Breadcrumbs are starving me!

Question

Dear Forum,
This post is about the ADF Breadcrumbs control. I am finding a lot of things wrong with it. It could be that I just don't understand it, or that it is specifically designed for ADF framework applications - and not for ADF Faces applications - but I though I should vent on the off chance there is a benevolent breadcrumbs expet out there.
The control seems brilliant at first brush but I am really having a hard time implementing it so that it does what I need it to do.
For example. First of all, the Label property does not read my message bundle (if you are using just JSF message bundles). You can't say: #{menu.FileOpen}" and expect to get anything back. You have to use literal strings.
But that's not my biggest problem. Here's my issue. I have a site that uses Polymorphism to describe the hierarchical entities in my site. I have Research Institutions that have as children one or more Research Departments; but they could also have Colleges/Divisions below them. A College/Division is made up of one or more Research Departments. You either have RI's that have colleges/divisions that have RD's, or you have RD's directly as a child of the RI - depending upon the school. You with me? I hope so!
So, here's my problem. When I use Breadcrumbs to view a Research Institution - everything is fine. because it is the top level of the entity hierachy. I have a parent ItemNode under to the root and the control behaves beautifully. Okay, so now I (as a user) have a choice, I can either click on either a Research Department, or a College Division as a child of the Research Institution (depending upon the type of Research Institution). The screen should show either the College/Division or the RD depending upon the type of RI.
The issue is, you have to put the destination somewhere in the XML file that describes the hierarchy. I can put the menu destination as a child of the RI for both the College/Division and the RD, but then you would lose the College/Division breadcrumbi if clicked on the Research Department from the main screen. I could put the showRD node underneath the College/Division node so that you had the following XML hierarchy:
showRI --> showCollDiv --> showRD
However, if I do this, and there is no College/Division, I get a stack trace.
What I want to be able to do is have the action method of the XML menu file be evaluated at runtime so that I an put something like this:
action="#{userInfoBean.currentCD eq null ? 'showRI' : 'showCD'} - where the output is a JSF destination.
Having the breadcrumbs being able to at runtime determine where to go would be a very good feature.
Can you do this? Am I in a pickle?
Best regards,
Nigel

Answer 1

Hi,
sounds like an interesting enhancement. For the time being, can you try something like
<af:breadCrumbs var="foo" value="#{menuModel.model}">
<f:facet name="nodeStamp">
<af:switcher defaultFacet="facet1" facetName="#{userInfoBean.currentCD eq null ? 'facet1' : 'facet2'}">
<f:facet name="facet1">
<af:commandNavigationItem text="#{foo.label}"
action="action1"/>
</f:facet>
<f:facet name="facet2">
<af:commandNavigationItem text="#{foo.label}"
action="action2"/>
</f:facet>
</af:switcher>
</f:facet>
</af:breadCrumbs>
Haven't tried this approach, so its just an idea of mine
Frank