Breadcrumb-Buddy (Public BETA)

Breadcrumb-Buddy is a lightweight ColdBox module that simplifies breadcrumb navigation for your web applications. It generates dynamic breadcrumbs based on ColdBox events, supports aliases for intuitive usage, and allows recursive entity hierarchies (e.g., nested pages). It's plug-and-play with minimal setup, perfect for blogs, CMS, or any app needing clear navigation trails.

This module was inspired from the very well thought out Laravel-Breadcrumbs package. This module is not a port of that package. It was designed to bring similar breadcrumb functionality to ColdBox.

Requirements

• ColdBox: 7.0+
• CFML Engines:
  • ACF 2021+
  • Lucee 5.3+
  • Boxlang 1.0.0+

Features

• Event-Based Rules: Define breadcrumbs using ColdBox event patterns (e.g., main.index, posts.show).
• Aliases: Use friendly names for parents like trail.parent("home") instead of main.index.
• Recursive Hierarchies: Supports dynamic page hierarchies (e.g., Home > Category > Subcategory > Page).
• Plug-and-Play: Minimal configuration, easy to override.
• Mixin Convenience: Easy access in your handlers, layouts, or views simply by calling breadcrumbs()
• 100% Gluten-Free: No dependencies, no bloat. 💪

Installation

Install Breadcrumb-Buddy via CommandBox:

box install breadcrumb-buddy

This adds the module to your ColdBox app under modules/breadcrumb-buddy, by convention.

Quick Start

1. Install the Module (see above).
2. Render Breadcrumbs in your layout or view (e.g., views/layouts/Main.cfm):

// Somewhere in your layout or view
#breadcrumbs().render()#

3. Customize Rules in config/ColdBox.cfc or /config/modules/breadcrumb-buddy.cfc to override default breadcrumbs. See configuration section below for details.

4. Styling the Output: By default, the module will output the breadcrumbs in a simple HTML list. You can customize the output by creating your own view and updating the configuration. You can style the breadcrumbs using SASS/CSS classes or frameworks like Bootstrap. Example HTML output after calling render():

<nav aria-label="breadcrumb">
    <ol class="breadcrumb">
        <li class="breadcrumb-item"><a href="./">Home</a></li>
        <li class="breadcrumb-item"><a href="./posts/">Blog</a></li>
        <li class="breadcrumb-item active" aria-current="page">My Blog Post</li>
    </ol>
</nav>

Configuration

Breadcrumb-Buddy is configured in config/ColdBox.cfc or /config/modules/breadcrumb-buddy.cfc. The following settings are available:

• view: Template for rendering breadcrumbs (default: breadcrumbs/index).
• viewModule: Module hosting the view (default: breadcrumb-buddy).
• events: Struct of event patterns to breadcrumb rules (closures).
• aliases: Map of shorthand names to event patterns that can be used when making parent() calls. (e.g., home: main.index).

Default Configuration

settings = {
    // Override view if desired
    "view" = "breadcrumbs/index",
    // Override view module if desired
    "viewModule" = "breadcrumb-buddy",
    // if no matching rule found, default to this event
    "defaultEvent": "main.index",
    // Event-Based breadcrumb rules
    "events" = {
        "main.index": function( trail, event, rc, prc ) {
            trail.push( "Home", event.buildLink( "" ) );
        }
    },
    // Aliases for trail.parent() calls
    "aliases": {
        "home" = "main.index"
    }
};

Overriding Configuration

Add to config/ColdBox.cfc or /config/modules/breadcrumb-buddy.cfc:

// Coldbox.cfc example configuration
moduleSettings = {
    "breadcrumb-buddy": {
        // Override view if desired
        "view" = "breadcrumbs/index",
        // Override view module if desired
        "viewModule" = "breadcrumb-buddy",
        // if no matching rule found, default to this event
        "defaultEvent": "main.index",
        // Event-Based breadcrumb rules
        "events" = {
            "main.index": function( trail, event, rc, prc ) {
                trail.push( "Home", event.buildLink( "" ) );
            },
            // Custom event rules for blog post listing page
            "posts.index": function( trail, event, rc, prc ) {
                trail.parent( "home" )
                    .push( "Blog", event.buildLink( "blog" ) );
            },
            // Custom event rules for blog post show page
            "posts.show": function( trail, event, rc, prc ) {
                trail.parent( "home" )
                    .push( "Blog", event.buildLink( "blog" ) )
                    .push( prc.post.getName(), event.buildLink( "posts/#prc.post.getId()#" ) );
            }
        },
        // Aliases for trail.parent() calls
        "aliases": {
            "home" = "main.index"
        }
    };
};

Usage

Defining Rules

Rules are closures in settings.events, keyed by event patterns (regex). Each closure receives:

• trail: BreadcrumbTrail instance to build crumbs.
• event: ColdBox event object.
• rc: Request collection
• prc: Private collection.

The beauty of using closures like this is that you are only limited by your own creativity. You can use any entity, structure, or logic to build your breadcrumb trail.

Example rule:

"posts.index": function( trail, event, rc, prc ) {
    // Inherit home crumbs
    trail.parent( "home" ) 
        // Push the blog post listing page
        .push( "Blog", event.buildLink( "blog" ) );
},
"posts.show": function( trail, event, rc, prc ) {
    // Inherit Blog crumbs
    trail.parent( "posts.index" ) 
         // Push the current post
         .push( prc.post.getName(), event.buildLink( "posts/#prc.post.getId()#" ) ); 
}

Using Aliases

Aliases let you use friendly names:

trail.parent( "home" ); // Resolves to main.index

Define in settings.aliases:

"aliases": {
    "home": "main.index",
    "blog": "posts.index"
}

Note You cannot use aliases when calling trail.push(). For details, see the Future Roadmap section below.

