Find a way to include setup instructions inline to lessons?

[zmbc]

I understand the benefits of centralization and only maintaining the setup instructions in one place, but from my perspective it seems quite disorienting to link a user to halfway down a long page and ask them to follow the instructions in a single box and then come back. As a lesson author I would much prefer to be able to include the relevant setup instructions inline without breaking flow.

[zmbc]

I suppose the lessons are usually nested within workshops, and the desire is to batch all the setup instructions for a workshop up-front. However, this doesn't work out as nicely for lessons to be used for self-study or stand-alone. Maybe overlaps in some way with #895 (comment)

[froggleston]

We keep the setup instructions separate at least in part to allow easy configuration by the workshop hosts - if workshops need specific setup, then organisers and instructors can tailor the workshop website accordingly, whereas this isn't the case for lessons (unless you were to use a fork of a given curriculum which is doable of course, but much more overhead than the workshop template).

You're right that setup should happen before a workshop - our experience is that leaving setup to the first day of the workshop can soak up a large amount of time, especially with restrictive policies that some learners have applied to their systems by their institutional IT departments.

[zmbc]

Thanks for your input @froggleston! That all makes sense. I'm wondering how we might be able to preserve that flexibility for workshops while also increasing the usability of lessons as stand-alone study materials. This probably relates to my atypical use of Carpentries materials