Dynamic Breadcrumbs

Yii 1.1 General Discussion
1

Basically what I’m after is a dynamic breadcrumb system, as follows:

1) Directory Page

url: /mysite/directory

breadcrumb: Home > Directory

2) Cars Section

url: /mysite/directory/cars

breadcrumb: Home > Directory > Cars

3) Cars Search Results

url: /mysite/directory/cars?query-string

breadcrumb: Home > Directory > Cars > Search Results

4) Product Details Page

url: /mysite/mercedes-benz

referrer: none

breadcrumb: Home > Mercedes Benz

5) Product Details Page derived from Cars Section

url: /mysite/mercedes-benz

referrer: /mysite/directory/cars

breadcrumb: Home > Directory > Cars > Mercedes Benz

6) Product Details Page derived from Cars Search Results

url: /mysite/mercedes-benz

referrer: /mysite/directory/cars?name=mercedes-benz

breadcrumb: Home > Directory > Cars > Search Results > Mercedes Benz

4 is easy to do, 5 & 6 are difficult. How can I do this? I think an obvious solution would be to use sessions, but I’d only use sessions if they will work properly with multiple windows/tabs.

Please also note in the above example ‘Cars’ is just a category - products can belong to multiple categories. So for example Mercedes Benz may also belong to category “Transport”.

2

OK, I’ve made some progress on this. I’ve decided to go with sessions, as I don’t see any other way. I am however inevitably faced with the problem of inconsistent data between multiple windows/tabs. Here is what I have done so far:

/mysite/directory/cars:


<?php

$dynamic_breadcrumbs=array();

$session=new CHttpSession;

$session->open();


if(isset($_GET['search']))

{

	$dynamic_breadcrumbs[$cat_name]=array($_GET['type']);

	$dynamic_breadcrumbs[]='Search Results';

	$session['search']=array('label'=>'Search Results', 'value'=>$_GET['type'].'?'.$_SERVER['QUERY_STRING']);

}

else

{

	$dynamic_breadcrumbs[]=$cat_name;

	$session['type']=array('label'=>$cat_name, 'value'=>$_GET['type']);

}


$standard_breadcrumbs=array(

	'Directory'=>array('directory/index'),

);


$this->breadcrumbs=array_merge($standard_breadcrumbs, $dynamic_breadcrumbs);

?>

/mysite/mercedes-benz:


<?php

$dynamic_breadcrumbs=array();

$session=new CHttpSession;

$session->open();


if(isset($session['type']))

{

	$dynamic_breadcrumbs[$session['type']['label']]=array($session['type']['value']);

}

if(isset($session['search']))

{

	$dynamic_breadcrumbs[$session['search']['label']]=array($session['search']['value']);

}


$dynamic_breadcrumbs[]=$car->FullName;


$standard_breadcrumbs=array(

	'Directory'=>array('directory/index'),

);


$this->breadcrumbs=array_merge($standard_breadcrumbs, $dynamic_breadcrumbs);

?>

I think I need to pass some kind of ID variable that uniquely identifies each individual session.

3

Anybody? Have I got the wrong idea here?

4

Did you solved it ?

Scryii

5

Can’t you use


$_SERVER['HTTP_REFERER']
6

What I really don’t like of this approach is to rely on session/referer for create the page.

From my point of view, an url should be always show the same page. What if a user saves the page in bookmarks? Which kind of breadcrumbs will you show in this case?

In this situation I prefer to use different urls for the page:

for 4 you can use:

/mysite/mercedes-benz

for 5 you can use:

/mysite/cars/mercedes-benz

for 6:

/mysite/search-car/mercedes-benz

You can manage all with CurlManager, in order to use the first level as a parameter. This allow you to differentiate the pages (even maintaining only 1 controller/action)