Improve communication for current 9.1.0 version availability

[KOTungseth]

Description

With the release of future versions of the Elastic Stack, we need to make sure users understand that elastic.co/docs includes documentation for both 9.0.0 and future 9.x minor versions.

Our current version dropdown says Current version (9.0+), which may lead users to believe that future 9.x minor version docs aren’t available yet. Since we've moved to a unified minor version model starting with 9.0.0, we need to make that model clear and visible.

Remove banner

Update elastic.co/docs landing page intro

Current: Find the help you need, wherever you are in your Elastic journey.

Proposed change: Welcome to the docs that cover all changes in Elastic Stack 9.0.0 and later, including Elastic Stack 9.1.0 and Elastic Cloud Serverless. For easy reference, changes in 9.1.0 are marked inline. For details, check Understanding versioning and availability.

Update Release notes description on elastic.co/docs landing page

Current: Explore the latest features and changes in Elastic
Proposed change: Explore the latest features and changes in Elastic, including the latest 9.1.0 version of the Elastic Stack.

Update version dropdown

Current: Current version (9.0+)
Proposed change: Elastic Stack 9.0+ (latest: 9.1.0) or Version 9.0+ (latest: 9.1.0)

Update Elastic products versions on elastic.co/docs landing page

Current: View 9.0+ docs
Proposed change: View 9.0+ (latest: 9.1.0) docs

[KOTungseth]

Related issue: elastic/docs-content#2299
Released PR: elastic/docs-content#2317

[Mpdreamz]

The text on the dropdown might be too long, the page might also talk about multiple products with multiple versions.

How about:

---

The picker is also a page specific version picker, e.g on apm agent go you get its latest version and its legacy documentation mapping.

Should we include a label/header above the drop down that says "This page"?

See also #1637

[Mpdreamz]

For the landing I am not sure which on is better and if its indeed more clear then just saying 9.0+.

View other versions => View older versions?

[theletterf]

I love the idea of range, @Mpdreamz!

For the landing, I wouldn't use "View", because some of our users are visually impaired. I would use something like

Docs for versions 9.0.0 to 9.1.0 and Other versions

[alaudazzi]

View other versions => View older versions

If other is only older, let's keep it simple with Older versions

[reakaleek]

IMO, we should remove the current version from the dropdown entirely and just say something like "Previous versions" or "Legacy versions"

IMHO, we should keep the dropdown for what it is.. a docs version dropdown. not a release version dropdown.

Instead we should add maybe a link to the latest release notes to the right side nav.

something like:

Releases:

9.1.0 (latest)
9.0.0

See all release notes

Similar on how github does it:

[theletterf]

@reakaleek I also like thee idee of removing the dropdown if it serves no purpose for V3 docs. We could show all versions that apply to the document and then that link to relnotes (which need more visibility).

[reakaleek]

@reakaleek I also like thee idee of removing the dropdown if it serves no purpose for V3 docs. We could show all versions that apply to the document and then that link to relnotes (which need more visibility).

I'm not saying to remove the dropdown.

But remove the "Current version" label from it

[KOTungseth]

@reakaleek I see where you're going. Something like the Download Elasticsearch page:

But like this for Elastic Docs:

[KOTungseth]

For the landing I am not sure which on is better and if its indeed more clear then just saying 9.0+.

View other versions => View older versions?

For consistency, let's go with:
9.0+ (latest 9.1.0) docs
Previous versions

[bmorelli25]

@cotti to create a follow-up task for otp updates