xng-breadcrumb

A lightweight, declarative and configurable breadcrumbs solution for Angular 6 and beyond. https://www.npmjs.com/package/xng-breadcrumb

About

• In applications with deep navigation hierarchy, it is essential to have breadcrumbs.
• Breadcrumbs easily allow going back to states higher up in the hierarchy.

Demo

Live Demo - A demo app showcasing xng-breadcrumb usage in an Angular app. Navigate through different links to see breadcrumbs behavior.

Features

• ✅ Zero configuration: Just add <xng-breadcrumb></xng-breadcrumb> anywhere in the app. Breadcrumb labels will be auto-generated by analyzing Angular Route configuration in your App.

• ✅ Custom labels: each route can have a custom label defined via Angular Route Config. The labels will be picked automatically while forming breadcrumbs

• ✅ Update labels dynamically: Change breadcrumbs dynamically using BreadcrumbService.set(). You can either use route path or breadcrumb alias to change breadcrumb for a route.

• ✅ Skip breadcrumb: Skip specific routes from displaying in breadcrumbs, conditionally.

• ✅ Disable breadcrumb: Disable specific routes so that navigation is disbaled to intermediate routes.

• ✅ Customization: Customize breadcrumb template to show icons as label prefix, use pipes on text, add i18n, etc.

• ✅ Styling: Separator and Styles can be customized with ease.

• ✅ QueryParams and Fragment: Preserves QueryParams and Fragemnet while navigating via breadcrumbs

Quickstart

1. Install via npm or yarn

npm install --save xng-breadcrumb
//------------- OR --------------
yarn add xng-breadcrumb

2. Import 'BreadcrumbModule' in your Application

import {BreadcrumbModule} from 'xng-breadcrumb';
@NgModule({
  ...
  imports: [BreadcrumbModule],
  ...
})
export class AppModule { }

3. Add 'xng-breadcrumb' selector, wherever you plan to show breadcrumbs

<xng-breadcrumb></xng-breadcrumb>

4. (Optional) Use BreadcrumbService, if you want to change breadcrumbs behavior(visibility, label, etc) dynamically.

import { BreadcrumbService } from 'xng-breadcrumb';

constructor(private breadcrumbService: BreadcrumbService) {}
// Code examples with BreadcrumbService are given below, under Usage section

🎉🎉 That's it. You should see auto-generated breadcrumbs appearing for each route.

Note: XngBreadcrumb has a peer dependency on @angular/router. Include RouterModule in App imports, if you haven't already.

Angular Version Compatibility

xng-breadcrumb	Angular
4.x.x	6.x, 7.x
5.x.x	8.x, 9.x

Setup Guide

Map Breadcrumb labels to Routes in Route Config

• define 'breadcrumb' within the data property of route.
• a 'breadcrumb' can be defined as a string OR as an object.
• Use breadcrumb as a string if you are just providing breadcrumb text
• Use breadcrumb as an object if you are providing additional properties like 'alias', 'skip', 'info', 'disable'. In this case, 'label' property denotes breadcrumb text.

breadcrumb as a string

  {
    path: 'dashboard',
    loadChildren: './dashboard/dashboard.module#DashboardModule',
    data: { breadcrumb: 'Home' }
  },
  {
    path: 'add',
    component: MentorAddComponent,
    data: { breadcrumb: 'New' }
  }

breadcrumb as an object

  {
    path: 'dashboard',
    loadChildren: './dashboard/dashboard.module#DashboardModule',
    data: {
      breadcrumb: {
        label: 'Home',
        info: { mydata: { icon: 'home', iconType: 'material' } }
      }
    }
  },
  {
    path: 'add',
    component: MentorAddComponent,
    data: { breadcrumb: { skip: true, alias: 'mentorAdd' } }
  }

Update labels dynamically

• Breadcrumb label can be updated based on route path or alias
• For simple routes, route path is enough. Ex: breadcrumbService.set(<route path> , <breadcrumb label>)
• For long deep routes, you can use alias.
• Create an alias for a route in route config. Prefix alias with '@' while using the set() method. Ex: breadcrumbService.set(@<alias> , <breadcrumb label>)

Update using route path

  {
    path: 'mentor',
    component: MentorDetailsComponent,
    children: [
      {
        path: ':id',
        component: MentorEditComponent
      }
    ]
  }

