the guides content, so it makes sense with the current changes, but I'm open to adjusting this based on opinions.

When should this change go live?

• This is a bug fix, security concern, or something that needs urgent release support.
• This is already available but undocumented and should be released within a week.
• This on a specific schedule and the assignee will coordinate a release with the DevEx team. (apply hold label or convert to draft PR)
• This is part of a scheduled alpha or minor. (apply alpha or minor label)
• There is no urgency with this change and can be released at any time.

PR Checklist

• My changes are for an already released minor and are in /versioned_docs directory.
• My changes are for the next minor and are in /docs directory (aka /next/).

• My changes require an Engineering review, and I've assigned the Engineering DRI or delegate.
• My changes require a technical writer review, and I've assigned @camunda/tech-writers as a reviewer.

[github-actions]

👋 🤖 🤔 Hello! Did you make your changes in all the right places?

These files were changed only in docs/. You might want to duplicate these changes in versioned_docs/version-8.5/.

• docs/components/components-overview.md
• docs/components/modeler/about-modeler.md
• docs/components/operate/operate-introduction.md
• docs/components/tasklist/introduction-to-tasklist.md
• docs/components/zeebe/zeebe-overview.md
• docs/guides/automating-a-process-using-bpmn.md
• docs/guides/configuring-out-of-the-box-connector.md
• docs/guides/create-cluster.md
• docs/guides/getting-started-orchestrate-microservices.md
• docs/guides/img/ComponentsAndArchitecture_SaaS.png
• docs/guides/improve-processes-with-optimize.md
• docs/guides/introduction-to-camunda-8.md

You may have done this intentionally, but we wanted to point it out in case you didn't. You can read more about the versioning within our docs in our documentation guidelines.

[akeller]

Do we feel Connectors are highlighted well enough? I don't think we consider Connectors one of the six "components," and it is mentioned in next steps, but not sure if I should add an admonition noting Connectors in the intro to the page.
Does this location make sense? It is centered around the guides content, so it makes sense with the current changes, but I'm open to adjusting this based on opinions.

Thank you for the notes ❤️ really helps focus what you want us to review!

[akeller]

Updating the branch to see if I can resolve the build errors and get the preview environment running for review.

[akeller]

@christinaausley can you have a look at the build errors?

[akeller]

In the last section (Learn more), I'm a bit overwhelmed with doc cards. Maybe we can highlight a few as doc cards and show the rest as links or something less prominent.

Similarly, I think the Getting started section highlights our long time tension between how to get started with the platform, holistically, and how to do specific use cases. One recommendation here would be to call attention to the two "main" guides - Java Spring & modeling (maybe as doc cards?), while also mentioning the use case guides (maybe as links).

[christinaausley]

@camunda/tech-writers @akeller I think this PR is a fine baseline and starting point for general ideas, but I should have started conversation on a Miro board before launching changes -- I'm going to convert this to a draft, add a hold label, and add a link to that Miro board here shortly for continued discussion.

[christinaausley]

@akeller @conceptualshark here is the Miro board -- as @mesellings is out next week I figured the two of you may be best for review 👍

Once finalized I can pull these changes into this existing PR.

[akeller]

Planning to review the Miro board today.

[akeller]

I reviewed the Miro and then returned to the PR - I like where you are going with these changes! I particularly like that you put this in the Guides section, where the page structure mimics the sidebar content.

One comment I left on Miro that I want to elaborate on a bit more - flipping the order of the doc cards and presenting the modeling content before the Spring SDK content. This is mostly a comment based on an untested hypothesis that our non-dev personas might be intimidated by seeing SDK-first content... well, first! We know nearly every persona interacting with Camunda must model (or interpret/see a model). We would also want to flip the order of the content on the sidebar. Do you have thoughts on this?

[christinaausley]

@akeller @conceptualshark Thank you for your quick feedback! I'll plan to polish up this PR today with the proposed changes.

One comment I left on Miro that I want to elaborate on a bit more - flipping the order of the doc cards and presenting the modeling content before the Spring SDK content.

I agree with this -- I think we should flip the content as the Modeling content is so entry-level and core to the Camunda experience as a beginner. At least, it's the first thing I would click on as a newbie trying to figure out what Camunda is all about. I'm happy to swap it in the sidebar in this PR, but agreed that this should switch too.

[akeller]

I like the consolidation!

🙈 but of course, now I'm seeing other things I want to fix outside the scope of this PR. I'll save that for another issue scope.

[christinaausley]

I like the consolidation!

🙈 but of course, now I'm seeing other things I want to fix outside the scope of this PR. I'll save that for another issue scope.

@akeller Feel free to open another issue (or issues) and I can have a look! 😬

Merging this!

[github-actions]

🧹 Preview environment for this PR has been torn down.