Category Archives: Announcements

This is where announcements will be made, such as expect down time, ect.

Breadcrumb NavXT Premium Extensions Are Now Available

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Foretold in a previous post, almost a year ago, premium extensions for Breadcrumb NavXT are in development. Today, the first three premium extensions are now available for purchase. These are: Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic, Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx, and Breadcrumb NavXT WPML Extensions. Visit the Breadcrumb NavXT Extensions Store to see all of the officially supported Breadcrumb NavXT extension plugins.

Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic

Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic
Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic allows the site administrator to select a WordPress Menu for Breadcrumb NavXT to follow for both titles and hierarchy for resources (posts, taxonomy terms, archives, etc). If the current item is not found in the menu, Breadcrumb NavXT will fall back to its default behavior.

Features

  • Define breadcrumb trail hierarchy using a WordPress menu.
  • Set alternate titles for breadcrumbs using a WordPress menu.
  • Insert custom breadcrumbs into the breadcrumb trail using link elements within a WordPress menu.

Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx

Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx
Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx allows a custom title to be set for any post’s (as in any post type) breadcrumb. It features integration with All in One SEO Pack and WordPress SEO by Yoast. If none of the supported SEO plugins are activated on the current WordPress install, an “Alternate Title” meta box will be available on all post edit screens.

Features

  • Supports replacing the breadcrumb title with All in One SEO Pack’s “SEO Title”
  • Supports replacing the breadcrumb title WordPress SEO by Yoast’s “Breadcrumbs Title”
  • Includes “Alternate Title” meta box for replacing the title if none of the supported SEO plugins are active

Breadcrumb NavXT WPML Extensions

Breadcrumb NavXT WPML Extensions
Breadcrumb NavXT WMPL Extensions improves Breadcrumb NavXT’s support for WPML Multilingual CMS. While Breadcrumb NavXT mostly works with WMPL Multilingual CMS, there are some deficiencies; see Breadcrumb NavXT and WPML Compatibility. With Breadcrumb NavXT WPML Extensions, string based settings within Breadcrumb NavXT and Custom Post Type root pages are translatable within WPML Multilingual CMS.

Features

  • Automatically links to the correct Custom Post Type “root page” for the current language
  • Makes Breadcrumb NavXT settings that are strings available for translation via WPML String Translation
  • Improves Breadcrumb NavXT widget’s WPML compatibility

-John Havlik

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I’m Speaking at WordCamp Chicago 2014

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My presentation titled “1 Million Downloads – Lessons Learned Growing a Plugin” was accepted as a lightning talk for WordCamp Chicago 2014. This presentation was inspired by a presentation I attended at WordCamp Chicago 2013. It is an abridged version of the talk I will be giving at WordCamp Minneapolis 2014, which is just a week an a few days away.

-John Havlik

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I’m Speaking at WordCamp Minneapolis 2014

Posted by in Announcements

My presentation titled “1 Million Downloads – Lessons Learned Growing a Plugin” was accepted into the second developer’s track for WordCamp Minneapolis 2014. This presentation was inspired by a presentation I attended at WordCamp Chicago 2013. It will cover my experiences (mistakes, triumphs, etc.) as I have grown Breadcrumb NavXT over the past 7 years.

This session will cover what I have found that works, and the mistakes I made as I’ve grown Breadcrumb NavXT into a plugin that has been downloaded over 1 million times. Topics covered include: support and release strategies, workflow and tools, and WordPress plugin coding tips. Naturally, this is a non-exhaustive list of the topics I’ll cover but it should give a feel for what I’ll be talking about.

Psst. If you haven’t registered yet, register for WordCamp Minneapolis while you still can. Last year we sold out of two day passes and Saturday only passes. Also, it is definitely worth participating in both Saturday and Sunday activities, Kiko and crew did an excellent job organizing last year and this year is looking to be even better.

-John Havlik

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Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx and Menu Magic

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As promised earlier this week, I am announcing the first two Breadcrumb NavXT premium extensions today. They are Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx and Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic. Both plugins will require Breadcrumb NavXT 5.0, which will be released around the end of September/early October. Purchases will come with 1 year of free updates. Support and pricing has yet to be determined.

Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx

Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx allows users to specify a custom title for any post’s (as in any post type) breadcrumb. It features integration with All in One SEO Pack, taking the SEO title if it exists. If All in One SEO Pack is not activated on the current WordPress install, an “Alternate Title” meta box will be available on all post edit screens. The initial version of this plugin complete and will be released upon the launch of the Breadcrumb NavXT Extensions Store.

Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic

Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic allows users to specify a WordPress Menu for Breadcrumb NavXT to follow for both titles and hierarchy for resources (posts, taxonomy terms, archives, etc). If the current item is not found in the menu, Breadcrumb NavXT will fall back to its default behavior. This extension is currently in development, an initial proof of concept is functional, however a bit of work is still required. As with Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx, Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic will be available upon the launch of the Breadcrumb NavXT Extensions Store.

-John Havlik

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Breadcrumb NavXT Hits One Million Downloads

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Back on Thursday evening, Breadcrumb NavXT hit one million downloads on the WordPress.org plugin repository. This is the total number of downloads since it was first introduced in the plugin repository almost six years ago. Not many plugins have hit this milestone, and it is exciting to have written something that has been downloaded a million times. At this juncture, it seems appropriate to reveal my vision for the future of Breadcrumb NavXT.

The Future

Breadcrumb NavXT 5.0, is functionally ready for testing. Only some polishing and documentation is left before it is ready for release. The reason for skipping versions 4.5 through 4.9 is the fact that a substantial reorganization of the plugin has occurred for this version. The changes should make Breadcrumb NavXT more flexible, and were necessary to implement an Network Admin settings page. Expect to see 5.0 near the beginning of October.

Currently, the plans for 5.1 are a little open, though it is likely it will contain several tweaks that fix issues that have been punted for some time. See the issue list on GitHub for Breadcrumb NavXT milestone 5.1. Additionally, for 5.1 the introduction of a more formal regression/unit test suite is likely to happen. As for a release date, sometime between the end of December 2013 and mid January 2014 is the target release time-frame.

Something New

There are several features that groups of users have wanted Breadcrumb NavXT to have for quite some time. While introduction of these features into the main plugin has been resisted—and will continue to be resisted—going forward many of these features will make their way into premium add-on plugins.

These features have enough demand to warrant an add-on plugin, but are not applicable to the majority of use cases for Breadcrumb NavXT. To service this demand, beginning in September, a handful of premium add-on plugins will be released for Breadcrumb NavXT to add functionality. Take a look at how Easy Digital Downloads is run, that is the model that will be used here. More information on this will be made available later this week.

-John Havlik

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