Doc: Evaluate restructuring "Configuring Logstash" section

[karenzone]

Evaluate restructure "Configuring Logstash" section for better organization and to raise visibility of information

Current TOC structure:

Configuring Logstash
   Structure of a config file
   Accessing event data and fields in the configuration
   Using environment variables in the configuration
   Logstash configuration examples
   Sending data to Elastic Cloud (hosted Elasticsearch Service)

Proposed TOC structure:

Configuring Logstash
   Structure of a config file
   Value types
   Using environment variables
   Logstash configuration examples
Accessing event data and fields
Sending data to Elastic Cloud (hosted Elasticsearch Service)

This approach groups similar information and foundational concepts under "Configuring," while elevating "Event Data and Fields" to make it easier to find and reference. This approach also elevates Elastic Cloud info to make it obvious that users can easily send data from Logstash to hosted Elasticsearch Service.

[karenzone]

This restructuring would be foundational to #13488 and would give us one additional heading level to play with.

[karenzone]

As noted in conversation with @alexander-marquardt, "configuring" is a loaded term. As part of this work, we'll do more to clarify and put the focus on creating pipelines.

[alexander-marquardt]

Agree.

When I think of "Configuring logstash" I intuitively think of configuration settings such as logstash.yml, jvm.options, log4j.properties, as opposed to thinking about declaring a pipeline. For example, it is structured this way in the Configuring elasticsearch documentation. To add to the confusion, in order to distinguish the definition of a pipeline versus configuration of Logstash itself, in Logstash we refer to the Logstash settings file for configuring Logstash.

[ As a side note - part of what can cause confusion is caused by the logstash pipeline definition file being called a ".config" file - longer term (I believe) we could theoretically also change the ".config" extension to something more descriptive as I think that the extension is user defined. ]

I am not totally clear on the exact name that this section should be called. To me a more accurate section name would be along the lines of (for example): "Defining a Logstash Pipeline", "Pipeline definition".

This is not only about the title, but everywhere in the description where we say "to configure logstash", it should be more descriptive - something similar to "to create a logstash pipeline" , "to define a logstash pipeline", etc (whatever makes sense given the context). As an example, in the docs we state the following:

To configure Logstash, you create a config file that specifies which plugins you want to use and settings for each plugin.

Perhaps a more understandable and SEO friendly structure would be something like the following:

To define a Logstash pipeline, you create a config file ...

(Note that in the future, we should also evaluate if this should even be called a "config" file or something more descriptive)