README.md
# Breadcrumbs On Rails
<tt>BreadcrumbsOnRails</tt> is a simple Ruby on Rails plugin for creating and managing a breadcrumb navigation for a Rails project. It provides helpers for creating navigation elements with a flexible interface.
[](https://github.com/weppos/breadcrumbs_on_rails/actions/workflows/tests.yml)
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## Links
- [Homepage](https://simonecarletti.com/code/breadcrumbs-on-rails)
- [Repository](https://github.com/weppos/breadcrumbs_on_rails)
- [API Documentation](https://rubydoc.info/gems/breadcrumbs_on_rails)
## Requirements
- Ruby >= 2.4
- Rails >= 5
For older versions use a previous release.
## Installation
Add this line to your application's `Gemfile`:
```
gem "breadcrumbs_on_rails"
```
And then execute `bundle` to install the dependencies:
```
bundle
```
Use [Bundler](http://bundler.io/) and the `:git` option if you want to grab the latest version from the Git repository.
## Usage
Creating a breadcrumb navigation menu in your Rails app using <tt>BreadcrumbsOnRails</tt> is really straightforward.
In your controller, call `add_breadcrumb` to push a new element on the breadcrumb stack. `add_breadcrumb` requires two arguments: the name of the breadcrumb and the target path.
```ruby
class MyController
add_breadcrumb "home", :root_path
add_breadcrumb "my", :my_path
def index
# ...
add_breadcrumb "index", index_path
end
end
```
See the section "Breadcrumb Element" for more details about name and target class types.
The third, optional argument is a Hash of options to customize the breadcrumb link.
```ruby
class MyController
def index
add_breadcrumb "index", index_path, title: "Back to the Index"
end
end
```
In your view, you can render the breadcrumb menu with the `render_breadcrumbs` helper.
```html
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
<title>untitled</title>
</head>
<body>
<%= render_breadcrumbs %>
</body>
</html>
```
`render_breadcrumbs` understands a limited set of options. For example, you can pass change the default separator with the `:separator` option.
```html
<body>
<%= render_breadcrumbs :separator => ' / ' %>
</body>
```
Current possible options are:
- `:separator`
- `:tag`
To use with Bootstrap you might use the following:
```html
<body>
<ol class="breadcrumb">
<%= render_breadcrumbs :tag => :li, :separator => "" %>
</ol>
</body>
```
More complex customizations require a custom `Builder`.
### HTML Escaping
The text of the breadcrumb is html-escaped by default unless it is a SafeBuffer, to prevent XSS attacks.
```ruby
class MyController
add_breadcrumb "This is the <b>Main</b> page".html_safe
def profile
add_breadcrumb "#{@user_name} Profile", users_profile
end
end
```
In this case, if `@user_name` is `<script>`, it will output:
```
This is the <b>Main</b> page > <script> Profile
```
### Breadcrumb Element
A breadcrumbs menu is composed by a number of `Element` objects. Each object contains two attributes: the name of the breadcrumb and the target path.
When you call `add_breadcrumb`, the method automatically creates a new `Element` object for you and append it to the breadcrumbs stack. `Element` name and path can be one of the following Ruby types:
- `Symbol`
- `Proc`
- `String`
#### Symbol
If the value is a `Symbol`, the library calls the corresponding method defined in the same context the and sets the `Element` attribute to the returned value.
```ruby
class MyController
# The Name is set to the value returned by
# the :root_name method.
add_breadcrumb :root_name, "/"
protected
def root_name
"the name"
end
end
```
#### Proc
If the value is a `Proc`, the library calls the proc passing the current view context as argument and sets the `Element` attribute to the returned value. This is useful if you want to postpone the execution to get access to some special methods/variables created in your controller action.
```ruby
class MyController
# The Name is set to the value returned by
# the :root_name method.
add_breadcrumb Proc.new { |c| c.my_helper_method },
"/"
end
```
#### String
If the value is a `String`, the library sets the `Element` attribute to the string value.
```ruby
class MyController
# The Name is set to the value returned by
# the :root_name method.
add_breadcrumb "homepage", "/"
end
```
### Restricting breadcrumb scope
The `add_breadcrumb` method understands all options you are used to pass to a Rails controller filter. In fact, behind the scenes this method uses a `before_filter` to store the tab in the `@breadcrumbs` variable.
Taking advantage of Rails filter options, you can restrict a tab to a selected group of actions in the same controller.
```ruby
class PostsController < ApplicationController
add_breadcrumb "admin", :admin_path
add_breadcrumb "posts", :posts_path, only: [:index, :show]
end
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
add_breadcrumb "admin", :admin_path, if: :admin_controller?
def admin_controller?
self.class.name =~ /^Admin(::|Controller)/
end
end
```
### Internationalization and Localization
<tt>BreadcrumbsOnRails</tt> is compatible with the standard Rails internationalization framework.
For example, if you want to localize your menu, define a new breadcrumbs node in your `.yml` file with all the keys for your elements.
```yaml
# config/locales/en.yml
en:
breadcrumbs:
homepage: Homepage
first: First
second: Second
third: Third
# config/locales/it.yml
it:
breadcrumbs:
homepage: Homepage
first: Primo
second: Secondo
third: Terzo
```
In your controller, use the `I18n.t` method.
```ruby
class PostsController < ApplicationController
add_breadcrumb I18n.t("breadcrumbs.first"), :first_path
add_breadcrumb I18n.t("breadcrumbs.second"), :second_path, only: [:second]
add_breadcrumb I18n.t("breadcrumbs.third"), :third_path, only: [:third]
end
class ApplicationController < ActionController::Base
add_breadcrumb I18n.t("breadcrumbs.homepage"), :root_path
end
```
## Support
Library documentation is auto-generated from the [README](https://github.com/weppos/breadcrumbs_on_rails/blob/master/README.md) and the source code, and it's available at https://rubydoc.info/gems/breadcrumbs_on_rails.
- The bug tracker is here: https://github.com/weppos/breadcrumbs_on_rails/issues
- The code repository is here: https://github.com/weppos/breadcrumbs_on_rails. Contributions are welcome! Please include tests and/or feature coverage for every patch, and create a topic branch for every separate change you make.
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## Credits
<tt>BreadcrumbsOnRails</tt> was created and is maintained by [Simone Carletti](http://simonecarletti.com/). Many improvements and bugfixes were contributed by the [open source community](https://github.com/weppos/breadcrumbs_on_rails/graphs/contributors).
## Security and Vulnerability Reporting
Full information and description of our security policy please visit [SECURITY.md](SECURITY.md)
## Changelog
See the [CHANGELOG.md](CHANGELOG.md) file for details.
## License
Copyright (c) 2009-2020 Simone Carletti. This is Free Software distributed under the MIT license.