As stated before Breadcrumb NavXT 2.2 will be vastly different from 2.1, especially API wise. Work is underway on the core, which when stabilized, will allow work on the administrative interface to take place. This is the second major rewriting of the plug-in done in the last year. Previously, the modifications to the core were made to aid in adding features, and enhance modification to it. However, there where some shortcomings which should be overcome by the new more object oriented approach. So far this is the short list of what is changing:
- Anchor templates – akin to the WordPress’ custom permalink template, this allows more flexibility (i.e. allows users to set the rel element among other things).
- Streamlining of the options – options depreciated due to the use of anchor templates, ones that now are already set in WordPress (e.g. the static frontpage option), and ones that were depreciated due to structural changes. The current short list of depreciated options include:
- URL Title Prefix – obsolete due to anchor templates
- URL Title Suffix – obsolete due to anchor templates
- Static Front Page – depreciated in 2.1.3 due to ability to automatically determine this thanks to the WordPress setting “Front page displays” under Settings > Reading.
- Current Item URL Title – obsolete due to anchor templates
- Archive by Date Format – reassigned, delimits between a hierarchical date archiving (multiple breadcrumbs in the trail), or the old method following the format specified in the WordPress setting “Date Format” under Settings > General.
- Deeper WordPress integration – not just with the removal of duplicated options, extensive use of filters should alleviate problems with plugins such as Polyglot and qTranslate (Previous support was via “hacks”.).
- Reorganization of the Administrative interface – Not only are the options streamlined, option names are more obvious, and grouped in a more appropriate manner. The interface is also tabbed into several virtual pages thanks to some JavaScript magic. This considerably shortens the apparent size of the options page.
- New Classes – A breadcrumb class and a breadcrumb trail class combine to make the plugin as a whole much more flexible. Unfortunately, this means directly accessing the class does change between 2.1 and 2.2 and thus will require attention from users who directly access the class.
Additionally, a WordPress sidebar widget plugin will be shipped with 2.2.0. This will remove the need for some users to ever touch a theme file, as long as their theme supports sidebar widgets. By this weekend the new core on SVN will be usable, as the bugs are worked out the administrative interface will receive the attention it needs. Around August 8th a Beta will be available, for this much change it is of the utmost importance that some serious testing is done before a formal release is made. If you would like to help test, stay tuned for a post announcing the beta, and report back on your experience.
-John Havlik
[end of transmission, stay tuned]
Hey John,
Quick question… does your plugin work with widgets enabled? For some reason I can’t get your plugin to show up at all.
I’ve used your plugin before and it works great, but for some reason it won’t work with the recent site I’m working on.
Any ideas?
Terry,
The only thing that comes to mind is if you are either using the old “basic usage” method, calling a depreciated function, or if you are trying to directly access the bcn_breadcrumb class. See the project page to find the current methods of accessing them. If you are trying to use the SVN Trunk, things are very different, and you should check out the documentation page as I have begun updating it for 2.2.0.
Otherwise it may be beneficial to look at the HTML output to see if anything is coming out there, should be at least an HTML tag. It may take a little trouble shooting to figure out what’s up.
-John Havlik