Breadcrumb NavXT
Breadcrumb NavXT, the successor to the popular WordPress plugin Breadcrumb Navigation XT, was written from the ground up to be better than its ancestor.
Table of Contents
Purpose
Breadcrumb NavXT is a WordPress plugin compatible with WordPress versions 2.5 and up. This plugin generates locational breadcrumb trails for your WordPress blog. These represent the hierarchy leading up to the current page rather than the actual path taken to arrive at the current page.
Breadcrumb trails are a good supplementary navigation system that aid in site usability. This is especially true for sites using WordPress as a CMS. Since Breadcrumb NavXT reveals the page hierarchy in a consistent manner, it can provide SEO benefits. To the right are examples of breadcrumb trails generated by Breadcrumb NavXT.
Download
Latest Stable Release: Breadcrumb NavXT 3.3.0
Latest Testing Release: Breadcrumb NavXT SVN Trunk
Installation
- Download the plugin zip archive, see Download section.
- Disable any previous version of this plugin or Breadcrumb Navigation XT.
- Extract the contents of the zip archive into your plugins folder (wp-content/plugins).
- Enable the Breadcrumb NavXT plugin in the administration panel under the Plugins > Installed section.
- Continue onto the Basic Usage section, or follow instructions given by your theme (if applicable).
Basic Usage
Depending on your theme this section may be unnecessary. If you are using berry as your theme everything is done for you so you have no further steps to take. If you are a theme developer visit the documentation for examples on how to directly access the bcn_breadcrumb_trail class. Otherwise keep reading.
Open the appropriate file for your theme (typically header.php or index.php). This can be done within WordPress’ administration panel through Presentation > Theme Editor or through your favorite text editor. Place the following code where you want the breadcrumb trail to appear.
<div class="breadcrumb">
<?php
if(function_exists('bcn_display'))
{
bcn_display();
}
?>
</div>
Save the file (upload if applicable). Now you should have a breadcrumb trail on your WordPress powered site. To customize the breadcrumb trail you may edit the default values for the options in the administrative interface. This is located in your administration panel under Settings > Breadcrumb NavXT.
Advanced Usage
Examples on some advanced usage situations are available in the documentation.
Version History and Changelog
- 3.4.0 [11-2?-2009]:
New feature: Proper support of custom taxonomies.category_parentsandpost_tagsreplaced withterm_parentsandpost_terms.
New feature: Ability to use date as post “taxonomy”.
Bug fix: Fixed permalink for day breadcrumbs. - 3.3.0 [8-3-2009]:
Behavior change: The core plugin was removed, and administrative plugin renamed, direct class access still possible.
New feature: Ability to trim the title length for all breadcrumbs in the trail.
New feature: Ability to selectively include the “Blog” in addition to the “Home” breadcrumb in the trail (for static front page setups).
New feature: Translations for Russian now included thanks to Yuri Gribov.
New feature: Translations for Swedish now included thanks to Patrik Spathon.
Bug fix: Minor tweaks to the settings link in the plugins listing page so that it fits better in WordPress 2.8.
Bug fix: Now selects the first category hierarchy of a post instead of the last. - 3.2.1 [5-29-2009]:
New feature: Translations for Belorussian now included thanks to “Fat Cow”.
Bug fix: Thebcn_display()andbcn_display_list()wrapper functions obey the
$returnparameter.
Bug fix: Anchors now will be valid html even when a page/category/post title has html tags in it.
Bug fix: Revisedbcn_breadcrumb_trail::category_parentsto work around a bug inget_categorythat causes a WP_Error to be thrown.
Bug fix: Importing settings XML files should no longer corrupt html entities.
Bug fix: Can no longer import and reset options at the same time.
Bug fix: WordPress 2.6 should be supported again. - 3.2.0 [5-4-2009]:
New feature: Now can output breadcrumbs in trail as list elements.
New feature: Translations for Dutch now included thanks to Stan Lenssen.
New feature: Now breadcrumb trails can be output in reverse order.
New feature: Ability to reset to default option values in administrative interface.
New feature: Ability to export settings to a XML file.
