Create separate instructor/student views

[NeuroShepherd]

have for our tutorials (and therefore maybe for the template tutorial itself) a learners view and an instructors view - see e.g. https://carpentries.github.io/instructor-training/instructor/index.html check out the eye button on the top right

• Malika in chat

[MalikaIhle]

pinging @SvonGrebmer with Pat's response in chat: this is technically possible, but i'm simply going to say no to this idea for now. i like it in principle, but the technical implementation would take me too long. unless someone online already has a solution available.

[fkohrt]

I think the proper technical solution would be to add content specific to an instructor profile, then create another (mirror) repository which renders with that profile activated.

I feel like creating the content for instructors is more effort than the technical part. But still, maybe it makes sense to first gather the content for instructors, and only if there's enough, create the separate repository?

In other words, content for instructors could be added like this:

::: {.content-visible when-profile="instructor"}
This content will only appear in the instructor version.
:::

And if it turns out that there's not a lot of instructor content, it can just be turned into a collapsed callout.

[MalikaIhle]

I think that is very sensible @fkohrt - pinging @SvonGrebmer

[NeuroShepherd]

I'm opposed to creating what are essentially duplicate repositories of our content as that then becomes an additional technical hurdle and maintenance.

I liked the example website that Malika had sent me (forgot what the link is) that allowed someone to toggle back and forth between the views.

A related request to this is that Reema suggested we implement branch-specific deployments of our websites (so that developers can see their changes live, but not published at our main website link). The solution I have in mind to address this idea can be extended to creating these split instructor/student views.

[MalikaIhle]

@nicebread also mentioned to me that possibly the quarto solution for multi-language websites could potentially be adapted for that toggle view.

[MalikaIhle]

For the branch-specific deployment, couldn't the authors render locally instead? it seems to me like a non-necessary tech thing? I recall @ree-gupta mentioning that in the context of the FAIR data tutorial co-authored by MPDL people, but clearly this is above their (and mine) knowledge...

[NeuroShepherd]

True, we could have authors just render locally. But we could also accomplish 3 tasks at once (instructor/student views, different languages, and multi-branch deployments) with very similar code. If nothing else, developing a solution for 1 of these problems creates a pathway for the others.

[fkohrt]

I'm opposed to creating what are essentially duplicate repositories of our content as that then becomes an additional technical hurdle and maintenance.

Somehow I thought GitHub would support automatic mirrors out of the box. But one can render the project twice in a GitHub action call – once for the students and once for the instructors. Then the version for instructors (or both versions) can live in a subfolder.