The Breadcrumb in SharePoint 2010
The breadcrumb in SharePoint is useful just like the other navigation elements like the global navigation. In SharePoint 2010 we have the PopoutMenu control which can be visible if you click at the folder icon in the ribbon. That’s cool, but if you want to display the breadcrumb as a part of every pages without the need to activate it, it just to add a ASP:SiteMapPath control onto your custom masterpage.
SiteMap
There’s no limit when it comes to style the breadcrumb, you can have a custom background and an image that separates the nodes if you like to. In my example I have placed the following code just above the ContentPlaceHolder ‘PlaceHolderMain’ tag in my custom masterpage.
<div class="BreadCrumbWrap s4-notdlg"> <asp:SiteMapPath runat="server" SiteMapProvider="SPContentMapProvider" id="ContentMap" CssClass="BreadCrumbStyle" PathSeparator=">"> <CurrentNodeStyle CssClass="BreadCurrentNode" /> <PathSeparatorStyle CssClass="BreadPathSeparator" /> </asp:SiteMapPath> </div>
Add the following CSS classes to your custom CSS file, referenced from the custom masterpage.
CSS
.BreadCrumbWrap {
margin-top:10px;
}
.BreadCrumbStyle {
padding-left:15px;
font-size:10px;border-bottom:1px #ebebeb dotted;
padding-bottom:5px;
}
.BreadCrumbStyle a:link, .BreadCrumbStyle a:visited {
color:#3b4f65;
}
.BreadCrumbStyle a:hover{
color:#0072bc; text-decoration:underline
}
.BreadCurrentNode {color:#0072bc}
.BreadPathSeparator{
color:#ccc; padding:0px 8px 0px 8px;
}
/ Christian


Hey Christian,
I placed your bread crumb div right above in my master page. I found this bread crumb missing for the pages like Site Settings,All Site Content,Libraries, Lists ..etc (which are under “_layouts”). Any thoughts on this one ?
Thanks
I think in my comment it took out div tag, What I was saying is, I placed your bread crumb div right above “s4-main area” div in my master page. I found this bread crumb missing for the pages like Site Settings,All Site Content,Libraries, Lists ..etc (which are under “_layouts”). Any thoughts on this one ?
Hi Andy, if you add something into your custom master this should displays at pages in subsites that inherit this master even in application _layouts pages like settings.aspx by default. There’s a setting for this in Central Admin for the current web application called ‘Master Page Setting for Application _Layouts Pages’, make sure to select ‘Yes’ here.
/ C
Hey Christian,
Thanks for your reply. The setting that you mentioned was already selected as “Yes” but still for some reason bread crumb was missing for the application pages.
But actually I solved the problem by replacing the sitemap provider tag with the following SiteMapProviders=”SPSiteMapProvider,SPXmlContentMapProvider”
Thanks for this Christian, I’ve added your code to my master page because my breadcrumbs weren’t working and now it works great. Much appreciated.
I applied your code in my master page and when I’m connected with administrator profile it appears, however if I enter with a profile of contribute is no longer displayed.
Can you help?
Hello Zula, make sure the master page is published in a major version and approved if the settings say so. Make sure every reference file like external CSS and so on are published as well.
Thanks. It works.
Hi Christian,


thank you very much for your solution, for me it works great!!!
Thanks
Karel
Awesome!! Works great! Thanks so much! Saved me tons of time!
Hi Christian, I have implemented your soulution and it works perfect!
But is it possible to create breadcrumb that shows path from the very top site in the collection??
Thanks
Thanks Chris , but I have already found sollution simply by amending your chunk of code with the following SiteMapProviders=”SPSiteMapProvider,SPContentMapProvider” Now I have breadcrumb from the top level site!!!!