New feature: Ability to import settings from a XML file.
Bug fix: Anchor templates now protected against complete clearing.
Bug fix: Administrative interface related styling and JavaScript no longer leaks to other admin pages.
Bug fix: Callingbcn_display()works with the same inputs asbcn_breadcrumb_trail::display().
Bug fix: Callingbcn_display()multiple times will not place duplicate breadcrumbs into the trail. - 3.1.0 [1-26-2009]:
New feature: Tabular plugin integrated into the administrative interface/settings page plugin.
New feature: Default options now are localized.
New feature: Plugin uninstaller following the WordPress plugin uninstaller API.
Bug fix: Administrative interface tweaked, hopefully more usable.
Bug fix: Tabs work with WordPress 2.8-bleeding-edge.
Bug fix: Translations for German, French, and Spanish are all updated.
Bug fix: Paged archives, searches, and frontpage fixed. - 3.0.2 [11-26-2008]:
Bug fix: Default options are installed correctly now for most users.
Bug fix: Nowbcn_breadcrumb_trail::fill()is safe to call within the loop.
Bug fix: In WPMU options now are properly separate/independent for each blog.
Bug fix: WPMU settings page loads correctly after saving settings.
Bug fix: Blog_anchor setting not lost on non-static frontpage blogs.
Bug fix: Tabular add on no longer causes issues with WordPress 2.7.
New feature: Spanish and French localization files are now included thanks to Karin Sequen and Laurent Grabielle. - 3.0.1 [10-22-2008]:
Bug fix: UTF-8 characters in the administrative interface now save/display correctly.
Bug fix: Breadcrumb trails for attachments of pages no longer generate PHP errors.
Bug fix: Administrative interface tweaks for installing default options.
Bug fix: Changed handling of situation when Posts Page is not set and Front Page is set. - 3.0.0 [9-22-2008]:
New feature: Completely rewritten core and administrative interface.
New feature: WordPress sidebar widget built in.
New feature: Breadcrumb trail can output without links.
New feature: Customizable anchor templates, allows things such as rel=”nofollow”.
New feature: The home breadcrumb may now be excluded from the breadcrumb trail.
Bug fix: 404 page breadcrumbs show up in static frontpage situations where the posts page is a child of the home page.
Bug fix: Static frontpage situations involving the posts page being more than one level off of the home behave as expected.
Bug fix: Compatible with all polyglot like plugins.
Bug fix: Compatible with Viper007bond’s Breadcrumb Titles for Pages plugin (but 3.0.0 can replace it as well)
Bug fix: Author page support should be fixed on some setups where it did not work before.
To keep this page at a reasonable length, only the 3.x.x branch versions are present in this changelog. For the entire changelog, including versions of Breadcrumb Navigation XT, visit the Breadcrumb NavXT Changelog page.
License
Breadcrumb NavXT is released under the GNU GPL 2.0 license and comes with absolutely no warranty. By downloading Breadcrumb NavXT you agree to the terms of the GNU GPL 2.0 license.
Also It would be very nice to be able to display breadcrumbs only to subpages, also via admin panel (checkbox) if posssible.
Estephania,
Sorry this will not happen. This can easily be accomplished by wrapping the calling code in an if statement and using the appropriate WordPress conditionals for the branch argument.
-John Havlik
Hi,
The plugin is great but i have a problem on the home page. Instead of : home > 1 i would want only home in the breadcrumb. How can i remove the “1″?
Mparis16,
I need to know more about your setup as an error of this type is caused by currently unsupported pages (which there are very few).
-John Havlik
Hi,
What do you want to know about my set-up?
Mparis16,
Are you using a static front page? Is there anything unique in your setup (basically, what is not setup like a default WordPress blog, except for your theme or plugins in use)?
-John Havlik
Hi,
I’m using this theme : http://themeforest.net/item/levitation-wordpress-business-portfolio-4-in-1/60299
What happens is that when i have “new post” (displayed on the right column), the breadcrumb is: home > last post name.
