Breadcrumb NavXT 5.2.0

Posted by in WordPress > Plugins

Holy feature refinement Batman! Breadcrumb NavXT 5.2.0 features several squashed bugs, a slight change in how post type archives are handled, and refinements in the settings page. Additionally, the Max Title Length setting was deprecated, in favor of using CSS to limit the title length.

PHP Requirements

Breadcrumb NavXT 5.2.0 drops support for PHP5.2 and below. The migration to the new adminKit library has introduced code that depends on language features present only in PHP5.3 and newer.

Changes Post Type Archives

In prior versions, if enabled, post type archive breadcrumbs would always represent the post type of the current post’s post type. In most cases this is the desired behavior. However, if using “post parent” as the post hierarchy, it may be preferable to use the post type of the top post in the hierarchy. This is the new behavior in 5.2.0. It was introduced to improve support for bbPress, is it has several post types with the post parent hierarchy spanning multiple post types.

Deprecation of Max Title Length

Limiting the length of titles within breadcrumbs has been a feature in Breadcrumb NavXT since its inception. While the current implementation of this feature is more sophisticated than the original implementation, it has flaws that are not easily fixed. It does not understand HTML, and thus can break HTML tags. Additionally, from a semantical point of view, the breadcrumb trail markup should never be truncated. Back in August, a guide on using CSS to limit the breadcrumb title length was release, this is now the officially recommended method of limiting the breadcrumb title length.

Settings Page Updates

Breadcrumb NavXT 5.2.0 updates to a new version of adminKit, with this new version comes two enhancements: improved settings saving feedback, and stylized enable/disable setting groups.

Previously, when saving settings, if something failed other than parts of the submitted settings, nothing was reported. This has been fixed to report when settings were not saved, and when the settings were not saved due to no changes in value for any of the settings.

Additionally, settings that depend on another setting to be checked/enabled will automatically be unavailable (disabled) until the dependency setting is checked/enabled. This is intended to clarify what settings will/can be used given the current settings configuration.

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]

Breadcrumb NavXT 5.2 and PHP5.2

Posted by in WordPress > Plugins

Breadcrumb NavXT has maintained PHP5.2 compatibility ever since WordPress dropped PHP4 support about four years ago. However, the time has come to move past PHP5.2 and on to newer versions of the language.

Due to new features in the upgraded adminKit library, Breadcrumb NavXT 5.2 requires language features that are not available in PHP5.2. To complicate matters further, PHP5.2 is no longer available in the package manager for the Linux distribution I run on my testbed server. Thus, even if I wanted to maintain PHP5.2 compatibility, I have no easy means to test for it.

Lastly, PHP5.2 is no longer maintained by the PHP authors (PHP5.3 has the same issue). Therefore, Breadcrumb NavXT 5.2 requires PHP5.3 or newer and it is very likely that Breadcrumb NavXT 5.3 will require PHP5.4.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Breadcrumb NavXT Extensions and the EU VAT Rules

Posted by in Announcements

The European Union’s current VAT rules unjustly discriminate against small businesses that rely on the sale of electronically delivered products. Said rules require applying VAT to purchases based off of the current location of the customer. If said customer is in the EU, the appropriate local EU VAT must be collected.

Unfortunately, compliance is nowhere near trivial. Hence, sales to customers that appear to be in the EU are blocked. While embargoes on ‘friendly’ regions are silly, in this instance, no other practical solution exists.

Should complying with the VAT requirements become less burdensome, sale to persons located within the EU will be made possible. Until that time, if you are stuck in the European Union, please consider contacting your politicians and request they rectify the EU VAT mess.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]

Breadcrumb NavXT and bbPress Compatibility

Posted by in WordPress > Plugins

Notice: This topic is being revisited in August/September 2020, with a new guide that is more applicable to how Breadcrumb NavXT and bbPress work as of that date. Below is the original article which remains for historical purposes.

While developing Breadcrumb NavXT 5.2, I spent some time investigating the compatibility issues between Breadcrumb NavXT and bbPress. Within Breadcrumb NavXT, every attempt is made to use the WordPress API, when possible, to maximize the compatibility with other plugins such as bbPress. However, this is not always enough, and the findings of this investigation are presented in this article.

Continue reading

Update 1 to Breadcrumb NavXT Premium Extensions

Posted by in Announcements

The current three premium extensions to Breadcrumb NavXT, Breadcrumb NavXT WPML Extensions, Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic, and Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx, have received their first update. In the initial release there was a deficiency in the user interface for activating the license key for receiving plugin updates.

The defect forced users to enter their license key, then save the settings, and then activate the license key. Any deviations caused the license to not activate. This has been corrected in the latest release of Breadcrumb NavXT WPML Extensions, Breadcrumb NavXT Menu Magic, and Breadcrumb NavXT Title Trixx.

Users with valid and activated license keys should receive an update notification within the WordPress dashboard and be able to use the update mechanism to update (just like with any plugin in the WordPress.org repository).

Visit the Breadcrumb NavXT Premium Extension Store to check out all of the updated premium extensions.

-John Havlik

[end of transmission, stay tuned]