Trail Object Methods

Each rule closure receives a trail object with methods to build breadcrumbs:

• trail.push( name, link ):

  • Adds a crumb or rule-based crumbs.
  • name: Text (e.g., "Home Page").
  • link: Optional URL.

• trail.parent( eventName ):

  • Prepends crumbs from another event (e.g., parent("posts.index")).
  • You may use aliases here (e.g., parent("home")).

Rule Examples

Blog Example

For a blog at /posts/123 (events: posts.index, posts.show ):

"posts.show": function( trail, event, rc, prc ) {
    // Inherit the home crumbs using an alias
    trail.parent( "home" )
        // Push the blog post listing page
        .push( "Blog", event.buildLink( "posts" ) )
        // Push the current post
        .push( prc.post.getName(), event.buildLink( "posts.#prc.post.getId()#" ) );
}

Crumbs:

[
    { "name": "Home", "link": "/" },
    { "name": "Blog", "link": "/posts" },
    { "name": "My Post", "link": "/posts/123" }
]

Page Hierarchy Example

For /about-us/jobs (event: pages.show):

In the following example, we are using a page entity to build the breadcrumb trail. The page entity represents a hierarchical (parent/child) relationship that allows us to traverse the page hierarchy from the current page to the root page. The page object has a method getParent() that returns the parent page object, and a method hasParent() that checks if the page has a parent. The isLoaded() method checks if the page object is loaded. Substitute the page object with your own entity or structure as needed.

// Pages
"pages.show" = function( trail, event, rc, prc ) {
    // prepend the parent page crumbs
    trail.parent( "home" );

    // create a variable to hold the page hierarchy (current to root)
    var pageHierarchy = [ page ]; // add the current page to the hierarchy
    var currentPage = prc.page; // current page object
    var rootUrl = event.buildLink( "" );
    var hasParents = currentPage.hasParent(); // check if the page has a parent

    // Collect pages from current to root
    while( hasParents ) {
        // get the parent page object
        var parent = currentPage.getParent(); 
        
        if( parent.isLoaded() ) {
            // add the parent page to the hierarchy
            pageHierarchy.append( parent ); 
            // set the current page to the parent page
            currentPage = parent; 
            // check if the parent page has a parent
            hasParents = parent.hasParent(); 
        } else {
            // stop if the parent page is not loaded
            hasParents = false; 
        }

    }

    // Build breadcrumb trail in correct order (root to current)
    var urlBuilder = rootUrl;
    // reverse the page hierarchy to get the correct order
    pageHierarchy.reverse().each( function( page ) {
        urlBuilder &= page.slug & "/";
        trail.push( page.name, urlBuilder );
    } );
},

Crumbs:

[
    { "name": "Home", "link": "/" },
    { "name": "About Us", "link": "/about-us" },
    { "name": "Jobs", "link": "/about-us/jobs" }
]

How to Handle 404 Pages and Other Errors

You can define a rule for handling 404 pages or other errors by matching the event name you use for your error handling. For example, if you have a custom error event like errors.onMissingPage, you can define a rule for it in your configuration.

Coldbox Gotcha: If you use an around handler pattern to catch errors, you may need to set the event object in the rc collection to ensure the breadcrumbs are built correctly. This is because calling runEvent() does not change the current event for the request.

There are several ways to work around this behavior. One way is to use the event.overrideEvent() method to set the event in the current request. Side note: overrideEvent() will bypass the event cache for the current event, which may or may not be desirable based on your use case. The second option is to simply set the event in the rc collection. This will not bypass the event cache, and will still trigger the desired breadcrumb rule.

// Common aroundHandler pattern used in base handlers
function aroundHandler( event, targetAction, eventArguments, rc, prc ) {
    
    try{

        // prepare arguments for action call
        var args = {
            event = arguments.event,
            rc    = arguments.rc,
            prc   = arguments.prc
        };

        structAppend( args, eventArguments );

        // execute the action now
        return arguments.targetAction( argumentCollection=args );

    // Catch 404 errors!
    } catch ( NotFound e ) {

        // option 1: Override the event (will bypass the event cache)
        event.overrideEvent( "errors.onMissingPage" ); // bypasses event cache on the current event
        
        // option 2: Set the event in the rc (will not bypass the event cache)
        rc.event = "errors.onMissingPage"; 
        
        return runEvent( 
            event = "errors.onMissingPage",
            eventArguments = {
                "exception": e
            }
        );

    }

}

For a missing page:

"errors.onMissingPage": function( trail, event, rc, prc ) {
    trail.push( "Home", event.buildLink( "" ) )
         .push( "Page Not Found", "" );
}

Crumbs:

[
    { "name": "Home", "link": "/" },
    { "name": "Page Not Found", "link": "" }
]

More Examples

Check out the sample application in the test-harness folder.

Roadmap

• Add support for trail.push() to accept aliases (e.g., trail.push( "home" )).
• Boxlang support 🤞
• More flexible error handling when configuration issues arise (e.g., bad rules, etc.).

Contributing

Do you have any ideas for improving this module? Feel free to submit an issue or, even better, a pull request! Don't forget to add tests for your changes.

About the Author

This module was created by Angry Sam Productions, a California-based web development company. We're passionate about giving back to the dev community through open source because we believe sharing knowledge builds a stronger, better-connected world. If you're interested in contracting us for your next project or learning more, feel free to reach out.

Running Tests

To run the tests, simply run the following command from the root of the project in Commandbox: start server-lucee@5.json (or whichever server JSON you want to use) server open (to open the server in your browser) navigate to /tests/runner.cfm in your browser.