[Plugin: Breadcrumb NavXT] Feature Request: Support Widgetized Home Pages

Fred,

Breadcrumb NavXT is designed to integrate into WordPress and support the features built into WordPress. Support for the features added by plugins and themes is not something I really want to add into the main plugin. It becomes an absolute nightmare, as I have to keep up with development of 3rd party products with is something I do not have time to do (this is a hobby). Additionally, it does not make sense for me to support a non-free plugin or theme that I don’t own (I’m essentially adding value to their product with absolutely no benefit to myself).

That said, I am not familiar with Genesis (I don’t use theme frameworks), there very will could be an easy way to do this. I simply do not know (and do not have the time right now to find out).

-John Havlik

John,

Thanks for your reply. I now realize that I did not express my request as clearly as I could have. Please allow me to try again.

If I remember correctly, your plugin tries to automatically determine where the blog is. If you were to allow for a manual configuration option, that would enable me to tell your plugin to look for my blog somewhere else, which would solve my problem. I think this capability is already present in your plugin, but the plugin doesn’t allow me to specify the location of the blog in my particular circumstances.

Allowing the user to override what the plugin tries to do automatically is not theme-specific at all. Is that doable?

Thanks,

Fred

Fred,

Breadcrumb NavXT detects where the blog page is based only on the value of the WordPress setting “Page for Posts”. In an effort to reduce the number of options, anything that is already set in using “standard” WordPress options is controlled by those options. This is designed to reduce confusion and scenarios where invalid combinations of settings cause undesired results.

However, the mapping for the “Page for Posts” happens in the admin side. The actual breadcrumb trail class uses a more generic ‘apost_post_root’ setting (the second post is the post type name, and note that I am using the 4.0 setting name convention). If you manually call the breadcrumb trail class, you can do more or less what you want (I would start with the current SVN trunk version of the plugin as the settings have changed for 4.0). Otherwise, I could include some sort of a filter in the settings updater, which you could create a filter function, hook into the filter, and filter in the result you want for that setting.

-John Havlik

John,

Thanks for your follow-up message. On the plugin’s Settings page, under the General tab, there is check box for Blog Breadcrumb. In my WordPress configuration, the setting is grayed out so that I cannot enable it. There’s also a text field to specify the Blog Anchor, but it is also grayed out so that I cannot enter anything. This is explained in the text underneath:

The anchor template for the blog breadcrumb, used only in static front page environments.

My front page is dynamic, not static, so I assume that’s why I cannot access these options.

What I’m really asking is for you to enable these two options in the case of dynamic front pages. Does that cause undesired results?

I’m just looking for a way to make this simple. If it’s not doable, that’s okay. I’m just trying to understand what’s possible here.

Thanks for all your thoughts.

Fred

P.S. In summary, my request really has two parts: (1) Add a new field to manually instruct the plugin that the blog is on a specified page. (2) Enable the Blog Breadcrumb and Blog Anchor options for a dynamic front page. If you did both together, wouldn’t that yield well-defined results?

P.P.S. Thanks for your patience, John! It’s taken me a few iterations to fully articulate my feature request. I hope I’ve succeeded in providing a proper specification of the functionality I need.

The Blog Breadcrumb and Blog Anchor settings are meaningless if the page on front setting is not set to “page” (hence they are automatically disabled).

What I don’t understand is why anyone would forgo the built in static front page and page for posts constructs in WordPress for a poorly thought out scheme that breaks plugins. There are ways of doing what it sound like the theme is letting you do that utilize the constructs WordPress already has in place.

Eureka!!! ?? John, your last reply prompted me to do some experimenting and helped me find a solution to my problem!

I originally thought the only way for me to activate the widgetized home page in my Genesis child theme was to use a dynamic rather than a static front page. It turns out there is another way: use a static page for posts but don’t select anything for the front page. Now I get everything I want: my home page is widgetized and the Blog Breadcrumb and Blog Anchor settings are enabled.

Thank you very much, John, for all your insights. You made the lights go on! As a small token of my appreciation, I’ve given your plugin a five-star rating and voted that it works. Your plugin is now my top choice for breadcrumb solutions. I’m going to sing your praises on all my social networks as soon as I finish reconfiguring my site!

With gratitude,

Fred

UGH!!!!!! It turns that out my nonstandard way to activate the Genesis widgetized home page only works because I had already found an alternate way to add my blog to the breadcrumbs: I added a top-level category called “blog” which contained all the other categories and then I disabled the category base. When I dismantle my workaround, the solution I described in my previous post breaks. I guess I should be happy that I have one solution which works! I was hoping your plugin would enable me to get rid of my workaround, but I need my workaround in order to make your plugin do what I want. It’s a Catch-22!