react-breadcrumbs-dynamic

react-breadcrumbs-dynamic

---

🏠 > React dynamic breadcrumbs > extremely flexible > and > easy to use

This is completely router-independent react breadcrumbs solution which means that you can use it with any version of React Router (2 or 3 or 4) or any other routing library for React or without routing at all. All what you need is just to specify components for breadcrumbs items and its props. However props and components should be specified separately. Props should be specified in intermediator component BreadcrumbsItem anywhere in your hierarchy of components and routes. Breadcrumbs will be built and (currently) sorted by the length of the URL. An application may contain several breadcrumbs with different components and design.

Visit live DEMO (source code of demo in example folder)

Installation

npm install --save react-breadcrumbs-dynamic

# definitions may be installed if typescript is used
npm install --save @types/react-breadcrumbs-dynamic

Base configuration

Add a <BreadcrumbsProvider/> component to the root of your React component tree like you do it for react-redux or react-router. In the react tree the BreadcrumbsProvider component must be parent of all components of this library with any deeps of nesting. See also Advanced Usage and Performance section.

import {BreadcrumbsProvider} from 'react-breadcrumbs-dynamic'

const theApp = (
  <BreadcrumbsProvider>
    <App />
  </BreadcrumbsProvider>
)

ReactDOM.render(theApp, document.getElementById('root'))

Instance configuration

The breadcrumbs instance is implemented in the Breadcrumbs component. The Breadcrumbs component needs to be configured, however all params have default value. In this example the react-router v4 routing specification is used. Please note that item and finalItem require react component (class) instead of react element. However separator requires react element.

import {Breadcrumbs} from 'react-breadcrumbs-dynamic'

const Page = (props) => (
  return (
    <div className="App">
      <Header>
        <Breadcrumbs
          separator={<b> / </b>}
          item={NavLink}
          finalItem={'b'}
          finalProps={{
            style: {color: 'red'}
          }}
        />
      </Header>
      {props.children}
      <Footer>
        <Breadcrumbs/>
      </Footer>
    </div>
  )
}

Add item to breadcrumbs

Each routed component in your react tree is generally associated with route and with correspondent breadcrumbs. Each component may add its breadcrumbs item. The BreadcrumbsItem component mandatory requires the to prop which contains bearing key with URL for breadcrumbs working. So if you use simple <a> tag for breadcrumb url - you need to use the duplicateProps and/or renameProps, or need to specify both to and href. See also Advanced Usage and Performance section.

Simple configure of the breadcrumbs items:

import {BreadcrumbsItem} from 'react-breadcrumbs-dynamic'

const App = (props) => (
  <div>
    <BreadcrumbsItem to='/'>Main Page</BreadcrumbsItem>
    {props.children}
    <Route exact path="/user" component={User} />
  </div>
)
  

const User = (props) => (
  <div>
    <BreadcrumbsItem to='/user'>Home</BreadcrumbsItem>
    <h2>Home</h2>
    {props.children}
    <Route exact path="/user/contacts" component={Contacts} />
  </div>
)

const Contacts = (props) => (
  <div>
    <BreadcrumbsItem to='/user/contacts'>Contacts</BreadcrumbsItem>
    <h2>Contacts</h2>
    ...
  </div>
)

Result

The result of above code will represent breadcrumbs like this:

  <NavLink to='/'>Main Page</NavLink>
  <b> / </b>
  <NavLink to='/user'>Home</NavLink>
  <b> / </b>
  <b to='/user/contacts'>Contacts</b>

---

Advanced Usage and Performance

This library makes everything possible to make the things simple and effective. However, the library cannot know about your application state nor can undertake deep inspections of your data to detect changes in efficiency considerations.

Avoid to pass arrays/objects/jsx in props of BreadcrumbsItem

When jsx code like this: <tag>...</tag> or <Component t='...'/> is evaluated the new react element instance is created even if the same props was passed. Same thing is when code contains {} or [] - the new object or array is created in-place. All this cases represents new instance which is considered as value change event even if this arrays/objects/jsx have same values in depth.

The Library does not analyze data into depth to detect changes. So when you pass new react element or newly created array or object to BreadcrumbsItem as props it receives same props with new value. It gives proper result but applying params will be defered to additional tree rerendering step and executed after all again.

