Here is a patch that groups similar methods of the str() class together at various levels.

I added an alphabetical index of the methods, currently as a big paragraph of hyperlinks in the existing String Methods section. Then I added the following seven new sections. Ideally they would be ordered from important to obscure.

* String Formatting
* Searching and Replacing
* Splitting and Joining
* String Classification
* Case Manipulation
* Padding and Stripping
* Translation and Encoding

Within each section, most methods remain separate with no change to their descriptions. Some are grouped under a single description, where a there is an obvious pattern. I have tried put closely related methods nearby, while putting important and simple methods higher up, and moving their obscure and complex counterparts lower down.

Depending on outcome of these changes to the string methods, I may also be interested in doing a similar job to the bytes() and bytearray() methods.