[development] bashing the navigation block

[Moshe Weitzman]

>> what about simply removing the node/add page using menus module? that 
>> page is often worthless anyway (as is the whole navigation block IMO).
> 
> For the new version of oasismag I am dropping the use of the nagivation 
> block.
> 
> 1) i am moving the admin menu to it's own block, enabled only for admins.
> 2) i am putting site wide links (journals, poetry, forum and about) into 
> the primary links (underneath the header). [ anything that is shared 
> space ]
> 3) I am putting personal links (my account, my journal, my inbox (n) 
> etc.) into the secondary links, which are placed to the top right of the 
> header. [ anything that is personal space ]
> 4) I am moving all the 'actions' into a flat menu at the top right 
> block. (new journal entry, new forum post, new private message etc.) [ 
> anything that results in an object being created ]
> 
> I like this because everything has it's place, and it keeps each of the 
> menu's to the bare minimum. Since we have tabs now, i see no reason for 
> deeply nested
> configurations anymore.
> 
> I also want to make all the things you can do and see , visible most of 
> the time, without having to click down into trees.


yeah, thats what i am now doing for my sites too. the navigation block is a 
failed experiment IMO. A site of any magnitude needs custom navigation 
beyond what is provided by that block.

furthermore, the navigation block is extremely expensive to calculate. thats 
why we do the whole menu_build() and menu cache. if we get rid of it, we can 
move the callback system to the DB and skip the menu building business. 
jonbob posted a note on 10/30 to this list that he was working on this (list 
archives are mysteriously missing this time period).he said:

"I've done some initial work toward separating the data structures for 
callbacks and for the visible tree. At the moment I can't imagine it has a 
performance impact in either direction, but it cleans things up a little bit 
and might be a stepping stone for further separation. I'll post the patch 
when it's further tested. "

we should think a bit about what 'out of the box' experience we can offer 
without a navigation block. i'm thinking that we offer some default primary 
links.