Mparis16,
See if inserting
rewind_posts();before the calling code for Breadcrumb NavXT fixes the issue (note, only do this if you are calling Breadcrumb NavXT outside of the loop).Otherwise, it looks like you are running into a common problem where a secondary loop does not restore the
$postvariable as it should.-John Havlik
Hi,
When insering the code… there is not effect.
The other solution could be not to display the breadcrumb into the homepage. But as it is in the footer… i don’t know how to do.
Jerome
Mparis16,
I’m going to have to look into something. Since my testbed is down I can’t really look into it until the testbed is back up. Unfortunately, the testbed probably will not be up and running for a week or so.
-John Havlik
Anyone know of a fix for this kind of server error_log issue:
[21-Oct-2009 21:42:13] PHP Catchable fatal error: Object of class WP_Error could not be converted to string in /public_html/wp-content/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/breadcrumb_navxt_class.php on line 69
Joe,
That is typically caused by a non-existent category being sent to Breadcrumb NavXT. Could you get me a link to the site with the behavior (if it is not on a local testbed)?
-John Havlik
I added code to send me an email with the WP_Error info when the error occurs. That was over a week ago and no error yet. Maybe it was a one-time server issue.
Joe,
Yeah, I really have never been able to reliably produce this, which makes it difficult to fully fix. I’ve had it show up before, but I’m not sure exactly what causes it.
-John Havlik
Hey John.
I’m revisiting your plugin after a few months, and thinking of using it for an MU site that I’m working on. I’m curious if it has support for something like
Home > Blogname > Category > PostWhere “Home” will take me to the root MU blog, and “Blogname” would navigate to the current blog?
Also, is there support for manually adding items to the trail through hooks or filters? Example would be for custom plugins that create their own non-standard pages, such as BuddyPress, for example.
Thanks for this plugin btw, it’s still one of my favs to use in a pinch.
John,
At the moment Breadcrumb NavXT is not setup to work on a “global”/site wide level for WordPress MU (it works on a per-blog basis). However, this is one of the things I’ve wanted to play around with in the past (not sure how much work is involved with getting it working).
There aren’t any hooks or filters to add in additional breadcrumbs to the trail. However, you could use some OOP principles and create an extending class, over riding the
fill()function, and adding in any additional functions. In version 3.5.0, more modifications to thebcn_breadcrumb_trailclass should make this easier to do (not that its terribly difficult to do right now).-John Havlik
Cool thanks John.
Love this plugin!
congrats for this awesome plugin !
I have a question, I would love to replace “>” (the separator sign) by an image
any idea how to do?
greetings from Paris
Tonton,
Just place the
<img>tag within the Breadcrumb Separators setting field. Note that the location for the image must be absolutely specified otherwise the image probably won’t load.-John Havlik
mtekk,
thank you it works perfectly with an absolute link to my image.
Hi John,
Thanks for creating such a great plugin. Myself (i’m a designer) and developer friend built it into my magazine site back in June. When I last updated the version of WP I use, the breadcrumbs disappeared. When I try to activate the plugin I get this message:
“Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /nfs/c04/h02/mnt/63096/domains/blog.oneanother.ltd.uk/html/wp-content/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/breadcrumb_navxt_admin.php on line 46″
Please help.
Yeah, I’ll second that. Just set up a fresh install of 2.8.5 and installed the plugin but got the following on trying to activate it:
“Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /homepages/2/d178035250/htdocs/testarea2/wp-content/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/breadcrumb_navxt_admin.php on line 46″
Is this a PHP4(.4.9) issue?
Been doing some playing and I have forced my hosting to use PHP5 instead of PHP4 and that fixed it.
Thought that might help you Paul
Paul and Owen,
Yes, it is a PHP4 issue. Breadcrumb NavXT since version 3.0.0 has only supported PHP5 and newer. PHP4 has been depreciated by the PHP developers for over a year now, and you should migrate to PHP5 as soon as possible.
-John Havlik
yeap, please, add some plugin to be able to add Buddypress breadcrumb, it’s easy to add the plugin call, it’s easier than coding the whole thing…
i’m actually trying to figure out how to create a breadcrumb out of buddypress, so it will be helpful to have your tool compatible as well.
