Hello!
Yes, HTML breadcrumbs have been on my list for a long time.
However, a few problems arose as I wanted to tackle them: We now have to support both the Block as well as the Classic Editor, we need to implement this as a (to be deprecated) widget, we had an incomplete term API, we have no HTML generation API, there are theming/plugin conflicts to consider, we must consider the UI, etc.
Now, some of these issues have been resolved, but since a few days, there’s yet another problem. The feature seems to be on the “roadmap” to receive native WordPress support, already: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/21943.
I’d like to hold out a little longer and see how–and if–that rolls out before I add a different solution. A native solution onto which we can hook is much preferred.
Now, it’s really not that simple, adding a feature that integrates neatly! The most elegant things we offer are often the most difficult to create. I expect it’ll take around 140 hours (2 weeks) to finalize this feature, after which I’ll need to spend a lifetime more maintaining it.
That “lifetime maintenance” prospect is what’s stopping me from adding many complications you see in other SEO plugins. To exemplify, the authors of NavXT are still providing updates after 12 years, for something thought to be so trivial.
I barely release updates for TSF because everything is relatively (well, absolutely) stable–I’m not prone to be radical in making changes. The “it just works” mantra is something by which I prefer to live. It takes months of work on an update to maintain that–instead of pushing an update every two weeks. I also prefer laying the groundwork (e.g., a new BreadcrumbsList API) before I work on the solution.
Working from front to back is asking for problems. Say, you are writing a book where, midway through writing the story, you propose that the protagonist has a richer background story. Now, you’ll have to reread and rewrite parts of the book for it to add up neatly, wherefore some supporting characters’ responses no longer make sense or entirely fall apart. The same goes for code: It’s one big story that hates change. I don’t pile up–with TSF, I integrate.
I hope this behind-the-scenes explanation and rationalization thereof makes sense ??
You can subscribe to this issue to receive notifications on the status of the integration: https://github.com/sybrew/the-seo-framework/issues/276. Cheers!
