Re: breadcrumbs for Info . . . . . .

[Juri Linkov <juri@jurta.org>]

> However, I don't think that the current breadcrumbs approach is a problem or
> that the other (TOC) approach would be better. Why? Because most manuals are not
> deep. I picked the deepest node I found in the Emacs manual (by looking at the
> TOC) as the example I sent. And I see no performance problem with that depth.

When nodes are in different files, visiting all ancestor nodes means
visiting several files that is slow on slow machines/connections.
For instance, the first node in the file info/emacs-4 is:

  File: emacs,  Node: Fortran Indent,  Next: Fortran Comments,  Prev: Fortran Motion,  Up: Fortran

  31.13.2 Fortran Indentation

So to display this node, it needs to open the file info/emacs-3 that
contains its parent node Fortran, and the top file info/emacs-1.

> We have only a certain number of possible heading levels, and it works fine for
> those, AFAICT.

I see that with the shallow structure of Info manuals, most breadcrumbs
will just duplicate the Up: node reference in the header line.

> Remember, breadcrumbs reflect document structure, not chronological
> visits (as they always should). They are not meant to duplicate the
> Back button (`l').

Yes, I know.  That's why I think "breadcrumbs" is an inappropriate name
for this feature.  Unfortunately, it is already too widespread on the Web.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/