Nexia,
Since John James Jacoby is now a developer of BuddyPress with SVN commit access, I look forward to working with him to resolve any issues Breadcrumb NavXT may have with BuddyPress. It’s just going to be a little bit before I can start testing compatibility. Right now, I need to get some things wrapped up for the 3.4.0 release of Breadcrumb NavXT, so that I can get the translators to update translations and release it within the next month. After that, I’ll will configure a BuddyPress testbed (hopefully a local one). Due to my current school schedule, it may be around Thanksgiving before this happens.
-John Havlik
I have a site that uses WP_Query and query(’page_id=##’); to display a post within the page in addition to the primary post. Problem is that Breadcrumb NavXT is grabbing the information for that query instead of the actual post/page loop. The rest of the page works fine, it’s just the breadcrumb that’s interpreting the loop incorrectly.
The order I have them on the page is:
WP_Query
Breadcrumb
Page/Post loop
Your help is much appreciated.
Thanks for your time and this great plugin.
haha, i just got it to work by including the breadcrumb inside of the primary page/post loop instead of having the 3 be separate entities.
The new order I have them on the page is:
WP_Query
Start Page/Post loop
Breadcrumb
*page/post content, etc.*
End Page/Post loop
It’s working just fine now.
Kurt,
Yeah, due to some shortcomings in the WordPress API, multi-loop pages may cause problems for Breadcrumb NavXT, if the state of
$postis modified within a secondary loop. Really, under coding best practices, all secondary loops should save the$postvariable before modifying it, and restore it when done with their work.-John Havlik
Hi.
First of all, thank you very much for this excellent plugin. Great work!
I’m currently developing a wordpress site using custom taxonomies. For now it doesn’t appear to be possible to have custom taxonomies in the breadcrumb with the 3.3 version. I’ve been waiting for the 4.4 as you said you were planning to integrate this feature. So my question is how long before you release the new version? Can’t wait.
Or, perhaps there’s a quick fix that you could indicate me? That would be really appreciated.
Thanks a lot for the hard work.
Seb,
Breadcrumb NavXT 3.4 was scheduled for release back for late September / early October. However, due to a series of unfortunate events (local testbed died), this has been delayed until mid to late November. This weekend, I will fix any remaining issues in the SVN trunk, and have it ready for translation updates. That puts the release sometime late next week, on into early Thanksgiving week.
-John Havlik
John,
Thank you so much for the reply. I’m glad to see we’re not very far from the the release date. I’m planning to release the website withing the next 2-3 weeks. Looks like I’m on the perfect timing. Thanks again for the hard work.
Seb.
Really good plugin. Thank You! This plugin is a part of my kit to make wordpress better cms for my sites
hi! Please help me, I really want to use this on my blog. I already installed it but it doesn’t appear. Can you help me where should I place the code? I’m not good in CSS… please help me. Thank u so much.
All you have to do is place the code listed in Basic Usage in the appropriate PHP file for your theme (this file depends on your particular theme and where you want to breadcrumb to show up). And, then activate Breadcrumb NavXT, everything should work, as long as you placed the code in the correct location in your theme.
-John Havlik
Hi mtekk,
Thanks for the awesome plugin. I’m running Wordpress 2.8.6. I just installed Breadcrumb NavXT Version 3.3.0. The breadcrumb is working fine on my site, but the administration panel within Wordpress is not working. For example, when I tried to uncheck Home Breadcrumb, or to replace the breadcrumb separator, then click “Save Changes” button at the bottom of the screen, nothing happens.
Enbient,
Does the page “reload” when you press the “Save Changes” button? Have you tried accessing it using a different computer/browser? The reason I ask is nothing really special is being done on the administrative interface. You could also try disabling JavaScript and see if that helps (the interface won’t be tabbed but still fully functional).
-John Havlik
Hi Mtekk,
I tried another computer, and I tried disabling javascript, then page refresh on the settings panel, and it still doesn’t work. I did do an automatic installation from within Wordpress to my Web server. I’m wondering if I should manually install the software instead in order to get the administrative panel working properly. What do you think?
