Add how do I ... section

doc/_static/style.css

@@ -16,3 +16,12 @@
 .wy-nav-top {
   background-color: #555;
 }
+
+table.colwidths-given {
+    table-layout: fixed;
+    width: 100%;
+}
+table.docutils td {
+    white-space: unset;
+    word-wrap: break-word;
+}

doc/howdoi.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,47 @@
+.. currentmodule:: xarray
+
+How do I ...
+============
+
+.. list-table::
+   :header-rows: 1
+   :widths: 40 60
+
+   * - How do I...
+     - Solution
+   * - add variables from other datasets to my dataset
+     - :py:meth:`Dataset.merge`
+   * - add a new dimension and/or coordinate
+     - :py:meth:`DataArray.expand_dims`, :py:meth:`Dataset.expand_dims`
+   * - add a new coordinate variable
+     - :py:meth:`DataArray.assign_coords`
+   * - change a data variable to a coordinate variables
+     - :py:meth:`Dataset.set_coords`
+   * - change the order of dimensions
+     - :py:meth:`DataArray.transpose`, :py:meth:`Dataset.transpose`
+   * - remove a variable from my object
+     - :py:meth:`Dataset.drop`, :py:meth:`DataArray.drop`
+   *  - remove dimensions of length 1
+      - :py:meth:`DataArray.squeeze`, :py:meth:`Dataset.squeeze`
+   * - convert non-dimension coordinates to data variables or remove them
+     - :py:meth:`DataArray.reset_coords`, :py:meth:`Dataset.reset_coords`
+   * - rename a variable, dimension or coordinate
+     - :py:meth:`Dataset.rename`, :py:meth:`DataArray.rename`, :py:meth:`Dataset.rename_vars`, :py:meth:`Dataset.rename_dims`,
+   * - convert a DataArray to Dataset or vice versa
+     - :py:meth:`DataArray.to_dataset`, :py:meth:`Dataset.to_array`
+   * - extract the underlying array (e.g. numpy or Dask arrays)
+     - :py:attr:`DataArray.data`
+   * - convert to and extract the underlying numpy array
+     - :py:attr:`DataArray.values`
+   * - find out if my xarray object is wrapping a Dask Array
+     - :py:func:`dask.is_dask_collection`
+   * - know how much memory my object requires
+     - :py:attr:`DataArray.nbytes`, :py:attr:`Dataset.nbytes`
+   * - convert a possibly irregularly sampled timeseries to a regularly sampled timeseries
+     - :py:meth:`DataArray.resample`, :py:meth:`Dataset.resample`
+   * - apply a function on all data variables in a Dataset
+     - :py:meth:`Dataset.apply`
+   * - write xarray objects with complex values to a netCDF file
+     - :py:func:`Dataset.to_netcdf`, :py:func:`DataArray.to_netcdf` specifying ``engine="h5netcdf", invalid_netcdf=True``
+   * - make xarray objects look like other xarray objects
+     - :py:func:`~xarray.ones_like`, :py:func:`~xarray.zeros_like`, :py:func:`~xarray.full_like`, :py:func:`Dataset.reindex_like`, :py:meth:`Dataset.interpolate_like`, :py:meth:`Dataset.broadcast_like`, :py:func:`DataArray.reindex_like`, :py:meth:`DataArray.interpolate_like`, :py:meth:`DataArray.broadcast_like`

doc/index.rst

@@ -84,6 +84,7 @@ Documentation
 **Help & reference**
 
 * :doc:`whats-new`
+* :doc:`howdoi`
 * :doc:`api`
 * :doc:`internals`
 * :doc:`roadmap`
@@ -96,6 +97,7 @@ Documentation
    :caption: Help & reference
 
    whats-new
+   howdoi
    api
    internals
    roadmap