Re: 4.13.1 Bread crumb navigation - use of right angle brackets

On 17 September 2013 09:54, Patrick H. Lauke <redux@splintered.co.uk> wrote:

> On 17/09/2013 14:46, Reinier Kaper wrote:
>
>> I'd say the code should reflect what it "means". If you "mean" the
>> breadcrumbs show the path in the structural tree of a website, then yes,
>> use nested ol's.
>>
>
> Why? A path in a structural tree is linear, so I'm personally happy with
> seeing it as an ordered set of steps in a flat, rather than hierarchical,
> sequence.


No a breadcrumb on a website shows how deep you are in *one* branch, there
is an implicated and explicated hierarchy when it comes to breadcrumbs.
Otherwise you would be dealing with a navigation path, which has no
hierarchy.

When you look at something like: "Products > Dishwashers > Bosch", it says:
"You're in the category/section/whatever called 'Products', Sub-section
'Dishwasher, sub-sub-section 'Bosch'.

That's just what breadcrumbs are, unless you want to argue that breadcrumbs
should have a different meaning. In which case we'd probably need to make
this a wider discussion and not refer to it as breadcrumbs anymore, but
paths in general ;-)

In short, it's not an *arbitrary* list of words, they are all children of
each other (exception for the first parent, although it might be a child of
something, like the homepage).

If a navigational element like that does *not* reflect the tree structure
on the website, then it's not a breadcrumb, but a navigation path (i.e. not
hierarchical).

Compare it to drop-down menu's, they're no different, they just show
parent/child relations, breadcrumbs are just a different (singular) view of
the same structure.


>
>
>  A breadcrumb per definition can't be like a recipe.
>>
>
> Where is this absolute definition you mention? This is the beauty of deep
> "semantics" discussions...there is no one true definition of many things.
> Authors will mark up content based on their own
> view/idioms/internalisations of what a piece of content is.


As far as I know there's no "absolute" definition for this, it doesn't
change the discussion as far as I'm concerned.

If you want to show a user a path (i.e. "you came here by visiting this
page, then this one and then this one"), then there's no hierarchy, as it's
a dynamic path (read: the path could be anything and is dependant on the
user's action).

In that case a nested list would be wrong (no hierarchy), if however the
goal is to show the structure of the site (parent/children) then it should
be nested.


>
>
>  Although there's some similarity between the two, a recipe is a series
>> of steps in a process
>>
>
> Can't a breadcrumb trail be a series of steps in a process of getting from
> the homepage to the current page?


Technically yes, but then it would be a path and it would not reflect a
structure (rather a user's actions). I guess it depends on what you want to
show, either the structure, or how a user got somewhere.

In the latter case it would be highly dynamic, as you could end up on a
page from literally anywhere (even search engines) so how would you go
about displaying that, let alone mark it up?

It also becomes more of a "history" functionality, which browsers already
poses of course, but that's besides the point ;-)


>
>
>  Sorry for my rant, but it feels like 1994 all over again when the
>> argument is made that most people don't use it right now and therefore
>> shouldn't be in the spec. That's reversed thinking, let's go for the
>> best possible result ;-)
>>
>
> That was not actually my argument. I don't care what's most used in the
> wild (though that's certainly a piece of info that needs to be taken into
> consideration)...but I do care about over-semanticising something for the
> sake of abstract purity when there is no tangible benefit.


No tangible benefit at this point in time. Which in my opinion is not a
good argument, as it might become relevant later.
How many times have we seen this in the past? Where because it doesn't look
relevant "today", creates issues for tomorrow when it comes to mark-up?

Don't get me wrong, you can take semantics very, very far and drift away
from the original goal (creating a website), but the underlying structure
forms the basis of the web and regardless of how you connect to that data,
it should make sense the way it was intended.

So again: if your intentions are to show how a user got to a specific, mark
it up as a path.
If your intention is to show where the user is on the website in relation
to its structure, mark it up as a breadcrumb / hierarchical structure.


>
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
> ______________________________**______________________________**__
> re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
> [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
>
> www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
> http://redux.deviantart.com | http://flickr.com/photos/**redux/<http://flickr.com/photos/redux/>
> ______________________________**______________________________**__
> twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
> ______________________________**______________________________**__
>
>