Forum Software Reviews

Even if the default Drupal breadcrumb is already really good, it could be slightly improved when used with the forum module. Here is how we process.

Breadcrumbs are particularly useful for your readers to know exactly where they are in your forum (which series of categories they clicked to arrive here). It's even more important if you want to improve your SEO, as breadcrumb could (it's actually optional) be used by Google to display a clear position of a page in your website plan in their search results.

1. First, you have to create your own breadcrumb function, inspired by the return value of the drupal_get_breadcrumb(), that you improve a little bit.

   template.php

   function get_forum_breadcrumb() {
    $current = drupal_get_breadcrumb();
    
    if (count($current) == 1) {
     // Rename Forums -> Discussions
     $current[0] = "<a href='/discussion'>Discussion Index</a>";
    }
    else {
     unset($current[0]);
     // Rename Forums -> Discussions
     $current[1] = str_replace("Forums", "Discussion Index", $current[1]);
    }
    
    return join(" <span class='separator'>&gt;</span> ", $current);
   }

2. Then, modify the page preprocessor, by adding a new variable that will contain the forum breadcrumb. Note that we also define a new template file, called page-node-forum.tpl.php, that will be used only when you display a full forum topic.

   template.php

   /**
    * Add a Javascript method to redirect, if needed, the comment hash to the review conclusion page
    */
   function yourtheme_preprocess_page(&$variables) {
    
    ...
    
    $node = $variables["node"];
    
    // See page-forum.tpl.php
    if ($variables["template_files"][0] == "page-forum") {
     $variables["forum_breadcrumb"] = get_forum_breadcrumb();
     ...
    }
    // See page-node-forum.tpl.php
    else if ($node->type == 'forum') {
     $variables['template_files'][0] = 'page-node-forum';
    
     $variables["forum_breadcrumb"] = get_forum_breadcrumb();
     ...
    
    }
    
    ...
   }

3. Third, add this new variable to the right templates (page-forum.tpl.php and page-node-forum.tpl.php):

   page-forum.tpl.php

   ...
    
   <?php if ($show_messages && $messages): print $messages; endif; ?>
    
   <div id="forum-section" class="section"><?php print $forum_breadcrumb; ?></div>
    
   <?php if ($tabs): print '<div>'; endif; ?>
   <?php if ($title): print '<h2>'. $title .'</h2>'; endif; ?>
   <?php if ($tabs): print ''. $tabs .'</div>'; endif; ?>
   <?php if ($tabs2): print '<ul class="tabs secondary">'. $tabs2 .'</ul>'; endif; ?>
   <?php print $help; ?>
    
   <?php print $content ?>
    
   ...

   page-node-forum.tpl.php

   ...
    
   <?php if ($show_messages && $messages): print $messages; endif; ?>
    
   <div id="forum-section" class="section"><?php print $forum_breadcrumb; ?></div>
    
    
   <?php if ($tabs): print '<div>'; endif; ?>
   <?php if ($title): print '<h2>'. $title .'</h2>'; endif; ?>
   <?php if ($tabs): print ''. $tabs .'</div>'; endif; ?>
   <?php if ($tabs2): print '<ul class="tabs secondary">'. $tabs2 .'</ul>'; endif; ?>
   <?php print $help; ?>
    
   ...

4. And finally, for Forum Software Reviews fans, here is the CSS style we used here.

   style.css

   /*
    * Forum Node content
    */
   #forum-section {
    background: #ddd url(images/forum.png) no-repeat 6px 50%;
    border:  1px solid #ccc;
    font-size:    14px;
    padding:    5px 15px 5px 35px;
    margin:     30px 0 15px;
    border-radius:    3px;
    -moz-border-radius:  3px;
    -webkit-border-radius:  3px; 
    
   }
    
   #forum-section a {
    font-weight:  normal;
    color:    #666;
   }
    
   #forum-section a:hover {
    border-bottom:   1px solid #666;
   }
    
   #forum-section .separator {
    color:    #999;
    font-size:   11px;
   }
    
    
   .section {
    padding-left:  25px;
    margin-bottom:  8px;
    color:    #4477AA;
    font-size:   14px;
    font-weight:  bold;
   }
    
   .section span {
    color:    #555;
   }

Clear your Drupal Cache, and congratulations, you are now using a new and enhanced breadcrumb!