HTML Components¶

Overview¶

A common piece of HTML that is present in many web applications is the breadcrumbs. These are links separated by a space or by the / character usually, that represent the tree structure of an application. The purpose is to give users another easy visual way to navigate throughout the application.

An example is an application that has an admin module, an invoices area, and a view invoice page. Usually, you would select the admin module, then from the links you will choose invoices (list), and then clicking on one of the invoices in the list, you can view it. To represent this tree-like structure, the breadcrumbs displayed could be:

Home / Admin / Invoices / Viewing Invoice [1234]

Each of the words above (apart from the last one) are links to the respective pages. This way the user can quickly navigate back to a different area without having to click the back button or use another menu.

Phalcon\Html\Breadcrumbs offers functionality to add text and URLs. The resulting HTML when calling render() will have each breadcrumb enclosed in <dt> tags, while the whole string is enclosed in <dl> tags.

Methods¶

public function add(
    string $label, 
    string $link = ""
): Breadcrumbs

Adds a new crumb.

In the example below, add a crumb with a link and then add a crumb without a link (normally the last one)

$breadcrumbs
    ->add("Home", "/")
    ->add("Users")
;

public function clear(): void

Clears the crumbs

$breadcrumbs->clear()

public function getSeparator(): string

Returns the separator used for the breadcrumbs

public function remove(string $link): void

Removes crumb by URL.

In the example below remove a crumb by URL and also remove a crumb without an URL (last link)

$breadcrumbs->remove("/admin/user/create");
$breadcrumbs->remove();

public function render(): string

Renders and outputs breadcrumb HTML. The template used is:

<dl>
    <dt><a href="Hyperlink">Text</a></dt> /
    <dt><a href="Hyperlink">Text</a></dt> /
    <dt>Text</dt>
</dl>

The last set crumb will not have a link and will only have its text displayed. Each crumb is wrapped in <dt></dt> tags. The whole collection is wrapped in <dl></dl> tags. You can use them in conjunction with CSS to format the crumbs on screen according to the needs of your application.

echo $breadcrumbs->render();

public function setSeparator(string $separator)

The default separator between the crumbs is /. You can set a different one if you wish using this method.

$breadcrumbs->setSeparator('-');

public function toArray(): array

Returns the internal breadcrumbs array