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Re: breadcrumb navigation

for

From: Tim Beadle
Date: Nov 29, 2004 4:06AM

"michael.brockington" wrote on
29/11/2004 10:47:55:
> If it wasn't structural we wouldn't be doing it.
> Read any treatise on page design (for print) and you can't fail to
notice
> that it is accepted that whitespace, and more obviously black space, is
as
> important to the readability of a page as the layout of the text.
> Are you possibly confusing the code structure with the visual structure
of
> the page? Perhaps I should have talked about layout, but then that is
not the
> correct term. One of the reasons that people often fail to go back to
the
> print design manuals is that Web designers insist on re-using print
terms in
> a different way, as with font != face.

So if it's page structure we're talking about, then it makes *absolutely
no odds* whether that structure is delimited with "real" borders or
background images!

> Ignoring things until they turn into a problem is not very clever -
better to
> get the standards worked out in advance.

I'm not talking about "ignoring things"; I'm talking about doing things in
a pragmatic way that works *now*, with one eye on the future when
technology changes. What's non-standard about a semantic XHTML document
with CSS for styling?

> The reason that they do this is because the few people who use this
feature
> typically mis-use it, in ways like this.

It's the handheld/OS manufacturers that are to blame, IMO.

> > Content will probably need to be refactored for small-screen devices
> > anyway, so I think it's a moot point.
> Not if you stick to the standards, and avoid over-complicating things
with
> inappropriate gimmicks.

What? If you have a long article that works OK in a desktop context, it
will likely need to be chunked up for handhelds; navigation & advertising
will need to be simplified etc etc. Rarely will one document serve all,
unfortunately.

> > Anyway, you can do clever things with resolution dependent layout:
> > http://themaninblue.com/writing/perspective/2004/09/2>; 1/
> >
> I don't really think that this simplifies things in the long run, do
you?

So what? I've got to solve web design problems in the *here and now* as
well as planning for the future! You're probably one of those purists who
won't serve up XHTML unless it's sent as application/xhtml+xml as well!

We're working towards a more standards-compliant future, but you can't get
there in a day.

Tim



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