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Breadcrumbs

class Cake\View\Helper\BreadcrumbsHelper(View $view, array $config = [])

BreadcrumbsHelper provides a way to easily deal with the creation and rendering of a breadcrumbs trail for your app.

Creating a Breadcrumbs Trail

You can add a crumb to the list using the add() method. It takes three arguments:

  • title The string to be displayed as a the title of the crumb

  • url A string or an array of parameters that will be given to the Url

  • options An array of attributes for the item and itemWithoutLink templates. See the section about defining attributes for the item for more information.

In addition to adding to the end of the trail, you can do a variety of operations:

// Add at the end of the trail
$this->Breadcrumbs->add(
    'Products',
    ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index']
);

// Add multiple crumbs at the end of the trail
$this->Breadcrumbs->add([
    ['title' => 'Products', 'url' => ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index']],
    ['title' => 'Product name', 'url' => ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'view', 1234]]
]);

// Prepended crumbs will be put at the top of the list
$this->Breadcrumbs->prepend(
    'Products',
    ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index']
);

// Prepend multiple crumbs at the top of the trail, in the order given
$this->Breadcrumbs->prepend([
    ['title' => 'Products', 'url' => ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index']],
    ['title' => 'Product name', 'url' => ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'view', 1234]]
]);

// Insert in a specific slot. If the slot is out of
// bounds, an exception will be raised.
$this->Breadcrumbs->insertAt(
    2,
    'Products',
    ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index']
);

// Insert before another crumb, based on the title.
// If the named crumb title cannot be found,
// an exception will be raised.
$this->Breadcrumbs->insertBefore(
    'A product name', // the title of the crumb to insert before
    'Products',
    ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index']
);

// Insert after another crumb, based on the title.
// If the named crumb title cannot be found,
// an exception will be raised.
$this->Breadcrumbs->insertAfter(
    'A product name', // the title of the crumb to insert after
    'Products',
    ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index']
);

Using these methods gives you the ability to work with CakePHP’s 2-step rendering process. Since templates and layouts are rendered from the inside out (meaning, included elements are rendered first), this allows you to define precisely where you want to add a breadcrumb.

Rendering the Breadcrumbs Trail

After adding crumbs to the trail, you can easily render it using the render() method. This method accepts two array arguments:

  • $attributes : An array of attributes that will applied to the wrapper template. This gives you the ability to add attributes to the HTML tag. It accepts the special templateVars key to allow the insertion of custom template variables in the template.

  • $separator : An array of attributes for the separator template. Possible properties are:

    • separator The string to be displayed as a separator

    • innerAttrs To provide attributes in case your separator is divided in two elements

    • templateVars Allows the insertion of custom template variable in the template

    All other properties will be converted as HTML attributes and will replace the attrs key in the template. If you use the default for this option (empty), it will not render a separator.

Here is an example of how to render a trail:

echo $this->Breadcrumbs->render(
    ['class' => 'breadcrumbs-trail'],
    ['separator' => '<i class="fa fa-angle-right"></i>']
);

Customizing the Output

The BreadcrumbsHelper internally uses the StringTemplateTrait, which gives the ability to easily customize output of various HTML strings. It includes four templates, with the following default declaration:

[
    'wrapper' => '<ul{{attrs}}>{{content}}</ul>',
    'item' => '<li{{attrs}}><a href="{{url}}"{{innerAttrs}}>{{title}}</a></li>{{separator}}',
    'itemWithoutLink' => '<li{{attrs}}><span{{innerAttrs}}>{{title}}</span></li>{{separator}}',
    'separator' => '<li{{attrs}}><span{{innerAttrs}}>{{separator}}</span></li>'
]

You can easily customize them using the setTemplates() method from the StringTemplateTrait:

$this->Breadcrumbs->setTemplates([
    'wrapper' => '<nav class="breadcrumbs"><ul{{attrs}}>{{content}}</ul></nav>',
]);

Since your templates will be rendered, the templateVars option allows you to add your own template variables in the various templates:

$this->Breadcrumbs->setTemplates([
    'item' => '<li{{attrs}}>{{icon}}<a href="{{url}}"{{innerAttrs}}>{{title}}</a></li>{{separator}}'
]);

And to define the {{icon}} parameter, just specify it when adding the crumb to the trail:

$this->Breadcrumbs->add(
    'Products',
    ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index'],
    [
        'templateVars' => [
            'icon' => '<i class="fa fa-money"></i>'
        ]
    ]
);

Defining Attributes for the Item

If you want to apply specific HTML attributes to both the item and its sub-item , you can leverage the innerAttrs key, which the $options argument provides. Everything except innerAttrs and templateVars will be rendered as HTML attributes:

$this->Breadcrumbs->add(
    'Products',
    ['controller' => 'products', 'action' => 'index'],
    [
        'class' => 'products-crumb',
        'data-foo' => 'bar',
        'innerAttrs' => [
            'class' => 'inner-products-crumb',
            'id' => 'the-products-crumb'
        ]
    ]
);

// Based on the default template, this will render the following HTML:
<li class="products-crumb" data-foo="bar">
    <a href="/products/index" class="inner-products-crumb" id="the-products-crumb">Products</a>
</li>

Clearing the Breadcrumbs

You can clear the bread crumbs using the reset() method. This can be useful when you want to transform the crumbs and overwrite the list:

$crumbs = $this->Breadcrumbs->getCrumbs();
$crumbs = collection($crumbs)->map(function ($crumb) {
    $crumb['options']['class'] = 'breadcrumb-item';
    return $crumb;
})->toArray();

$this->Breadcrumbs->reset()->add($crumbs);