Inventory: Add more relevant general and specific information

CHANGES.md

@@ -2,6 +2,11 @@
 
 ## Unreleased
 - Bundle: Added outline in Markdown format, which got lost previously
+- Inventory: Added general information about partitioned tables, storage,
+  replication, and views, and more specific information about the
+  `{CREATE,ALTER} [FOREIGN] TABLE [AS]` and `COPY {FROM,TO}` commands.
+- Inventory: Added information about SQL data types and about how to import
+  example datasets using CrateDB Toolkit.
 
 ## v0.0.4 - 2025-05-16
 - Outline: `cratedb-about outline` now understands `--url` option to use

docs/backlog.md

@@ -40,3 +40,5 @@
 - Inventory: Revisit `notes` in `cratedb-outline.yaml` about
   other resources that have not been expanded properly yet
   https://github.com/crate/about/issues/24
+- Inventory: Information about ddl/views, etc., `COPY FROM ...`,
+  and `ctk load table`, specifically about how to load data and import demo data

src/cratedb_about/outline/cratedb-outline.yaml

@@ -194,21 +194,41 @@ data:
       description: How CrateDB copes with network-, disk-, or machine-failures.
       parents: [ reference ]
 
-    # Concept guidelines
-    - title: "Guide: CrateDB sharding"
-      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/guide/_sources/performance/sharding.rst.txt
-      description: A best practice guide about sharding with CrateDB.
-      parents: [ guide ]
-    - title: "Guide: CrateDB query optimization"
-      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/guide/_sources/performance/optimization.rst.txt
-      description: Essential principles for optimizing queries in CrateDB while avoiding the most common pitfalls.
-      parents: [ guide ]
-    - title: "Guide: Design for scale"
-      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/guide/_sources/performance/scaling.rst.txt
+    # General information
+    - title: "CrateDB reference: Partitioned tables"
+      description: |
+        A partitioned table is a virtual table consisting of zero or more partitions.
+        A partition is similar to a regular single table and consists of one or more shards.
+        A table becomes a partitioned table by defining partition columns.
+        When a record with a new distinct combination of values for the configured partition
+        columns is inserted, a new partition is created and the document will be inserted into this partition.
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/general/ddl/partitioned-tables.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/general/ddl/partitioned-tables.html
+      parents: [ reference ]
+    - title: "CrateDB reference: Storage"
       description: |
-        Critical design considerations to successfully scale CrateDB in large production
-        environments to ensure performance and reliability as workloads grow.
-      parents: [ guide ]
+        Data storage options can be tuned for each column similar to how indexing is defined.
+        Using the Column Store limits the values of TEXT columns to a maximal length of 32766 bytes.
+        Turning off the Column Store in conjunction of turning off indexing will remove the length limitation.
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/general/ddl/storage.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/general/ddl/storage.html
+      parents: [ reference ]
+    - title: "CrateDB reference: Replication"
+      description: |
+        You can configure CrateDB to replicate tables. When you configure replication, CrateDB will
+        try to ensure that every table shard has one or more copies available at all times.
+        This ensures data resiliency when individual cluster nodes go offline for maintenance.
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/general/ddl/replication.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/general/ddl/replication.html
+      parents: [ reference ]
+    - title: "CrateDB reference: Views"
+      description: |
+        Views are stored named queries which can be used in place of table names.
+        They’re resolved at runtime and can be used to simplify common queries.
+        Database views have special privilege properties.
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/general/ddl/views.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/general/ddl/views.html
+      parents: [ reference ]
 
     # Data modeling
     - title: "Data modeling: Sequences"
@@ -223,6 +243,22 @@ data:
         `_seq_no` and `_primary_term`.
       parents: [ reference ]
 
+    # Performance guidelines
+    - title: "Guide: CrateDB sharding"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/guide/_sources/performance/sharding.rst.txt
+      description: A best practice guide about sharding with CrateDB.
+      parents: [ guide ]
+    - title: "Guide: CrateDB query optimization"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/guide/_sources/performance/optimization.rst.txt
+      description: Essential principles for optimizing queries in CrateDB while avoiding the most common pitfalls.
+      parents: [ guide ]
+    - title: "Guide: Design for scale"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/guide/_sources/performance/scaling.rst.txt
+      description: |
+        Critical design considerations to successfully scale CrateDB in large production
+        environments to ensure performance and reliability as workloads grow.
+      parents: [ guide ]
+
     # Cloud docs
     - title: "CrateDB Cloud"
       link: https://cratedb.com/docs/cloud/en/latest/_sources/index.md.txt
@@ -342,6 +378,70 @@ data:
       type: index
       id: sql-syntax
 
