These are a few Frequently Asked Questions, and/or frequent search queries and answers that hopefully help solve them. This by no means is an exhaustive list.
Q: How do I remove the current item from the breadcrumb trail. E.g. the breadcrumb trail is Home > Category A > Category B > Current Page, and I want to remove “Current Page”
A: True breadcrumb trails include all of the breadcrumbs, including the current page. Therefore there is no built in option for removing the current item. Typically, the motivation behind removing the current item is due to having the page title too close to the breadcrumb trail. Good design will have proper spatial and visual separation between the breadcrumb trail and the page title. This includes proper sizing of both items which alone can provide enough separation.
However, removing the current item isn’t impossible, but it is a task left to the reader. You can also use the Breadcrumb NavXT Remove Current Item Extension plugin.
Q: How do I remove the breadcrumb trail from the home page?
A: Wrap the calling code with an if block that tests is_front_page(). E.g use:
<div class="breadcrumbs">
<?php if(function_exists('bcn_display') && !is_front_page())
{
bcn_display();
}?>
</div>
Q: My breadcrumb trail on all my posts is for the same post.
A: This is caused by a secondary loop in your theme which is not behaving “nicely”. The secondary loop should not modify the variable $post, and if it does, the variable $post should be returned to it’s original state afterward. The best way of accomplishing this is to call wp_reset_query() before your Breadcrumb NavXT calling code (most likely bcn_display()).
Q: I receive the PHP error “Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /wp-content/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/breadcrumb_navxt_admin.php on line 53″.
A: This is usually caused by PHP4, since Breadcrumb NavXT 3.0.0 PHP5 is required. You may also find this helpful. If you are running PHP5 and receive this error see this article: Breadcrumb NavXT Line 53 Error.
Q: I receive the PHP error “Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /wp-content/breadcrumb-navxt/breadcrumb_navxt_admin.php on line 46″.
A: Beginning with version 3.0.0, Breadcrumb NavXT requires PHP5, please update to PHP5. If your host does not offer PHP5 hosting yet, bug them until they do. You may also find this helpful.
Q: I receive the PHP error “Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or ‘}’ in /wp-content/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/breadcrumb_navxt_class.php on line 25″.
A: Another error caused by PHP4 environments. Please inquire with your webhost on how to migrate to PHP5 immediately.
Q: I receive the PHP error “Fatal error: Cannot redeclare class bcn_breadcrumb in /wp-content/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/breadcrumb_navxt_class.php on line 29″.
A: A few things may cause this, among them PHP4. Some themes include the Breadcrumb NavXT code in their functions.php file, in this case you should not install Breadcrumb NavXT and use the theme distributed code. Lastly, make sure you do not have an old version of Breadcrumb Navigation XT activated while trying to activate Breadcrumb NavXT, this will cause problems.
Q: I receive the PHP error “Fatal error: Call to undefined method bcn_breadcrumb::display()” or “Fatal error: Call to undefined method bcn_breadcrumb::assemble()”.
A: Beginning in Breadcrumb NavXT 3.0 the class structure has changed, the bcn_breadcrumb class’ member functions are now for the most part in bcn_breadcrumb_trail. Please see the documentation on the new advanced usage guidelines and update the code used to call the plugin. Usually this code will be in your theme’s header.php file.
Q: How do I remove the home/blog breadcrumb from the breadcrumb trail?
A: Prior to Breadcrumb NavXT 3.0, there was no easy way to remove the home breadcrumb from the breadcrumb trail. Simply emptying the contents of the “Home Title”/”Blog Title” options will not remove the home breadcrumb. In Breadcrumb NavXT 3.0 the proper way to not include the home breadcrumb is to use the “Home Breadcrumb” option and set it to “Leave the home breadcrumb out of the trail.”.
Q: Instead of a breadcrumb trail I recieve the message “Please use bcn_display instead of breadcrumb_nav_xt_display”.
A: The function breadcrumb_nav_xt_display has been deprecated and does not exist in versions after 3.0. Update the code used to call the plugin, usually this will be in your theme’s header.php file.
Oh there is prefix and suffix for category and category archive, didn’t notice that. It is all right now, thank you.
