At XDEV, we focus on close collaboration with our customers, and we are particularly pleased when this results in solutions that benefit the entire developer community. In an exciting project with our customer A.T.U Auto-Teile-Unger GmbH & Co.KG (following ATU), we were able to develop a customized breadcrumb component that is now available as an open source solution for Vaadin. With ATU's permission, we are sharing this result with the world - a step that shows how a specific project can be turned into a valuable, reusable solution for everyone.

The start of the project: a customer need becomes an impulse

The project began with a specific request from ATU. The customer needed a clear and easy-to-navigate breadcrumb functionality for their user interface to improve the usability of their Vaadin-based application. This breadcrumb solution needed to be flexible, intuitive and easily customizable - a crucial feature for their end users.

Working closely with both the ATU and XDEV development teams, we developed the requirements and created a concept that was tailored to their specific needs. It quickly became clear that this solution covered a gap in the existing Vaadin library. This gave rise to the idea of developing this component not only for ATU, but also as an open source extension.

Development of the breadcrumb component: Automatic navigation and internationalization

Our breadcrumb component was created as a joint project between the developers ATU and XDEV. An outstanding feature is the automatic generation of navigation entries: The component dynamically recognizes the structure of the application and automatically creates the necessary navigation entries based on the respective page hierarchy. This saves development time and reduces the risk of errors by providing developers with seamless, self-updating navigation.

Another central component is the support for internationalization (i18n). The breadcrumb component can be seamlessly integrated into applications that are available in multiple languages. It recognizes the language settings and automatically adapts the navigation labels to the respective language. This makes the component ideal for applications that are used globally and require flexible language support.

Release as an open source solution for Vaadin

After the component had been successfully implemented in the application, improving usability and structure, we were given the go-ahead to release the component as an open source solution. We are very grateful that ATU has decided to release it and thus contribute to the further development of the developer community.

The breadcrumb component is now available to all developers via GitHub and can be easily integrated into Vaadin applications. The open source license allows developers to further customize, improve and adapt the component to the specific requirements of their projects.

A growing open source community

By releasing this breadcrumb component, we hope to support the developer community around Vaadin and further foster a culture of sharing and collaboration. XDEV has already released numerous integrations and interface elements open-source in the past (see Vaadin Directory). The components are a foundation that can grow and evolve through contributions from the community - be it through new features, optimizations or bug fixes.

We at XDEV would like to thank A.T.U Auto-Teile-Unger GmbH & Co. KG for their openness and the opportunity to create an open source solution from a customer project. This collaboration is an inspiring example of how a specific project can be turned into a universally applicable tool that benefits many other companies and developers.

A call to the community

The breadcrumb component is now available on our GitHub repository. We invite all Vaadin developers to try out the component, provide feedback and develop it further together with us. Together we can strengthen the open source community and create innovative solutions that support developers worldwide.

Visit our GitHub repository and become part of the further development:

xdev-software/vaadin-breadcrumbs 

vaadin-directory/breadcrumbs-for-vaadin

We look forward to the future and to realizing more exciting projects with ATU and the developer community!