RE: breadcrumbs for Info . . . . . .

[Drew Adams]

> Cool.  Yes, i would welcome such an option.  Perhaps even better
> would be to separate the collection of path-to-root info from
> its display.  The customizable option might be (a hypothetical)
> `Info-display-breadcrumbs-method', with nil meaning don't bother,
> or otherwise a function that takes the list of nodes up to root.

Yes, it could be good to have a function that returned, say, the Up node for an
arbitrary node (not necessarily for the current node). 

The breadcrumbs code I sent jumps around a hoop to get this info, naively using
`Info-goto-node' to go to the current node's Up, then that parent's Up, etc.,
gathering `Info-current-node' at each such step. That approach is a bit silly -
it was quick-and-dirty, and it works, but it's hardly elegant.

As pointed out in the discussion, if the node hierarchy were cached in some
form, then this info would be trivially available. Even if the "cache" consisted
only of a set of node+parent pairs (regardless of the order among pairs), that
would be sufficient.

> The default value can be a function to formattedly insert into the
> buffer (as you propose, iiuc), whereas curmudgeons, who might like
> using the collected info but not its default display method, can
> write (or badger others to write) something else.
> 
> Btw, if i detect correctly a tone of annoyance in your reply, i
> apologize for having triggered it.  It's not my intent to annoy.

Same here. I'm not annoyed by what you wrote, and I didn't mean to annoy anyone.

My interest here is to (1) suggest that Emacs provide breadcrumbs to those who
want it (preferably by default), and (2) provide one way to do that, for lack of
another.