Manual navigation bar Epub 2.0

[canopus56]

What is the best method to include a manual navigation bar in a page header? What are the pros and cons of this? The book that I have in process in Sigil Epub 2.0 coding has many cross-references and in order to make navigation easier for the user, I would like to have a navigation bar at each section that goes directly to a summary Table of Contents, detail Table of Contents, the Index, and References. My development EPUB reader is Akido for Android. The code that I used to implement this is below, but I am wondering if there are better examples or opinions on adding this into a EPUB book, i.e. - duplication of features, other solutions, interference with a broader range of readers.

Navigation bar at start of page-sections -

<p class="navBar"><a href="../Text/TOC.xhtml">Seasons</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="../Text/TOD.xhtml">Days</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="../Text/Index.xhtml">Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="../Text/References.xhtml">References</a></p>

CSS file entry -

.navBar{color: white; a:link{color:white}; a:visited{color:green}; background-color: aqua; font-size: 0.9em; text-align: left;}

[KevinH]

The reader itself should be always able to navigate via the toc.ncx or nav. As long as your toc.ncx/nav is set properly to include those sections you should be good to go for almost all reasonable readers

[canopus56]

Thanks for the feedback. I settled on a more restrained style for the nav bar:

.navBar{width: 80%; border-style: solid; border-width: thin; font-size: 0.9em; text-align: left;}

This is used with a nav bar after each section break:

<hr class="sigil_split_marker"/>
<p class="navBar"><a href="../Text/TOC.xhtml">Seasons</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;
<a href="../Text/TOD.xhtml">Days</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="../Text/Index.xhtml">Index</a>&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href="../Text/References.xhtml">References</a></p>

The built-in toc is fine, but it takes too long to get around a complex document with many citations and cross-references.

[KevinH]

I do not think creating a toc.ncx with links to each citation or cross-references makes any sense. Only major sections should be linked to in the toc.ncx/nav. Sections with h1 or possibly h2 tags that start them. You can also use the opf guide items for navigation on most epub2 readers as well.