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Using the Breadcrumb Trail Block

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Since version 6.3.0, Breadcrumb NavXT has shipped with a built in Gutenberg Block. In Breadcrumb NavXT version 7.3.0 the Breadcrumb Trail block was rewritten to have feature parity with the Widget. The Breadcrumb Trail block allows you to place a breadcrumb trail in your theme without touching any of your theme’s files. Since Breadcrumb NavXT has a two different display functions (bcn_display() and bcn_display_list()), along with three input variables for these functions ($return, $linked, $reverse), the block has a few settings available to the user.

Currently, the following settings are available:

  • Whether to output the trail as a list or not. If checked, the output trail will be placed in an unordered list, with each breadcrumb belonging to its own list element.
  • Whether to link the breadcrumbs or not. If checked (default), each of the breadcrumbs in the breadcrumb trail will have a hyperlink.
  • Whether to reverse the order of the trail or not. If checked, the breadcrumb trail will be output in reverse order (the leftmost breadcrumb (or first breadcrumb in a list output) will be the breadcrumb for current page).
  • Whether to hide the trail on the front page or not. If checked, the breadcrumb trail for the front page of your site will not be displayed (e.g. when is_front_page() evaluates to true).

The block still uses the settings values specified in the Breadcrumb NavXT settings page to define its behavior while filling the breadcrumb trail.

bcn_display_separator

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This filter is applied within the bcn_breadcrumb_trail class in the display_loop() function just before assembling the breadcrumb string. This filter was introduced in version 7.2. It receives four parameters:

  • $separator – (string)(required) The separator to place after the current breadcrumb.
  • $position – (integer)(optional) The current breadcrumb position at the current depth in the breadcrumb trail
  • $last_position – (integer)(optional) The last possible position at this depth of the breadcrumb trail (size of the breadcrumb trail at this depth)
  • $depth – (integer)(optional) The current depth (dimension/level) within the breadcrumb trail

Related Articles

bcn_before_loop

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This filter is applied within the bcn_breadcrumb_trail class in the display_loop() function at the beginning of the function. This filter was introduced in version 7.1. It receives one parameter:

  • $breadcrumbs – (array)(required) The array of bcn_breadcrumb objects that comprise the breadcrumb trail.

bcn_opts_update_to_save

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This filter is applied within the mtekk\adminKit\adminKit class in the opts_update() function just before saving the settings to the option entry. This filter was introduced in version 7.0. It receives one parameter:

  • $settings_diff – (array)(required) The array of non-default valued mtekk\adminKit\setting objects which will be saved to the option entry.
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Non-Hierarchical Taxonomies and JSON-LD Compatibility

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While Breadcrumb NavXT for some time has provided methods for generating JSON-LD formatted BreadcrumbLists, the use of non-hierarchical taxonomies within a breadcrumb trail may result in non-compliant breadcrumb trails. For the case of a post only being a member of a single term within a non-hierarchical taxonomy, since Breadcrumb NavXT 6.4, compliant JSON-LD is generated. However, when a post is a member of multiple non-hierarchical terms within the same taxonomy, we run into problems.

When using the normal display functions, all of the terms in the non-hierarchical taxonomy that the post is a member of will be displayed, separated by commas. This behavior has been more-or-less the same since support for tags was added in 2.1.0. In essence, when there are multiple terms, there is a second dimension to the breadcrumb trail for that specific breadcrumb.

Unfortunately, it does not appear that Schema.org BreadcrumbList has the facility to support multi-dimensional breadcrumbs. Hence, a single term needs to be selected when there are multiple for a post. Luckily, the bcn_post_terms filter can be used to do this.

The Code

Introduced in Breadcrumb NavXT 5.4, bcn_post_terms allows us to filter out all of the terms returned by post_terms(). In this case, only the first term is wanted.

add_filter('bcn_post_terms','my_bcn_post_term_selector', 10, 3);
function my_bcn_post_term_selector($terms, $taxonomy, $id)
{
	//Check to ensure the terms list is an array and there is more than one item in it
	if(is_array($terms) and count($terms) > 1)
	{
		//Return the fist item in a new array
		return array(0 => reset($terms));
	}
	return $terms;
}

To get started quickly, just copy and paste the above code into a site specific plugin and start playing.

Note: This code relies on behavior introduced in Breadcrumb NavXT 6.4 and will not work in prior versions.

-John Havlik