Yeah, the archive for the taxonomy and the taxonomy itself have two different prefixes to allow for a higher degree of customization.
-John Havlik
I love the plug-in! It works great & I only have one issue. I have the post taxonomy set to category. When the Archive for category….is clicked, the page that displays is the content for all of those posts in that category. I would rather it be a list of blogs by title like the archive page. Any idea on how to make it do that or why its not to start with?
Elizabeth,
Breadcrumb NavXT links to the taxonomy term archive page for the given taxonomy term. This is proper, and I’m not sure what you mean by “list of blogs”.
-John Havlik
Hi, I was wondering if I could set this plugin to use breadcrumbs the way a user would navigate my sight:
Page-> Page ->Post
At the moment the breadcrumbs work like:
Category archive <-Category archive <- Post
Does this make sense? Is this possible?
Nate,
You can set the post taxonomy to page. Just be aware that you are then responsible for ensuring that the
post_parentmember of the$postvariable is set accordingly for every post.Posts are not children of pages, so what you are asking is in the class of “abusing the post hierarchy”. Thus, full support of this is not something I provide through this plugin.
-John Havlik
John,
Do you have any documents on how to set this up? When I changed the post taxonomy to page all I get is “Home>current post.” I need it to show “Home > Page > Post.” I don’t know how to assign the correct page for the breadcrumb to display on the post page. Can you point me in the right direction?
Really, this is an advanced topic that is not for the those not well versed in PHP and do not have good knowledge of how WordPress does things. Honestly, I haven’t had time to try to do the part that isn’t in Breadcrumb NavXT.
-John Havlik
Thanks for a great plugin – and keep up the good work!
IMHO it would be nice to have a quick reference for the API, when you have time of course!
We use quite a lot of multisites with the API to customise our breadcrumbs, with a link to the main University at the front
$breadcrumb_trail->opt['mainsite_display'] = ’0′;
get’s rid of the main site link at the front of the breadcrumb on a network site bradcrumb
Hi,
can u tell me where i have to place this code?
$breadcrumb_trail->opt['mainsite_display'] = ’0′;
because when i place it, the whole front page isnt showing anymore..
thanks in advance!
regards
Fer
Hi –
I foolishly tried to edit some code and am now getting the following error on my site:
Fatal error: Call to a member function get_queried_object() on a non-object in /hermes/web05/b1514/moo.housenumberlabcom/home/wp-content/plugins/breadcrumb-navxt/breadcrumb_navxt_class.php on line 851
I can’t access the control panel or anything. In dire straits here so I really need your help. Thank you.
Milano
I’ll try to disable breadcrumb from homepage, i tried to do is_front_page(). but i can’t do it. I do anything wrong? What’s exactly the function? Thanks
Damia,
Could you post the code you tried using, including the call to bcn_display()?
-John Havlik
Hi,
Thanks for at nice plugin – it works perfectly!
Have a question though – is it possible to have the breadcrumb show all the child pages in between the parent page and the (child)page you are currently at? So that you get a full trail of the page hierachy?
Example: Parent page X has child pages Y Z W – I’m at W and would like to see Y and Z in my trail.
Secondly: Can I add a :next function til the breadcrumb – still following the hierachy?
Thanks a lot!
Best wishes
Trhp
In the POSTS & PAGES tab you’ll see a checkbox that says “Show the taxonomy leading to a post in the breadcrumb trail”.
Underneath there are some options. That’s what you’re after.
Im having a strange issue where the breadcrumbs are appearing when viewed through Chrome but not Firefox. Could there be a reason for this or would it most likely be plugin interference of some kind?
Sorry, scratch that, i see what i was doing wrong now.
Is it possible to get rid of the Current Page title in the breadcrumbs?
I am using it above page titles so there’s a breadcrumb that is redundant:
HOME > CATEGORY > ARTICLE NAME
ARTICLE NAME
Nigel,
True breadcrumb trails include all of the breadcrumbs, including the current page. Good design will have proper spatial and visual separation between the breadcrumb trail and the page title. This includes proper sizing of both items which alone can provide enough separation.
