New Add-on: Crumbly
Just released a short while ago, Crumbly (by Stephen Lewis of Experience Internet and developer of BucketList, Campaigner, etc), is a breadcrumb manager for ExpressionEngine 2.
I woke up this morning to an email from Stephen with a copy of the add-on, so I’ve had a chance to try it out. I installed and tested it on a local dev site (the Channel University site we build in my ExpressionEngine training videos). In short: it’s great and a nice take on managing breadcrumbs with ExpressionEngine.
Because you can set Crumbly up to use custom URL patterns, it can be configured to work with nearly every crazy EE website you’ve ever built. You can also set up custom labels for template groups and templates, so they each have their own specific breadcrumb name.
There’s a template tag pair available for displaying the breadcrumbs in your templates:
Crumbly’s template tag is super-easy to use. Just add it to your template, and you have instant, easy access to the target URL, segment, and label for every step along your breadcrumb path.
The add-on is available now and costs $45. Get all of the details: Crumbly by Experience Internet
Stephen Lewis — 13:08 on 06.14.2011
Thanks for the write-up Ryan, I’m glad you liked Crumbly.
Cheers,
Stephen
Spamschlucker — 15:48 on 06.14.2011
This addon seems to be very good. But 45$ just for a breadcrumb-manager is definitely too expensive. For let’s say 15$ I would not hesitate to buy it; for 45$ I am instantly about to forget about it.
Regards,
stephan@spamschlucker.org
Stephen Lewis — 16:00 on 06.14.2011
Hi Stephan,
That’s fair enough, if you think it’s too expensive.
The way I look at it is this: adding breadcrumbs to a large-ish site, with multiple sections, and a reasonably complex URL structure used to take me at least an hour, frequently longer. In addition, it was time-consuming and painful to manage and update.
The last two sites I used Crumbly on, it took around 15 minutes to install, configure, and get everything working.
That’s worth the money to me, and is better value for my clients (who are paying for my time). Your experiences may of course differ.
Cheers,
Stephen
Spamschlucker — 16:20 on 06.14.2011
Hi Stephen,
I really appreciate your work, and I see the point in your words, fully.
But I talk from the perspective of the non-profit-user. If I build a site (for me, for a friend, for a little money) I just can’t afford to buy ... let’s see:
crumbly - 45
socialee - 129
structure - 65
playa - 75
wygwam - 35
all in all: 350$ plus the EE-license. that’s just examples, but you see the point: As a private user you just can’t afford the prices of the addons. This is what I wanted to say.
So every developer has to decide which way he goes: Targeting only commercials or targeting private guys also. Commercial persons/companys are better, sure. Just from the point of supporting less people who pay more are better.
On the other hand: I am not sure if you make more money with this strategy.
Anyhow: Good luck!
Greetings,
stephan@spamschlucker.org
Stephen Lewsi — 17:16 on 06.14.2011
Hi Stephan,
This is an ongoing debate, and plenty of people agree with you.
My opinion is that a client (whether a for-profit, non-profit, or friend) can’t reasonably expect to get something for nothing. There have to be compromises.
If your client wants an e-commerce site, but hasn’t got the money for CartThrob, or Brilliant Retail, or whatever, he has to make do with the Simple Commerce module.
Similarly, if your client wants easily managed custom breadcrumbs, but hasn’t got the budget for Crumbly, he’ll have to make do with a less sophisticated solution, or forego breadcrumb navigation altogether.
As an add-on developer, I shouldn’t be expected to reduce the cost of my software to accommodate your client’s lack of budget.
Apart from anything else, there will _always_ be a client with less money to spend. As such, followed to its logical conclusion, I would end up giving everything away for free, whilst still funding the development and support.
> Anyhow: Good luck!
Thanks, I appreciate it.
Cheers,
Stephen
Ryan Battles — 22:30 on 06.14.2011
“As an add-on developer, I shouldn
Brendon Carr — 03:12 on 06.15.2011
Stephen, I of course jumped to purchase Crumbly based on the excellence of your previous work. And I wholeheartedly agree that an add-on which saves an hour of developer tedium and is easier to manage going forward after the initial site set-up is easily worth $45. Best of luck selling a boatload of these.
One question from me: If you were going to use Crumbly to manage breadcrumbs for a multilingual site, what would be your recommended method? At first glance, this looks to be a single-language solution.
From your perspective in the UK, you must come up against the multilanguage scenario much more than those in the US. Wouldn’t you agree that ExpressionEngine is overdue for an official multilanguage API and toolkit, so that all addons—such as Crumbly—could have a reliable, unified approach to the issue?
Stephen Lewis — 04:15 on 06.15.2011
@Ryan
I did consider tempering that statement a bit, lest it appear too confrontational. I decided against doing so because it’s a pretty accurate representation of my opinion; one which I think is completely legitimate.
It’s good to hear that at least one person agrees with me.
@Brendon
Firstly, thanks for the kind words about my previous work, and for purchasing Crumbly.
Regarding an official multi-language API, that would be great. I don’t know if this is even on the roadmap at present, but it would certainly save a lot of headaches, both for add-on developers and website builders.
In terms of the multi-language support in Crumbly, you’re right, there isn’t any at present. Crumbly is MSM compatible, so if you’re running a separate sub-domain per language, that should work fine, but that’s about it.
I knew this was a question that would come up, and considered the issue of multi-language support during the planning stages. There is one very good reason why this feature didn’t make it out of planning, and into version 1.0: I didn’t know how best to implement it.
I considered a few different options, each of which would have worked technically, but I didn’t have a clear idea of how people would _use_ such a feature in practise.
One of the main goals of Crumbly is that it be simple to implement. As such, blindly implementing a multi-language “solution” without a good understanding of how it would be used in practise didn’t seem like a good idea.
In the end, I decided the best approach was to release version 1.0, and gather some feedback on how people would actually like a multi-language feature to work.
Given the variety of multi-language approaches out there, I probably won’t be able to please everyone, but at least it won’t be complete guesswork.
Cheers,
Stephen
Brendon Carr — 04:23 on 06.15.2011
I’m going to put it to work on a personal site which will be English-only, but in the future I can see an application for Crumbly on a more complex multi-language site. Multi-Site Manager is one way to go, but man, that can be a pain.
I hear you on blindly stabbing at which is “the” solution for multi-language, as there are several. Which is why I think it’s time for a standard multilanguage API to be built in to ExpressionEngine, so developers can target that one with assurance that others are targeting it too.
Stephen Lewis — 04:28 on 06.15.2011
> Which is why I think it