Enbient,
Ok, could you do the following for me: Try making your changes in the administrative interface, and press the “Save Settings” button. Then, click on the Import/Export/Reset tab (next to the help tab if you have JavaScript enabled). A dropdown should appear, click on the Export button. It should cause a download of a xml file to occur. Save that XML file and e-mail it (as an attachment) to the my e-mail address listed on the contact page on this blog.
Also, what code are you using to call the breadcrumb trail? (you can paste that in the comments here, just wrap it in
<code>tags (it’s (x)html))-John Havlik
HI John,
I just emailed you the XML file. Here is the code I’m using to call the function on my Web page:
<?php
if(class_exists('bcn_breadcrumb_trail'))
{
//Make new breadcrumb object
$breadcrumb_trail = new bcn_breadcrumb_trail;
//Setup our options
//Set the current item to be surrounded by a span element, start with the prefix
$breadcrumb_trail->opt['current_item_prefix'] = '<span class="current">';
//Set the suffix to close the span tag
$breadcrumb_trail->opt['current_item_suffix'] = '</span>';
//Fill the breadcrumb trail
$breadcrumb_trail->fill();
//Display the trail
$breadcrumb_trail->display();
}
?>
The breadcrumb works just fine on my page. It’s just the settings panel that’s not affecting anything when I try to save changes.
Enbient,
The code you’re using to call the breadcrumb trail does not load the settings from the administrative page. Use the code in the basic usage section on this page for the settings set in the administrative interface to be reflected in the breadcrumb trail.
-John Havlik
HI John,
I also wanted to give you a link to the page where I’ve implementing Breadcrumb NavXT in case it helps…. http://peace-making.org/welcome/?page_id=2 – I’m building a static site and I just need the “blog” part of the breadcrumb to go away. I would also like to use a different separator (»). I updated that in the settings panel, and it shows the new separator in the Breadcrumb Separator field in the settings panel, yet it doesnt’ update the separator on the site.
Thanks again for all your hard work and for your help with this issue.
Hi Mtekk!! Thank you thank you so much! It is now working on my blog! It looks so awesome!! This is really a must-have plug-in! You rock!!!
Hello, can I ask you have to replace “Blog” text, with picture… like house or something
Thanks!
Branko,
Look at the “Home Title” setting in the Breadcrumb NavXT settings page. All fields in the Breadcrumb NavXT settings page will accept valid HTML.
-John Havlik
salve io ho istallato questo plugin però al momento dell’attivazione mi da questo messaggio
Il plugin non PUÒ venir attivato perchè genera un errore fatale.
mi potete aiutare grazie
Jamal,
Parla inglese? Non parlo l’italiano.
Qual è l’errore fatale?
Controlla la tua versione di PHP. Breadcrumb NavXT richiede PHP5. (traduzione di Google)
-John Havlik
How do get rid of the phrase “You are Here” that’s displayed by default before the actual links? In other words, I’m having trouble getting a breadcrumb to look like one of your examples.
Tim
Never mind; I realized that the the “You are here” phrase is part of the sample code that I pasted and not part of the source files. My bad.
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /homez.57/abcpfywx/www/clients/limprimerie/www/wp-content/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/breadcrumb_navxt_admin.php on line 46
Apsy,
See the Breadcrumb NavXT FAQ.
-John Havlik
Thanks for the link to the FAQ on Apsy’s question…cause I had the same issue. I needed to call my host and they did have php5 but not on my account. Grrr….but we got that fixed. Do you have tips for how to delete your plugin should someone encounter a host company that doesn’t have php5? Cause when I tried to delete the plugin, it just wouldn’t delete. I thought I was hosed and had to recreate my site again. I had a happy ending, but not sure others will be so lucky.
Dana,
Well, you should be able to FTP in and delete the directory containing Breadcrumb NavXT. If that does not work, then you server is probably not configured correctly.That said, all hosts should provide PHP5 now (really it should be default as well), it’s the only supported version of PHP by the PHP developers.
-John Havlik