That said, there are ways of removing the current item from the breadcrumb trail. I have covered them in the past. However, none of them are recommended at the moment as they will not work with Breadcrumb NavXT 4.0.
-John Havlik
Hi,
I have been trying to get the breadcrumbs to follow the user navigation of the site. Could you please advise me of the correct configution to use?
At the moment, no matter what I try I end up with:
Home » “current page”
I am expecting that if I navigated through four pages that the breadcrumbs would mimic this e.g. Home page to About to Shop to Blog would give me:
Home » About » Shop » Blog
Unfortunately (and frustratingly), I always end up with just the ‘Home’ page and ‘current page’ in the trail.
Thanks in advance for your help with this matter.
SCR
I have the same problem and it’s quite frustrating.
The current page is generated from my theme and has different formating to the rest
of the breadcrumb intentionally.
Any ideas how I can stop it from repeating twice?
Is still what to keep the last separator.
Thanks in advance
Looks like you have two different issues. The big one is a fundamental misunderstanding of breadcrumb trails and what Breadcrumb NavXT does. Breadcrumb NavXT is a locational breadcrumb trail generator for WordPress. From your description, you are looking for path breadcrumbs, which are more or less the same as your browser history (back button).
The second issue seems to be either not having a deep hierarchy (so you only see two breadcrumbs at a time), or possibly a misconfiguration issue. It is most likely that you don’t have a very deep hierarchy which limits the usefulness of locational breadcrumb trails.
-John Havlik
Hi,
Happy with this plugin, just one thing I cannot get working.
I’m accessing a blog archive from category “Actueel” from the main menu and the breadcrumb says correctly:
Home > Actueel
If I then click on one of the items on this page, the breadcrumb says:
Home > > De campagne gaat van start
You see that “Actueel” has now disappeared, as in is an empty string now. What am I doing wrong or am I missing?
Thanks, Nathalie
Hello, is it possible to use image instead of text separator? If yes how could I set absolute path to image. Thanks
majak,
Just place the html code into the setting “Breadcrumb Separator” (it should work, if it doesn’t let me know).
-John Havlik
My problem is that I need to know absolute path of image – so I need php code insert into settings.
Something like this:
Breadcrumb Separator = "<?php bloginfo( 'template_url' ); ?>/images/arrow.gif"
And it does not work.
Is there any solution?
majak
HTML code works fine.
I tried instead of php code use absolute path manually:
<img src="wp-content/themes/MIL_Theme/images/arrow.gif" class="sep" alt=""/>but it is not good solution. However it works.
It is too much of a security issue to allow PHP in a setting. Having the absolute URL in the separator for an image has worked fine for everyone for the last three years. And, it is the method I’d recommend (if you change themes you will need to update it anyways).
-John Havlik
The breadcrumb is showing up as a block. I don’t want it having the same css properties as a block. How can I add it without it shwoing up as a block?
When I paste the code from your instructions in my page.php i get an syntax error.
Thank you
Hi,
Thanks for a great plugin!
Happy with this plugin, just one thing I cannot get working.
I’d like to add a couple of words (unlinked) before Home, like:
This is a breadcrumb: Home > page > page
How do I do that?
Thank you
Q: How do I remove the breadcrumb trail from the home page?
A: Wrap the calling code with an if block that tests is_front_page().
Does anyone know how to do this? I know where to place the code (i think) but do not know how to write this code.
Hi John,
Thank you for this wonderful plugin! I have a quick question. Someone on the forums asked if was possible to have a little “image” as the Home link, instead of the title text.
You said to simply use correct HTML code with the link to the image.
I’ve added this to the Title field:
But instead of getting a little icon showing up, I’m getting:
Do you have any suggestions as to how I can get this to behave without editing your source files?
Any help much appreciated!
Best wishes
Suzanne
Whoops – the code didn’t show.
