Perfecting Drupal IA: Harmonious Menus, Paths, and Breadcrumbs

Menus, breadcrumbs, and path aliases have been core features since anyone can remember, but getting good Information Architecture from them still takes expertise.

Do you have to spend time taming breadcrumbs on every project?

Do you have a panic attack when a client insists on having the 'Contact' page both under 'About' and in the Footer menu and now you can't get the breadcrumb right?

Do some of your URLs contain the string 'content'?

I'm a believer that:

- Beautifully structured URLs are an important part of your site's design and IA
- You should almost always include breadcrumbs and they should always be correct 
- You can display one breadcrumb and one path, and they should always be in harmony (two formats of the same structure)
- A site's navigation should all fit into a single tree
- The menu position, breadcrumb, and URL should all be in harmony within that one tree
- A URL should mimic a real directory structure, and be navigable
- If you have a page with more than one path or menu position, one path and menu position should be canonical

For many years I've fought with core's handling of paths, menus and breadcrumbs as it does not seem to support my beliefs. I've tried many, many different approaches. Finally I'm happy with my set of configuration, modules, core patches and philosophy, and would like to spread the technique as well as the passion for perfection in this critical aspect of your projects.

I will cover best practices for Drupal 7 as well as what's new in Drupal 8.