This is the blog of Adam Kalsey. Unusual depth and complexity. Rich, full body with a hint of nutty earthiness.
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5 May 2004
P. Obels asked
How do you get the links on top of your site in movabletype which point out where you are?like:
Home » Our Thinking » Measure Twice » Archive » Tools and Utilities
Since he’s not the first person who’s asked, and I’m getting tired of re-writing the answer, I’m blogging it so I can simply point people here.
The short answer is: manually.
Each MT template has the breadcrumbs manually defined. The only variable part of the breadcrumb is (in most templates) the last item in the list. So my archive template that creates both category and monthly archives has this in it:
<p class="breadcrumb"><a href="/">Home</a> » <a href="/thinking/">Our Thinking</a> » <a href="/blog/">Measure Twice</a> » <a href="/blog/archives/">Archive</a> » <MTArchiveTitle></p>
And the individual archive template contains
<p class="breadcrumb"><a href="/">Home</a> » <a href="/thinking/">Our Thinking</a> » <a href="/blog/">Measure Twice</a> » <MTEntryTitle></p>
How about, for a category or a date archive: <a href="<$MTBlogURL$>">Home</a> / <a href="<$MTBlogArchiveURL$>">Archive</a> / <span class="Selected"><$MTArchiveTitle$></span> And for an individual arcive: <a href="<$MTBlogURL$>">Home</a> / <a href="<$MTBlogArchiveURL$>">Archive</a> / <MTEntryCategories glue=" & "><a href="<$MTCategoryArchiveLink$>"><$MTCategoryLabel$></a></MTEntryCategories> / ...
For me, it's helpful to hardcode some of my URLs (like the archive URL) into the templates because of the way I'm sharing templates across blogs. But using MTBlogURL and MTBlogArchiveURL is probably best for most. Good suggestion. Howeverm I don't like the category list in the breadcrumb. For a breadcrumb to be useful (and it might not be according to some reaseach I've read) it needs to be concise. Having a list of all the places within the site architecture that this element *might* be found is counter-productive.
On the matter of the category list: I get your point and I am bound to aggree. Still, this depends mostly on how one uses the categories. If one always prvides a category, an item always has a single 'main' category, which could be used for a single breadcrum. Have a look at my site and tell me if you think it's useful (and usable) here. (If you can see through the Dutch language! ;-) And while your at it, give some attention to my filenames too: Google loves these!
I use the SubCategories plug-in [http://www.rayners.org/2003/08/19/subcategories.php] for Movable Type to create a hierarchy of categories. I organized my categories so that the category hierarchy corresponds to what I want the breadcrumbs to look like. I then use code similar to that provided at the SubCategories site to generate the breadcrumbs.
Excerpt: Breadcrumbs in Movable Type :: Adam Kalsey Each MT template has the breadcrumbs manually defined. The only variable part of the breadcrumb is (in most templates) the last item in the list. So my archive template that creates both category...
This discussion has been closed.
Paulo
May 5, 2004 12:28 PM
For my breadcrumbs I pass a "$crumbs" array into my PHP templating class and parse it out with a breadcrumbs() method. It took me about a day of sporadic head-banging to realize that some individudal archive pages were giving errors because they had apostrophes in their titles and I had forgotten to use <$MTEntryTitle encode_php="q"$>