So I’m entering this:
<img src="http://greenwood.future-makers.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/icon-breadcrumb.png" alt="Home" title="Home" width="13" height="12">But I’m seeing:
<IMG SRC=\"HTTP://GREENWOOD.FUTURE-MAKERS.CO.UK/WP-CONTENT/UPLOADS/ICON-BREADCRUMB.PNG\" ALT=\"HOME\" TITLE=\"HOME\" WIDTH=\"13\" HEIGHT=\"12\">Fingers crossed that this shows
Suzanne,
Since Breadcrumb NavXT version 4.0.0, the home title no longer accepts HTML. Instead, modify the home breadcrumb template (both linked and unlinked).
-John Havlik
Thanks John, but where do I find the template?
In the plugins directory, I have no template directory or file, just the following folders and files. Do I perhaps have the wrong version?
Includes
Languages
breadcrumb_navxt_admin.php
breadcrumb_navxt_class.php
breadcrumb_navxt_uninstaller.php
breadcrumb_navxt_widget.php
readme.txt
readme.txt
Best wishes
Suzanne
Suzanne,
The breadcrumb templates are not actual template files (too small to justify doing that). Rather, they are settings in the Breadcrumb NavXT settings page.
-John Havlik
Hi John,
I’m an idiot, and you’re amazing. Thank you so much!
Best wishes
Suzanne
Hi John
I have installed your plugin onto a WP Network site that I am building and have tried to update the options to show the name of the blog instead of “Home” as well as removing the trail separator “>” symbol. When I save the options in the WP backend of the site I am editing, it keeps the details, but the changes are not reflecting on my site’s frontend. Any suggestions as to why this may be occuring?
I am currently using WP version 3.3.1 and Breadcrumb NavXT version 4.0.2.
Much appreciated.
Jon
Jon,
How are you calling the breadcrumb trail? If you are directly instantiating the class bcn_breadcrumb_trail you will need to manually load the settings from the wp_options table entry.
There aren’t any known problems with network/multisite setups at the moment. Though I don’t thoroughly test them.
-John Havlik
Hi John,
Thanks for your plugin.It works well on my localhost,but it doesn’t work on the web hosting.The system of the web hosting is IIS.
How to fix it?
What do you mean by “It doesn’t work”? There is nothing in Breadcrumb NavXT that is specific to your web server software, as long as you have PHP 5.2 or newer (required for WordPress anyways).
-John Havlik
It means that looks like the plugin doesn’t exist,no errors and output a blank div.
I’m not sure my PHP version.But either of the localhost or the web hosting can run WordPress 3.2.1 .After I setup this plugin, only the localhost made the right display.
Hi John,
The problem was fixed.It’s all my false.The localhost and the web hosting are not the same datebase.I fogot active this plugin on the web hosting..:-)
Hi Wang,
Ah, yes, that can cause problems
. Good to hear that you sorted it out.
-John Havlik
Hello, thanks for your work.
I can show pictures to the home link without text?
Greetings
Hi,
First of all thank you for this wonderful plugin. Everything is working as it should on my site, except for one thing. I’m running a multilingual site with 3 languages and the Home link is always taking me to the site’s default language homepage instead of the current language one’s. Any solution to this? I’m running all the latest versions; WP 3.3.2, BC NAVXT 4.0.2 and I used qTranslate 2.5.29 to create the language versions.
Thanks a lot in advance,
Aneta
Aneta,
Breadcrumb NavXT uses WordPress API calls for all link generation. This would be a bug in qTranslate in that it isn’t hooking into the
get_home_url()function.-John Havlik
is it possible to hide some pages or posts by ID?
Is there an easy way to use Breadcrumb inside a query post?
I want to display the whole path for each founded post, when user made a search.
Thank you!
It *should* work within the standard WordPress loop, as long as the WordPress conditionals get set properly.See my reply in the WordPress.org forums. This will result in a post in the not so distant future.-John Havlik
I’ve got a child theme who’s parent is the Graphene theme (v1.5.6), which has built-in support for NavXT. Simple; install plugin, modify in settings, add some css, done!
I’d love to get rid of breadcrumbs on the home page, and up above you say how to do it…but…how would I do that with a child theme? Since it’s a child theme, I don’t want to modify the parent’s header.php, correct?
Thanks!
