Post Parents 0.2.0

Normally, flat post types such as the Post post type do not have parents. However, some like to use pages for their hierarchy and want posts to be children of these pages. While I do not recommend this type of site structure, Breadcrumb NavXT has supported Pages as the parent of Posts for quite some time. In a recent version this was extended to all post types, using the “post parent” selection for the post hierarchy.

The caveat has always been that setting the parent of the post was an exercise left to the user. Last summer, I wrote a fairly basic plugin that makes things easier. Previously meant only for the Post post type, this new version extends post parents to all post types (except for Pages as that wouldn’t make sense). It simply adds a Parent metabox with a pages drop down to the edit screen for posts (of any post type).

Eventually, this will make it into the official WordPress.org plugin repository so everyone will get update notifications. Until then, you’ll have to manually update (by first deleting and then re-installing).

Installation is quite easy:

  1. Download the Master branch zip archive from GitHub
  2. In your WordPress Dashboard navigate to the plugin uploader (Plugins > Add New > Upload)
  3. Upload the zip archive
  4. Activate and enjoy!

You can keep up with day to day development via the Post Parents’ GitHub Repository.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Order Bender 0.5.0

By popular demand, Order Bender has received a substantial update. Now, rather than just working with categories, it will work with any hierarchical taxonomy on any post type (that is uses the taxonomy). Thus, now it is possible to specify a preferred custom taxonomy term for any post type for Breadcrumb NavXT.

Eventually, this will make it into the official WordPress.org plugin repository so everyone will get update notifications. Until then, you’ll have to manually update (by first deleting and then re-installing).

Installation is quite easy:

  1. Download the Master branch zip archive from GitHub
  2. In your WordPress Dashboard navigate to the plugin uploader (Plugins > Add New > Upload)
  3. Upload the zip archive
  4. Activate and enjoy!

You can keep up with day to day development via the Order Bender’s GitHub Repository.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Breadcrumb NavXT 4.2.0

Holy revamped settings page Batman! As previewed earlier in “A New Settings Page,” the settings page has been heavily modified for Breadcrumb NavXT 4.2.0. The number of tabs has been reduced to 4 basic tabs: General, Post Types, Taxonomies, and Miscellaneous. These tabs reduce the tab clutter seen when a site has several Custom Post Types and Custom Taxonomies. Visually, the tabs have been styled to match the H3 sized tabs within the WordPress admin area.

Other new features include support for Post Format archives and Custom Post Types can use post parent, or taxonomy based hierarchy. Date based archives are now only allowed for Posts, as they do not work for Custom Post Types. Finally, a slew of bugs relating to the max title length functionality, the widget’s don’t show on frontpage setting, and mainsite links on pages in multisite environments.

The Translation Team:

[glot-translators=breadcrumb-navxt]

As always, 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]

A New Settings Page

The most noticeable change in the next version of Breadcrumb NavXT (4.2.0) will be the reorganized settings page (preview screen shot above). Since the introduction and subsequent inclusion of tabular (the code that gives the settings page its tabs), each custom taxonomy and post type has had it’s own tab. This will no longer be the case where there are just 4 tabs, “General”, “Post Types”, “Taxonomies”, and “Miscellaneous”.

This reorganization, while causing the content per a tab to be greater, keeps the tab list from growing with every new custom post type and taxonomy added to a site. Additionally, it allows greater distinction between settings for custom taxonomies and custom post types. Previously, there were instances where CPTs and custom taxonomies had the same name in their tabs and it was not clear which was which without entering that tab.

Keep tabs on Breadcrumb NavXT 4.2.0 development over at GitHub.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Specifying a Preferred Category Hierarchy

As part of the best practises for organizing your WordPress site so that Breadcrumb NavXT’s output is what you expect, having a post be a member of multiple category hierarchies is something you should not do. While it still isn’t something you should do, there is a way to specify which category hierarchy is more important for a specific post.

The idea is that the order of the categories being returned by get_the_terms() can be modifed so that the more important category hierarchy is output first. This takes advantage of Breadcrumb NavXT’s behaviour of choosing the first category (term) hierarchy it finds for a post.

This is where Order Bender comes in. Order Bender gives you a nice post meta box to select the primary category for a post, and will modify the output order of get_the_terms() accordingly. Simple as that.

Installation is quite easy:

  1. Download the Master branch zip archive from GitHub
  2. In your WordPress Dashboard navigate to the plugin uploader (Plugins > Add New > Upload)
  3. Upload the zip archive
  4. Activate and enjoy!

You can keep up with day to day development via the Order Bender’s GitHub Repository.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]