Breadcrumb NavXT 4.0

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Holy revamped settings Batman! Breadcrumb NavXT 4.0 introduces a new settings scheme. First off, the old anchor templates have been replaced with more powerful breadcrumb templates. These templates accept HTML, and have the following dynamic tags:

  • %title% The title for the breadcrumb, typically the page title/name, tags are stripped and it is run through esc_attr().
  • %htitle% The title for the breadcrumb, typically the page title/name, tags are left intact.
  • %link% The URL to the resource (page) that the breadcrumb represents.
  • %type% The breadcrumb type. This is output as a comma delimited list, useful for setting as a group of classes for styling.

Some of your old settings will be migrated, others that do not have a direct equivalent in 4.0 will not be migrated and the default value will be selected until you change it. Double check your settings after migration. Internally, every setting has changed. If you directly access the bcn_breadcrumb_trail class please take note, your old calling code will probably not work.

On the new features front, the URL generated for current items is now a true URL, resolving issues several users have reported in the past. Fall back functions for the PHP multibyte string functions are included for users without multibyte support (falls back to the equivalent non-multibyte string functions). Finally, for Custom Post Types, the CPT archive breadcrumb can be turned off if not wanted.

The help tab has been revamped to take advantage of WordPress 3.3’s new help tab functions. Additional information has been provided within the help tab. Finally, the form previously in the Import/Export/Reset tab has been moved under the help tab.

Bug fix wise, several regressions between 3.8.0 and 3.9.0 were fixed, along with some long standing bugs. Two such bugs are related to CPTs. The first is breadcrumb trails for CPTs respect the root page setting once again. The second is CPTs without WordPress CPT archives enabled will no longer cause a double root page breadcrumb to be generated. Minor tweaks to the styling of the settings page were made that allow all modern browsers to have a common experience. Finally, another cause of the “Settings not saved” error message has been fixed.

Translation wise, due to the major changes in settings structure, many strings have changed translation wise. Only the Spanish translation has been updated. The Norwegian translation is forthcoming. None of the other translators have responded to the update notice. Going forward, a GlotPress install has been setup for Breadcrumb NavXT and will be used for all future releases. You can check out the Breadcrumb NavXT translation project to see the status of the translation for your language. Sign ups for translating through this GlotPress install will be open soon.

You can grab the latest version of Breadcrumb NavXT from the Breadcrumb NavXT page. If you experience any issues with this version of Breadcrumb NavXT, please leave a comment on this post detailing the issue.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

24 thoughts on “Breadcrumb NavXT 4.0”

  1. I received PHP warning messages in breadcrumb_navxt_admin.php on lines 591 and 646 when trying to use the global $wp_taxonomies and $wp_post_types variables.

    • Charlie,

      Did 3.9.0 work with multisite installs and WP 3.3 (the globals in those functions didn’t change between 3.9.0 and 4.0)? Both of those globals are supposed to be always set, I’m looking into the issue (have to set my multisite testbed back up).

      -John Havlik

    • I think I have a fix. Checkout the SVN trunk version of Breadcrumb NavXT. For some reason in a multisite setup, WordPress doesn’t set post types and taxonomies as early as in normal installs. Moved the offending code to a more appropriate action hook.

      -John Havlik

  2. Hi,
    There is only one thing I really missed in the update and it were some kind of migration of settings like adding all prefixes and suffixes to the template.
    Else it looks good and I will try to get time to do the translations before the end of the year.

    • Patrik,

      If I recall correctly, it was going to be a little ugly getting the prefixes and suffixes across into the new settings, so they were ignored by the migration script. I can take a look at this however, and included it in 4.0.1 for those that haven’t migrated yet.

      -John Havlik

  3. Hya,

    Would love to get a hold of the 4.0.1 bug fix for multisite installs…is it available for download somewhere?

    thnx!
    -jennyb

  4. There’s a bug in version 4.0.0 (WP 3.3): There’s no option to deactivate ‘Link Current Item’ for custom taxonomies (like under the tab ‘Current item’). If the current item is a custom taxonomy, you’ll see that it’s always a link. And it’s also not possible to save a value in ‘Custom taxonomy Template (Unlinked):’. The input field stays empty after you click the Save Changes-button.

    • Khalid,

      I can’t seem to reproduce either of the issues you are experiencing. Custom taxonomies obey the ‘Link Current Item’ setting on my testbed. Note that I only tested against a flat custom taxonomy, was your custom taxonomy hierarchical?

      For the custom taxonomy I tested against, all of the settings work. Again I need to check a hierarchical taxonomy behaves correctly.

      -John Havlik

      • Hi John. My custom taxonomies are not hierarchical. I tried something else: (1) export the settings, (2) reset all settings and (3) import the settings. After the second step a value in ‘Custom taxonomy Template (Unlinked):’ appeared. But the third step made the previous problem appear again. So I ditched the third step and entered manually my settings, which solved the problem. I guess something went wrong while updating the plugin and made something in my custom settings corrupt.

        Thanks for your support.

        • Khalid,

          Good to know you got it working, though I’m still curious as to what happened. If you don’t mind, could you email me your settings export XML file? You can find my email address on the “Contact” page under “Gmail/Jabber”.

          -John Havlik

  5. Hi, John.
    Can you check if the “Current Item Template” works properly in 4.0.0 version? My blog dont uses this template and shows current item like any other item in path.

    • Polkan,

      Known behavior issue (was reported a few days back). Still contemplating if the option is really needed, and if so how to add it back in more efficiently.

      -John Havlik

      • It would be great if the result of contemplating will back this feature to work, John! ))
        If dont, consider please addition any classname for CurrentItem and CurrentItemLink. So webmasters could design them as they like. That would be enough, i suppose.

        • Well the real issue is this, while it is possible to cover most circumstances with templates such as: <a title="Go to %title%." href="%link%" class="%type%">%htitle%</a>
          you would get comma delimited list of they types filled in for the class that are valid for the particular breadcrumb. This would include one that is ‘current_item’, so you can style against that one (and is recommended). However, if you want to do something special for the current item’s title, such as “Reload current page” you need the template to be applied. What I’m struggling with right now is determining the proper place to reintroduce the template.

          -John Havlik

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