Look at the functions.php file for Graphene. It looks like it is using a hook to display the breadcrumb. All you have to do is use something like
remove_action('graphene_top_content', 'graphene_breadcrumb_navxt');in your functions.php and then replicate theirgraphine_breadcrumb_navxtfunction, but with a check for the frontpage.-John Havlik
John, thanks so much for the quick response! Unfortunately, this is my first attempt at adding a functions.php to my child theme…and every permutation of your suggestion that I’ve tried has failed.
Any tips? My latest try is:
<?phpremove_action('graphene_top_content', 'graphene_breadcrumb_navxt');
/**
* Add breadcrumbs to the top of the content area. Uses the Breadcrumb NavXT plugin
*/
if (function_exists( 'bcn_display' ) && !is_front_page()) :
function tcgveritas_breadcrumb_navxt(){
echo '<div class="breadcrumb">';
bcn_display();
echo '</div>';
}
add_action( 'graphene_top_content', 'tcgveritas_breadcrumb_navxt' );
endif;
?>
This at least doesn’t blow up my site…but it also doesn’t remove the breadcrumb from the homepage.
Oh; actually, it adds a 2nd breadcrumb trail! Wow…I’m going the wrong direction…
Or…I could just delete the child theme functions.php altogether, and then uncheck the “Place the home breadcrumb in the trail” checkbox!
That was easy…
Hi,
I like the breadcrumbs, but it is always showing “Home” twice.
Home > Home > page
How can I remove the first Home?
Thanks,
Sam
Breadcrumb NavXT 4.2.0
Hello. I have read your FAQ section and visited http://mtekk.us/code/breadcrumb-navxt/ but to no avail. I am trying to remove the breadcrumb from the homepage. I am using Pagelines Framework. Header.php does not contain any bcn code. I have searched countless files trying to locate this code but have been unable. Any suggestions?
Unless the widget is being used, do a directory wide search (using something like grep, or maybe your IDE’s search functionality) for bcn_display, something should come up. I’m not familiar with any of the of the premium themes (I don’t use them) so I can’t tell you with certainty where they have the calling code located.
-John Havlik
Hello. Is it possible to edit the name, or sign, on each post/page in the breadcrumb?
Sometimes a different name is necessary.
Example. The navigation menu has the abilty to put on a different name than the title of the post/page. Maybe one option could be to use the menu name, if in use.
Well yes, I guess, but that’s really more work than you should want to do. The only time I’ve seen a need for a different name to show up in the page title than the actual page title is when people try to have very long titles to game search engines (and that’s a bad practise). There is the bcn_breadcrumb_title filter that you can hook into, it will give you some context as to what the title is for via the passed parameters, but it’s up to you to do the rest (add a hook to it and replace with the desired content).
Pulling data from the menu system is slow (SQL query wise) and I really don’t want to go there, at least in the main plugin (I’ve been working on making things easier to extend within the plugin with extension plugins/modules in mind). The menu system is very disconnected from the actual structure of a site which causes a whole host of issues.
-John Havlik
hi there I’ve this problem:
I would show in the breadcrumb the label menu and not the title page,
for example my page is “services” but the title of services page is “see all my services”
now BC is home > see all my services instead of home > services
someone can hel me to solve this problem ?
thank’s Andrea
I think my question is the same as the previous one. Can I use the “slug” rather than the page title? Can’t figure out how to do this.
Same problem:
It’s showing for example
Home > This is what I’m working on
instead of Home > Work
Any suggestion how to solve this?
In theory, Breadcrumb NavXT provides the hooks that you could create the requisite code to do this and hook into it. In the future such an extension plugin may exist, however I have not had the time to pursue it yet.
-John Havlik
Hi!
Tell how to change the size?
Thanks from Russia!
I can not reconstruct the microdata (Rich snippets – Breadcrumbs) required by google you can find here: http://tinyurl.com/d3aewxe, you have any solution?
thanks
I have started using your plugin on a site I am working on, and would like to remove the space after the site name:
Site Name > Page
so the breadcrumb trail looks more like this:
Site Name > Page
The space looks worse when the title is an underlined link.
Is there a quick fix for this?
