March 11th, 2016

Breadcrumb NavXT and BuddyPress Compatibility

Posted by John Havlik in WordPress > Plugins

While developing Breadcrumb NavXT 5.4, I spent some time investigating the compatibility issues between Breadcrumb NavXT and BuddyPress. Within Breadcrumb NavXT, every attempt is made to use the WordPress API, when possible, to maximize the compatibility with other plugins such as BuddyPress. However, this is not always enough, and the findings of this investigation are presented in this article.

What You Need

These are the plugins and versions used when performing the testing reported on within this article:

BuddyPress – At the time this article was written, 2.5.0 was the latest available version and was the version tested against.
Breadcrumb NavXT – Tested against a development release of 5.4.0.

What Works

Out of the box, group and user/member archives work in Breadcrumb NavXT 5.4.0.Unfortunately, the design of BuddyPress does not incorporate much of the standard WordPress content organization facilities. Hence, out of the box support for BuddyPress in Breadcrumb NavXT leaves much to be desired.

What Doesn’t Work

While user/member and group pages are detected correctly, the breadcrumb for the user and group archives/directory is missing. Additionally, none of the sub-components of the user/member and group pages are represented in the breadcrumb trail.

The Solution

Breadcrumb NavXT BuddyPress Extensions is a free, add on plugin for Breadcrumb NavXT that fixes many of the shortfalls in BuddyPress support. It will fill in the missing breadcrumb to the group and user/member archives/directories when on a group or user/member page. Additionally, it will fill in the correct breadcrumb trail when in a sub-component of a user/member or group page. It is a simple activate and you’re good to go plugin—no configuration required. For non-English language sites, note that you will need to use the included .POT file in the languages directory to create your own translation set to get ‘Members’ and ‘Groups’ to translate to your language.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

January 19th, 2016

How to Remove post_type From Breadcrumb NavXT URLs

Posted by John Havlik in Guides

Beginning with Breadcrumb NavXT 5.3.0, post type archive support was enhanced with the addition of the post_type query argument under various circumstances. Usually, this occurs when the post type is not the primary post type for the taxonomy (e.g. it is not the first post type in the object_type array for the taxonomy), or for date archives. While this is arguably the correct behavior, it is not right for every circumstance.

Breadcrumb NavXT 5.4.0 introduces a new filter, bcn_add_post_type_arg, which furnishes the ability to override the decision on when to include the post_type query argument. This article covers the basic usage of this filter, along with some hints for more advanced uses.

Basic Code

The most basic code, listed below, disables adding the post_type query argument for all resources.

add_filter('bcn_add_post_type_arg', 'my_add_post_type_arg_filt', 10, 3);
function my_add_post_type_arg_filt($add_query_arg, $type, $taxonomy)
{
return false;
}

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

Hints for (More) Advanced Uses

From the basic code above, notice that there are three parameters passed into the filter. The first is the decision Breadcrumb NavXT was going to make in regards to adding the post_type query argument. The second is the name of the post type that is under consideration for addition to the URL. Lastly, the third parameter is the name of the taxonomy, if applicable, for the archive the URL points to. With this information, more complex filtering/decision making can be achieved.

For example, it is possible to enable the post_type query argument for only specific post types, or for specific taxonomy archives. Or, the post_type query argument can be enabled for all but a specific post type or taxonomy. All it takes is a little conditional logic that looks at the second and third parameters of the filter function.