Category pages and product detail pages display a “breadcrumb” trail that reflects the navigational path to the page. For example:
Each entry in the trail is a link to the corresponding category page. So, on the page shown above, if the customer clicks Home Store, the Home Store category page is displayed.
If a customer accesses a product without proceeding through the navigational hierarchy, the breadcrumb trail reflects the default path to the product. There are several ways to make a navigational jump like this, such as clicking the link for a Featured Product or Hot Suggestion, or selecting a product returned by a search.
Navigation is tracked using the standard Commerce historical navigation mechanism described in the ATG Commerce Guide to Setting Up a Store. The links to products displayed on various pages (e.g., category pages) pass parameters to the /atg/commerce/catalog/CatalogNavHistoryCollector servlet bean that specify modifications to the navigational history. The history is stored as a List of locations in the navHistory property of the /atg/commerce/catalog/CatalogNavHistory component. The breadcrumb trail is rendered by the /navigation/gadgets/breadcrumbs.jsp gadget, which iterates over the navHistory property to display the locations it holds.