Thanks
If the space is showing up in the anchor, ensure that it isn’t in any of the breadcrumb templates. If it is not there, ensure your titles of your posts don’t have that space. If neither are the case, you may want to ensure you don’t have some goofy CSS rules for the breadcrumb trail elements.
-John Havlik
Sorry that last post did not show the problem
Site Name > Page
(Google Translate) Hello! I use a breadcrumb-navxt + ParentPages. Is it possible to display a category of posts that do not have a parent page?
now: home – post title
need: home – category – post title
I just upgraded to latest Breadcrumb NavXT and migrated settings. The ability to bold the current item for a page doesn’t work. I had it working previously. I am trying to do it from the “Post Types” tab > “Pages” > “Page Template (unlinked). Adding b tags around the %htitle%. When I save it b tags disappear.
Thanks.
Breadcrumb NavXT 4.3 introduced a call to
wp_ksesto all settings that support HTML input to increase security (no way to add in evil script calls now). However, the initial list provided only supports span, a, and img tags with a specific set of known valid HTML5 properties. The list was selected based off of usages I have seen and could think of. The i, b, em, and strong tags now carry semantic meanings in HTML5 that do not seem appropriate for use within breadcrumbs (though if you think this is not the case please let me know).-John Havlik
I’m trying to link the breadcrumbs from a page to a post. After clicking to go back to the page from the post, the plugin automatically puts a “/category/” in front of the link. Is there anyway to remove that as a default??
Well you shouldn’t do that as pages are not parents of posts. However, if you must do things the hard way, look at Post Parents.
-John Havlik
Hello there thank you for the wonderful plug in.
Is there a way to name the Site name on the breadcrumbs as “Home” as it shows the Webpage Titlebar name?
I think “Home” is better than “Comp-U-Train customised PC training.
Replace instances of %htitle% and %title% with Home in your Home Breadcrumb templates in the Breadcrumb NavXT settings page.
-John Havlik
Hello,
I’ve been using your plugin for a while now, but recently wish to make tags the major criteria for my site, and not categories. NavXT will show all tags in the breadcrumb, but most of these are not important. I have one tag only for each post that is useful for navigation. Is there anyway to select a ‘primary’ tag, and this be the only one per post to display?
Jim,
If there is only one tag for each post that is useful for navigation, why don’t you use categories for that navigation relevant tag? Or, if you’re already using categories, why not use a Custom Taxonomy for that navigation relevant tag set? Placing artificial emphasis on a specific subset of taxonomy terms from within a taxonomy (in this case tags within the tag taxonomy) doesn’t make sense when we have custom taxonomies available to us.
-John Havlik
I don’t really understand why a custom taxonomy is the answer. If you visit my site, you see a topics section that is based on tags. I keep hearing you say you should never use two categories, never this, never that, but at the end of the day, shouldn’t what you do on a site be about the end-user being able to get to your content easily?
Tags allows me to to group posts into multiple areas (topics), i can’t see a more efficient way to do this. The only problem i have is a breadcrumb that keeps forcing my hand and will not allow me to offer my users the best way to see which topic they mainly belong from. A topic may currently contain things from the news cat, or review cat.
I probably just don’t understand taxonomy and have structured my site wrong, but right now it doesn’t feel that way, and i’m basing this tag and breadcrumb style on other big sites.
I think what may help is an order bender for tags. If it was necessary for certain usage scenarios for cats, why not tags?
Is there anything i can change quickly in your code to make order bender work for chosen tags instead?
I have a very strange issue coming up. I just installed the plugin and everything seems to be working great but each time there is a parent page with the subject page after it, there is some type of image snippet appearing with that parent page int he bread crumb area. Strange, huh? Take a look at this screen shot and let me know if there is a way to diagnose this or tell why/how its doing this:
http://www.bbmcknowledgenow.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/breadcrumbs_screen_shot-showing_image_mixed_in.jpg
Your Thoughts? Thanks!
Joe
Joe,
It looks like the lower right hand round corner background styling is being applied to that breadcrumb. I suggest you check your styling (with something like firebug in Firefox or the built in Chrome developer/inspector tools). You are probably targeting a generic class that was assigned to that breadcrumb.
-John Havlik