Full complete list of types allowed as BreadcrumbsItem props for better performance:

• string
• number
• undefined
• boolean
• symbol

So to avoid additional processing you should not specify arrays or objects or react elements (ie jsx) as props of BreadcrumbsItem in render() method:

render() {
  return <BreadcrumbsItem to='/' title={<b>Main Page</b>} x={[1,2,3]}/> // bad
}

render() {
  return <BreadcrumbsItem to='/'><b>Main Page</b></BreadcrumbsItem> // bad
}

render() {
  return <BreadcrumbsItem to='/'>Main Page</BreadcrumbsItem> // good
}

Custom update filter

Another way is to use breadcrumbs item update filter. This is achieved by specifying the function in shouldBreadcrumbsUpdate param of BreadcrumbsProvider like this:

const theApp = (
  <BreadcrumbsProvider
    shouldBreadcrumbsUpdate = {
      (prevProps, props) => {
        // custom breadcrumbs item update filter condition
        return prevProps.to != props.to
      }
    }
  />
    <App />
  </BreadcrumbsProvider>
)

The item update filter must guarantee that the difference in the params are really due to different source data. For example condition {k:'v'} != {k:'v'} shows that this is the different data, although in fact source data is the same and has not been changed.

Warning: if update filter determines the data changing at the time when the original data has been unchanged this forms an infinite loop.

On the other hand, if some data is not recognized as changed, the breadcrumbs will not be updated and will not look like expected.

Alternate usage

An alternative, more flexible and at the same time more complicated way is to update breadcrumbs only when related to breadcrubms item data is changed. The library provides interface for that. The higher order component creation function withBreadcrumbsItem will integrate breadcrumbs object with item() and items() functions into props of your Component.

Warning: Never call breadcrumbs.item() or breadcrumbs.items() from render() or componentWillUpdate() methods or from constructor() of your component. This means breadcrumbs item must be not depend from state of your current "with breadcrubms" component.

This way allows to specify arrays and objects and react elements (i.e. jsx) in props but functions breadcrumbs.item() or breadcrumbs.items() must be called from the if statement, where is the update condition which checks for changes the application related to breadcrubms item data.

Warning: if update condition determines the data changing at the time when the original data has been unchanged this forms an infinite loop.

import { withBreadcrumbsItem, Dummy as Item } from 'react-breadcrumbs-dynamic'

@withBreadcrumbsItem
class CustomComponent extends React.Component {
  static propTypes = {
    breadcrumbs: PropTypes.object,
  }

  componentWillMount() {
    this.configureBreadcrumbs(this.props)
  }

  componentWillReceiveProps(nextProps) {
    // mandatory required update filter condition
    if( this.props.slug !== nextProps.slug ) {
      this.configureBreadcrumbs(nextProps)
    }
  }

  configureBreadcrumbs = (props) => {
    props.breadcrumbs.items(
      <div>
        <Item to='/' some={[1,2,3]}><b>Home</b></Item>
        <Item to=`/${props.slug}`><b>{props.slug}</b></Item>
      </div>
    )
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div />
    )
  }
}

The components and functions

Breadcrumbs component props

• separator - separator between breadcrumbs items (default: undefined)
• item - component of breadcrumbs items (default: 'a')
• finalItem - component of final breadcrumbs item (default: value of item prop)
• finalProps - final item props which override specified in BreadcrumbsItem (default: {})
• container - wrapper component (default is span)
• containerProps - props for container components if defined (default: {})
• renameProps - rename props passed from item intermedator to item
• duplicateProps - duplicate same as renameProps but without remove original.

BreadcrumbsItem component props

The BreadcrumbsItem component may have any prop and may have children. Each prop for BreadcrumbsItem will be passed to correspondent breadcrumb component specified in item or finalItem prop of Breadcrumbs. Only one prop is mandatory.

• to - mandatory required bearing key with URL for breadcrumbs working
• ... - any more number of properties.

BreadcrumbsProvider component props

The BreadcrumbsProvider props:

• shouldBreadcrumbsUpdate - custom breadcrumbs item update filter which is the function with two args, where first arg is prevProps and second arg is props - previous and current breadcrumbs item props respectively.

withBreadcrumbsItem() function

This function creates higher order component. It acquire one argument with your custom react component and return appropriate component which will have breadcrumbs in its props with methods item() and items().

this.props.breadcrumbs.item() and this.props.breadcrumbs.items()

Methods to configure breadcrumbs item of your current react component. These methods will be added to props by HOC of withBreadcrumbsItem function. The function item() accepts one react component with props and the functions items() accepts react component with children which may contain any number of components to create correspondent number of breadcrumbs item. The breadcrumbs item for these functions may be any react component and only props is significant. The Dummy and the Item components is exported by library for this case. Each function accepts null to reset breadcrumbs items to none if current component is no more needed to represent any breadcrumbs items.

LICENSE

MIT