  // routepath can contain path and params similary how you defined in routes
  breadcrumbService.set('mentor', 'Enabler'); // path for MentorDetailsComponent
  breadcrumbService.set('mentor/:id', 'Uday Vunnam'); // path for MentorEditComponent contains param (:id)

Update using alias

  {
    path: 'mentor',
    component: MentorDetailsComponent,
    children: [
      {
        path: ':id',
          component: MentorEditComponent
          data: {
            breadcrumb: {
              alias: 'mentorName'
            }
          }
        }
    ]
  }

  breadcrumbService.set('@mentorName', 'Uday Vunnam');

Skip Breadcrumbs for certain routes

You can skip a route from displaying in breadcrumbs in two ways

• make 'skip' as true for breadcrumb in route config breadcrumb: { skip: true }
• dynamically skip using set(<myPathOrAlias>, { skip:true });

skip breadcrumb in route config

  {
    path: 'edit',
    component: MentorEditComponent,
    data: { breadcrumb: { skip: true } }
  }

skip breadcrumb dynamically

breadcrumbService.set('mentor/:id/edit', { skip: true });
breadcrumbService.set('@mentorName', { skip: true }); // using alias '@mentorName'

//To make a hidden breadcrumb visible.
breadcrumbService.set('mentor/:id/edit', { skip: false });
breadcrumbService.set('@mentorName', { skip: false }); // using alias '@mentorName'

Dibsable Breadcrumb navigation for certain routes

You can show an intermediate breadcrumb, but disable navigation if the route has no meaning.

• make 'disable' as true for breadcrumb in route config breadcrumb: { disable: true }
• dynamically skip using set(<myPathOrAlias>, { disable:true });

Customization

Custom Breadcrumb template (add icons, change text, add i18n ability, etc)

You can display whatever you want in the place of breadcrumb text by providing a custom template.

• Use *xngBreadcrumbItem directive to provide a custom template
• breadcrumb label is available implicitly in the template context

Change text case

  {
    path: '',
    pathMatch: 'full',
    component: HomeComponent,
    data: {
      breadcrumb: 'app home'
    }
  }

<xng-breadcrumb>
  <ng-container *xngBreadcrumbItem="let breadcrumb">
    <ng-container>{{ breadcrumb | titlecase }}</ng-container>
  </ng-container>
</xng-breadcrumb>

Add icons in front of label

• define 'info' associated with breadcrumb in route config. 'info' has type . you can pass string or object as you need.
• 'info' is available in the context of *xngBreadcrumbItem.
• Additionally 'first' and 'last' are passed to identify 'first' and 'last' items respectively.

  {
    path: '',
    pathMatch: 'full',
    component: HomeComponent,
    data: {
      breadcrumb: {
        label: 'app home',
        info: 'home'
      }
    }
  }

<xng-breadcrumb>
  <ng-container *xngBreadcrumbItem="let breadcrumb; let info = info; let first = first">
    <mat-icon *ngIf="info">{{ info }}</mat-icon>
    <ng-container *ngIf="!first">{{ breadcrumb }}</ng-container>
  </ng-container>
</xng-breadcrumb>

i18n ability

• Usually, internationalization is achieved in Angular using libraries like ngx-translate or transloco.
• These libraries provide a pipe to change text while language is changed.
• With ngx-translate you can change the language for breadcrumb text as shown below.

<xng-breadcrumb>
  <ng-container *xngBreadcrumbItem="let breadcrumb">
    <ng-container>{{ breadcrumb | translate }}</ng-container>
  </ng-container>
</xng-breadcrumb>

Custom separator

• Breadcrumb uses '/' as the separator by default.
• To use custom separator pass separator as an input to <xng-breadcrumb>.
• You can either use a simple string(>>, -, -->) or a component (mat-icon, fa-icon) as a separator.

string as separator

<xng-breadcrumb separator=">"></xng-breadcrumb>

icon or component as separator

<xng-breadcrumb [separator]="iconTemplate"></xng-breadcrumb>

<ng-template #iconTemplate>
  <mat-icon>arrow_right</mat-icon>
</ng-template>

Custom Breadcrumb Styles

• <xng-breadcrumb> defines the least possible specificity for selectors, to make it easy to override them.

