Previously I’d posted about SharePoint Breadcrumbs and how they were confusing as hell. I’d discussed how SharePoint publishing pages override the ‘PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb’ content control, filling it with blankness, and then supplying their own breadcrumb as part of the page content. That seemed pretty dumb to me… …much more sensible would be to override the ‘PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb’ with the breadcrumb we want.

Well, it transpires that I was wrong. What I’ve described is true for some page layouts… and not for others. The Default Master page defines its PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb ContentPlaceHolder control as:

<asp:ContentPlaceHolder id="PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb" runat="server">
<asp:SiteMapPath SiteMapProvider="SPContentMapProvider" id="ContentMap" SkipLinkText="" NodeStyle-CssClass="ms-sitemapdirectional" runat="server"/>
</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>

This is defining the default breadcrumb on the master page.

For the DefaultLayout.aspx layout page, it defines the content for the page to have:

<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb" runat="server"/>

That will empty the placeholder on the master page, so no breadcrumb will appear in the usual location – in fact, nothing will. (Note: you will probably want to reduce the blank space that the breadcrumb occupied – otherwise you’ll have a bit gap above your main content area). It then goes on to define (in the PlaceHolderMain Content control):

<td class="ms-pagebreadcrumb" colspan="2">
<asp:SiteMapPath ID="ContentMap" Runat="server" SiteMapProvider="CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode" RenderCurrentNodeAsLink="false" SkipLinkText="" NodeStyle-CssClass="ms-sitemapdirectional"/></td>
</tr>

There we can see the breadcrumb that appears in the page content.

However, if we look at a different page layout, such as BlankWebPartPage.aspx, we see:

<asp:Content ContentPlaceHolderId="PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb" runat="server">

<div class="breadcrumb">
<asp:SiteMapPath ID="siteMapPath" Runat="server" SiteMapProvider="CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode" RenderCurrentNodeAsLink="false" SkipLinkText="" CurrentNodeStyle-CssClass="breadcrumbCurrent" NodeStyle-CssClass="ms-sitemapdirectional"/>

</div>

</asp:Content>

Okay, interesting. So, what’s different about the breadcrumbs? Well, a few things, but the point relevant to whether or not the “> Pages > default.aspx” is displayed in the breadcrumbs – the SiteMapProvider. The CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode provider doesn’t seem to include the ‘Pages’ bit of the path – hence it is used by the page layouts. The Default.master’s SPContentMapProvider provides a breadcrumb that includes the ‘Pages’.

It is a bit mystifying why some page layouts blank the PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb while other override it – it would have been really nice if they worked consistently. And, as a side note, if you create a page layout and find that your breadcrumbs include the “> Pages > default.aspx” bit, then 1) make sure you’re providing content to override the PlaceHolderTitleBreadcrumb, and 2) make sure that it uses the CurrentNavSiteMapProviderNoEncode navigation provider.