+    # SQL: Commands
+    - title: "CrateDB SQL reference: CREATE TABLE"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/sql/statements/create-table.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/sql/statements/create-table.html
+      description: |
+        The `CREATE TABLE` command creates a new, initially empty table. The command accepts many important
+        parameters for commandeering CrateDB's special features, mostly `CLUSTERED` and `PARTITIONED BY`,
+        extended by exposing loads of options through its `WITH` modifier.
+      parents: [ sql-syntax ]
+      tags: [ sql ]
+    - title: "CrateDB SQL reference: CREATE TABLE AS"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/sql/statements/create-table-as.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/sql/statements/create-table-as.html
+      description: |
+        `CREATE TABLE AS` will create a new table and insert rows based on the specified query.
+      parents: [ sql-syntax ]
+      tags: [ sql ]
+    - title: "CrateDB SQL reference: ALTER TABLE"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/sql/statements/alter-table.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/sql/statements/alter-table.html
+      description: |
+        The `ALTER TABLE` command can be used to modify an existing table definition. It provides options
+        to add columns, modify constraints, enabling or disabling table parameters and allows to execute
+        a shard reroute allocation.
+        The REROUTE command provides various options to manually control the allocation of shards.
+        It allows the enforcement of explicit allocations, cancellations and the moving of shards
+        between nodes in a cluster, giving you the ability to re-balance the cluster state manually.
+      parents: [ sql-syntax ]
+      tags: [ sql ]
+    - title: "CrateDB SQL reference: COPY FROM"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/sql/statements/copy-from.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/sql/statements/copy-from.html
+      description: The `COPY FROM` command copies data from a URI to the specified table.
+      parents: [ sql-syntax ]
+      tags: [ sql ]
+    - title: "CrateDB SQL reference: COPY TO"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/sql/statements/copy-to.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/sql/statements/copy-to.html
+      description: |
+        The `COPY TO` command exports the contents of a table to one or more files
+        into a given directory with unique filenames.
+      parents: [ sql-syntax ]
+      tags: [ sql ]
+    - title: "CrateDB SQL reference: CREATE FOREIGN TABLE"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/sql/statements/create-foreign-table.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/sql/statements/create-foreign-table.html
+      description: |
+        `CREATE FOREIGN TABLE` is a DDL statement that creates a new foreign table.
+        A foreign table is a view onto data in a foreign system.
+      parents: [ sql-syntax ]
+      tags: [ sql ]
+
+    # SQL: Data types
+    - title: "CrateDB SQL reference: Data types"
+      link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/general/ddl/data-types.rst.txt
+      html: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/general/ddl/data-types.html
+      description: |
+        Data can be stored in different formats. CrateDB has different types that can be specified if
+        a table is created using the CREATE TABLE statement.
+        Data types play a central role as they limit what kind of data can be inserted and how it is stored.
+        They also influence the behaviour when the records are queried.
+      parents: [ sql-syntax ]
+      tags: [ sql ]
+
     # SQL: Functions
     - title: "CrateDB SQL reference: Scalar functions"
       link: https://cratedb.com/docs/crate/reference/en/latest/_sources/general/builtins/scalar-functions.rst.txt
@@ -545,6 +645,17 @@ data:
       link: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crate/cratedb-toolkit/refs/tags/v0.0.31/cratedb_toolkit/info/library.py
       description: A collection of SQL queries and utilities suitable for diagnostics on CrateDB.
 
+    # Toolkit Example Datasets
+    # https://cratedb-toolkit.readthedocs.io/cluster/
+    - title: "CrateDB Toolkit: Import example datasets"
+      link: https://cratedb-toolkit.readthedocs.io/_sources/datasets.md.txt
+      html: https://cratedb-toolkit.readthedocs.io/datasets.html
+      description: |
+        CrateDB Toolkit's `cratedb_toolkit.datasets.load_dataset` API primitive can be used to
+        load curated datasets from <https://github.com/crate/cratedb-datasets> into your database
+        programmatically, using a few lines of Python. The API is suitable to be used for exploring
+        CrateDB in Python programs and scientific notebooks.
+
     # Example projects
     - title: "CrateDB GTFS / GTFS-RT Transit Data Demo"
       link: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/crate/devrel-gtfs-transit/refs/heads/main/README.md