• override styles by changing the CSS for corresponding classes. (Keep this styles in app root styles file if you don't want to use ::ng-deep)

• Below are classes visualization to help which class maps to which box

• (Optional)xng-breadcrumb takes 'class' as input. This class will be applied to the root of the breadcrumb. This can be used to increase specificity when there are conflicting styles.

  

.xng-breadcrumb-root {
  padding: 8px 16px;
  display: inline-block;
  border-radius: 4px;
  background-color: #e7f1f1;
}

.xng-breadcrumb-separator {
  padding: 0 4px;
}

Disable Auto Generation of breadcrumb labels

• Breadcrumbs are integrated with Angular Router and labels are auto-generated(if a label is not provided for a route).
• Auto-generated label is the same as route the path segment.
• If you want to disable this, set [autoGenerate]=false.

<xng-breadcrumb [autoGenerate]="false"></xng-breadcrumb>

API

Route Config

property	Description	Type	Default
breadcrumb	Breadcrumb data provided in App route config	`string	Breadcrumb`
breadcrumb: {alias}	alias name for a route	string	undefined
breadcrumb: {skip}	skip a route from showing in breadcrumbs	boolean	false
breadcrumb: {disable}	disable navigation for a breadcrumb item	boolean	false
breadcrumb: {info}	arbitrary info for a breadcrumb.	`string	object`
breadcrumb: {label}	same as breadcrumb. Use label if breadcrumb is defined as object	string	undefined

xng-breadcrumb

property	Description	Type	Default
separator	input: separator between breadcrumbs	`string	TemplateRef`
autoGenerate	input:whether to auto generate breacrumb labels	boolean	true
*xngBreadcrumbItem	directive: to read context in custom breadcrumb templates	NA	NA

BreadcrumbService.set(pathOrAlias, breadcrumb)

argument	Description	Type
pathOrAlias	full route path or alias prefixed with '@'	string
breadcrumb	breadcrumb data to update for a route	`string

Where to define breadcrumbs, if Routes path have same Route specificity

• For the same route path, you can define breadcrumbs either on parent or any descendant with empty path.
• If both are defined, the children take the precedence.

With Component and its Children

  // defining breadcrumb on Component Route
  {
    path: ':userId',
    data: { breadcrumb: 'Declaraed on Parent Component' },
    children: [
      { path: '', component: ShowUserComponent }
    ]
  }
  // defining breadcrumb on children with empty path
  {
    path: ':userId',
    children: [
      { path: '', component: ShowUserComponent, data: { breadcrumb: 'Declaraed on child with empty path' }
    ]
  }

With Module and its Children

  // defining breadcrumb on Module route
  { path: 'home', loadChildren: './home/home.module#HomeModule', data: { breadcrumb: 'Declaraed on Parent Module' } }

  // Within HomeModule Routes -
  { path: '', pathMatch: 'full', component: HomeComponent, data: { breadcrumb: 'Declaraed on child with empty path' }}

Accessibility

• A <nav> with aria-label="breadcrumb" identifies type of navigation as breadcrumb by screen readers.
• The breadcrumb links are structured using an ordered list <ol>.
• The last <li> element represents the current page, so it doesn't have to be clickable.
• Separators between links have aria-hidden=true. This prevents the screen reader announcement of visual separators.

Local Development

This project was generated using Nx.

If you wish to contribute to this repository, below are the steps for local development.

• Clone the repository git clone https://github.com/udayvunnam/xng-breadcrumb.git
• Run npm install to install the dependencies
• Run npm run dev to build and watch both the library and the demo app. This opens the demo app at http://localhost:4200/ automatically.

Build

Run npm run build to build the library and demo app together. The build artifacts will be stored in the dist/ directory.

This step is used by CircleCI to build both the library and the demo app. After a successful build, the demo app is deployed to Netlify.

Publish to npm

Use npm run version if you wish to publish a new version of library to npm

This ingternally uses standard-version to

• bump the library version based on the commits
• generates changelog
• commit bump files and changelog
• create a new tag with the new version number

CircleCI gets notified on every new tag push and publishes the library if build and tests are success

Tests

Run ng test to execute the unit tests via Karma.

Motivation 🎉🎉🎉

You can create your library with complete automated setup for build, tests, and release. Check this blog post for best practices and implementation details of this library blog post